LaserSoft Imaging

I use 'Clear File' polypropylene pages to store all my 35mm negatives. Each page can store up to 40 negatives in strips of 4. Essentially, I use each page to store an entire 35mm roll of film. I now want to use my A3 flatbed scanner (Epson 1640XL) to make proofing scans of each page.

My problem, as a complete newcomer to SF Ai 6, is that I have to stretch the marquee round a single negative in order for SF to automatically assess the correct exposure and colour balance settings. As soon as I stretch the marquee round the entire set of negatives, separated by clear strips (that appear as black in a positive image), then the settings are totally messed up.

Is there some way to use the settings obtained from a single negative for the complete scan of all negatives?

Not as you want to do it. As it seems you want to scan an A3 scan bed size where not all of it is "the image" (many little frames inbetween).

SilverFast works frame-related that is: everything inside a scan marquee is considered "image data".
What you can do is this: you frame one of the images, zoom, and set SilverFast settings accordingly.
undo the zoom and copy this little scan fram over all other little trannies (one by one)
copy a scan marquee: ALT-click outside the current scan marquee somewhere in the large preview window.

Using your Alt-click suggestion, I started to create multiple scan frames around individual negatives. It's a slow process on my PC, and it is difficult to place the frames accurately, without zooming every one which would take forever. That by itself was almost enough to kill my enthusiasm for such a method (I have a very large number of proof scans to do and speed is of the essence).

However, the process broke down completely when I then tried to do the final scan. Instead of ONE scan including ALL the scan frames simultaneously, I just got the frame that had the focus. This is no good to me. I am trying to emulate a traditional contact print and I want all my negs on one page - using a single scan, so that the job will be complete before I die!

By the way, I also want to include all the data in the edge of the film so that I can see the film type and frame number.

Is there no way in SF to read the automatic exposure and colour balance settings for one neg and then apply these manually for the final scan of the whole film?

My last post was a week ago. It raised some questions but I have not yet had any answers. I am not optimistic about a useful outcome, but nevertheless I would be grateful for a reaction from Mr Engelhardt or anyone else at LSI.

You should always be optimistic
When you drag your frame around a single negative, SilverFast performs the automatic film mask detection and the image should look right. After that you can open the Expert part of the Negative dialog and you should uncheck the checkbox next to the Auto button. This will prevent SilverFast from doing further film mask detections when you resize the frame to cover all of the negatives.

Ralf

Thanks, Ralf! You have restored my original optimism that SF was bound to have a way of doing what I wanted .

As a matter of interest, what are the primary uses of the Alt-Click marquee copy facility that Mr Engelhardt mentioned? When would you want to have multiple marquees on the screen?

Multiple frames are useful, if you want to make a single scan for every image currently visible on the flatbed (not a contactsheet-like thing you are doing). You drag the frames, make your settings and can perform a batch scan of every frame.

Ralf