LaserSoft Imaging

I'm using Silverfast with a Nikon Coolscan V, and in the "Pos/Neg" pull down menu I'm using "Neg.: Direct" because it's giving me better results than using NegaFix.

Does anyone know what this really does? Other threads in the forums have said that this uses some hardware feature in Nikon scanners, but but does anyone know exactly what's going on? Is it just using the canned profile for negatives that comes with the scanner?

When I scan negatives with NikonScan and all auto corrections turned off I actually get different results than with Silverfast, Neg.: Direct, and all auto corrections turned off. This leads me to believe that Silverfast is accessing some hardware feature in the scanner that NikonScan doesn't, or Silverfast is doing some kind of software processing.

I found this FAQ that explains a little what Neg. Direct does:

http://www.silverfast.com/faq/1006/en.html

To quote the FAQ:

"In this mode SilverFast will NOT apply it's NegaFix data corrections and will instead rely on the Nikon Maid libraries for better negative analysis."

After experimenting with NikonScan a bit, I've concluded that NikonScan does a better job with negatives than Neg. Direct (and MUCH better than Negafix).

While Neg. Direct is an improvement over Negafix for the Coolscan V, the scans are too saturated, and there is a noticable red cast. NikonScan scans with no red cast, though the scans are a little too unsaturated. Still, it's easier to correct NikonScan's low saturation than deal with the red cast with Neg. Direct.

Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with Neg. Direct?

The film holder does not cover the gap between the first and the second picture and I suspect it is that area which is used by the scanner to retrieve the information it needs to neutralise the mask and such. Personally I've had never problems with neither Negafix nor Negative Direct and use to use the latter.

What I do though is to calibrate my scanners before a scan session (the other one is an Epson used for snapshots and such, say all that does not require highest quality scans), my monitor is calibrated and from the labs where I let make prints I got me profiles for the papers they use, too.