Aggravating bug?

[Harry Putnam]

I hope this will get some responses here, although I've been warned off using this list like a help list, this issue needs attention.

I'm scanning 30yr old negatives (35mm) that were poor shots even when created (underexposed mostly but other things too) These negs were never made into prints because they were poor quality. Now 30 yrs later the good prints have disappeared over the years but I found this treasure trove of old poor quality negs.

I've zero'ed out all auto settings, and by this I mean the settings that appear in the linked *.jpg. The only ones left with a setting I didn't understand even after using the manual (With the exception of the inset setting), so left them as is. I crammed the various screens into the prescan area over bad exposers.

<a href="/img/forum/sfoptionsauto.jpg"target=_blank>SettingPrescan</a>

One would logically expect an `off' switch for auto settings but I haven't seen anthing like that. Or maybe none of the auto settings are supposed to do anything until one clicks on the auto adjustment tool.

Something is definitely happening automatically as descrived below..

First I delete all frames if any, then run a prescan:
The link also shows the settings I see on initial prescsn. This view is actually a pretty good base to start from with these negatives.
So, I go to settings and save it as NegDef.



Now if I squeeze down the frame to the size of any of the images, the view immediately darkens many shades, so much that some of the images are black and the brightest ones are very dim.

Not to worry, I've got Ctrl-z but OOOPS it does nothing here.. Well I did save the initial view as NegDef, so go to settings and reinstate it..... OOOPS it does nothing here.

Well maybe a re prescan, but no, it doesn't do anythign either.
Maybe resetting Histogram, and curves tool, but no that does nothing either.

Only thing that works is pulling the frame back out to full size. But of course that isn't the goal.

So how to I get past this work stopping pain in the butt?

[RAG]

Harry,

If I understand you correctly, the one auto feature that can be impacting the results is the NegaFix choices. These choices let SilverFast know what type of film you are scanning and can have the impact you describe if the wrong selections are made. I don?t know of a way to disable NegaFix, but if you try various film types or at least ASA/ISO settings you might find a match.