LaserSoft Imaging

Hello,

I have just bought the Epson 3200 Pro and intend on using it exclusively for my large format (4x5 inches) negatives, which are all B&W (TMax 100).

This is the first time I will be using my own scanner as opposed to having good negatives drum scanned.

I am very familiar with Photoshop and understand that I can either use Photoshop for achieving certain things with an image, or I can use SilverFast SE.

Are there certain things that I would be better off doing in SilverFast SE as opposed to Photoshop? Application of USM is an example where I am not so sure.....SilverFast SE documentation says this is done in LAB mode, which is fine, but I routinely do the same thing in Photoshop and I have the advantage of being able to sharpen different parts of the image to different degrees using selections.

So.........are there some things I should be using SilverFast SE to do in preference over Photoshop? Or should I just use SilverFast (or for that matter Epson Scan) to send a 3200 dpi scan in TIFF format of the negative to Photoshop and then work on it from there? The latter option for me seems equivalent to treating the scanner as a RAW capture device and simply having it pass along the digital data that it captures for treatment elsewhere.

I'd really appreciate some guidance on this........I spend alot of time and money on getting the best negatives that I can and I want to find the best way possible to bring those into a digital workflow.

In case it is relevant, I print up to 17 x 22 (43 x 56 cm), my output is always black and white and I am not interested in sepia toning or bringing colour into my images.

Thanks for any and all input,

Dave

Quick correction......I do not have the Pro version of the scanner - the bundled version of SilverFast is the SE version, not Ai.

Dave

I use Silverfast to aquire the image with as much data as possbile (sometimes my scans will initially even look flat). Then I leave the editing to be done in Photoshop. That is just my preference because, like you, I want control to do certain things to just part of an image.

My $.02,
Doug