LaserSoft Imaging

I have been using SF for years with my Epson Scanners. Today I bought SF Ai Studio for my Nikon Coolscan 5000 and began scanning a bunch of negatives. I was having no problems with the settings most of which are familiar to me from my SF for Epson usage. These negatives are anywhere from 5-45 years old.

When I started in on some 45 year old color negatives I ran into something I've never seen before. The color and contrast is a little weak but I am able to get a great looking preview. All is fine throughout the scan process all of the thumbnails produced by the various phases look normal. When you view the final image however it is extremely faded and low contrast, looking nothing like the preview.

The film is Kodacolor X which doesn't have a setting in NegaFix, so I've tried various film types with no success. I have also unsuccessfully tried turning off various features like iSRD, Multiscan, AACO etc. I also tried over compensating and using a darker scan than I wanted but the end result is still faded. When I pop in a negative of a different film type the behavior goes back to normal. I was wondering if anyone else has run into this and what setting(s) might cause this?

Thanks in advance.
Jim Mahoney

Dear Customer,

is it possible that you are Scanning in 48Bit HDR Mode ?
This would explain this behavior as you can see it as RAW dump of the scanner where none of the settings you do in prescan are regarded.

best regards,

Thomas Luebker
LaserSoft Imaging AG

LSI_Luebker wrote:snip..

is it possible that you are Scanning in 48Bit HDR Mode ?
This would explain this behavior as you can see it as RAW dump of the scanner where none of the settings you do in prescan are regarded.
snip...

No I am using 48>24 bit Color

Unfortunately the mystery deepens. When I went back to do more scans it now seems that everything I do is getting the washed out look. A restart didn't help.

While I willing to try tweaking any setting you might think would cause this, is there an easy way to restore everything to defaults short of an uninstall and reinstall.

Thanks in advance.
Jim Mahoney

start by deleting the preferences file. A quick search on the forum should pop up the instructions.