LaserSoft Imaging

Hello,

I am using SE 6 with a Microtek Scanmaker4 and a G4/400 running OS10.2.8 to scan kodak 120NC 120 format color negs...

Prescan looks fine, and the 36-24 bit scan is fine. I switched over to 48 bit HDR to see if that color was measurably different, and it was! The greens were truer and the neutrals closer to neutral. Great, right? Great except that aside from that first scan, it will not scan my color negs as negs. Although everything is still set to color neg, proper film type etc, now it scans it as a positive, so that I get what you see when you hold a color neg up to the light, an orangey mask.

Any ideas?

Aaron

Dear Aaron,

I'm not sure why your first scan was OK, but choosing "48 Bit HDR Colour" as scan mode will do a scan without ANY correction, including negative->positive conversion. You should choose "48 Bit Color" to get a 48 Bit scan with all corrections.

Best regards
Ralf

ralf,

I guess that first scan couldnt have been in 48-bit, but the color of that scan is so much better than the 36-24 bit ones I assumed that was the difference.

I have gone back to the Microtek site and discovered that this isnt a 16-bit/channel scanner as I thought, but 12-bits. Is there anyway to keep silverfast from downsampling to 8bits?

Any help greatly appreciated...

Aaron

Dear Aaron,

have you tried to choose "48 Bit Color" as scan mode as suggested? This should give you the best bit depth the scanner can deliver (in your case 12 bit per channel).

Best regards
Ralf

Ralf,

48-bit color is grayed out, only 48-bit HDR is available. This would be OK if I were scanning positives, but alas, I am not. I just wonder wy SE has to downsample from 36 to 24. I cant find anything on the site about this.

A

Dear Aaron,

sorry, I was not aware that the "48 Bit Color" mode is only available in the Ai version. The SE version only allows 8 Bit output or 16 Bit HDR output. For the 8 Bit output the scanner does internally convert from it's native 12 Bits per channel to the 8 Bit per channel.

Best regards
Ralf