LaserSoft Imaging

Still struggling with my Silverfast Ai Studio for Microtek Artixscan F1. Mainly scanning 35mm slides and negs in order to make A2 prints. I'm finding the order you have to do things very strange! First comes the prescan of the whole bed - even if I only have one strip of negs or a few slides. The colours and densities change completely if I 'Find frames' and highlight different images.
Q1. Should I prescan individual images rather than the whole bed? If I do prescan several at one time, how can I simply zoom in to see more accurately exactly where to adjust the Find frames (it's not very accurate)? I hit the zoom button and have to wait while the whole thing starts again. And then it seems fairly arbitrary where it zooms to. I eventually found some info that said I should pre-scan x8, so tried this, but then when trying to adjust the red frame the whole programme froze and I had to force quit. Hitting the percentage number in the bottom left of the preview again just results in yet another prescan with no control over what it might be zooming in on. Extremely frustrating not to be able to have a sensible size image to view.
Q2. Working just at small size, after choosing a frame I then go back to SRD. I haven't yet managed to use this effectively. I have to set my output size/resolution (see Q3 also), which means my navigator window is divided into about 50 small squares - I can never see the whole image or make a selection of an area (eg the sky) because I only ever see 1/50th of it at a time! It would also take forever to go through the procedure 50 times for each slide. All the manuals and videos talk about slides but always have the navigator window showing the whole image - how can I do this?
Q3. What is the best way to set my size/resolution, given my requirements above? Should I set the resolution as high as possible (4800) and keep the output size the same as input? Or put the output size as required and have the resolution only about 200? Either way gives a similar file size but very different screen values.
Many thanks for any help.

Hi there

jos21 wrote:Q1. Should I prescan individual images rather than the whole bed? If I do prescan several at one time, how can I simply zoom in to see more accurately exactly where to adjust the Find frames (it's not very accurate)? I hit the zoom button and have to wait while the whole thing starts again. And then it seems fairly arbitrary where it zooms to. I eventually found some info that said I should pre-scan x8, so tried this, but then when trying to adjust the red frame the whole programme froze and I had to force quit. Hitting the percentage number in the bottom left of the preview again just results in yet another prescan with no control over what it might be zooming in on. Extremely frustrating not to be able to have a sensible size image to view.

The scanner makes a low-res prescan at first. You should then define the area of the first picture to scan by modifying the scan frame to be as big as the portion you intend to scan (not the whole area).
Press the magnifying glass and SilverFast will zoom to display the frame you have just selected.

jos21 wrote:Q2. Working just at small size, after choosing a frame I then go back to SRD. I haven't yet managed to use this effectively. I have to set my output size/resolution (see Q3 also), which means my navigator window is divided into about 50 small squares - I can never see the whole image or make a selection of an area (eg the sky) because I only ever see 1/50th of it at a time! It would also take forever to go through the procedure 50 times for each slide. All the manuals and videos talk about slides but always have the navigator window showing the whole image - how can I do this?

You should set the scan resolution before using any filter, the navigator window will be devided into a different amount of squares according the end resolution you choose, the preview window will show the portion of the navigator you have chosen to make corrections, if you want to make a selection with masks, you should make it directly on the navigator not on the preview window. The samples shown in the manuals and videos where made at a very low resolution, hence it was possible to see the whole image, this does not fit the kind of enlargement you intend to do.

jos21 wrote:Q3. What is the best way to set my size/resolution, given my requirements above? Should I set the resolution as high as possible (4800) and keep the output size the same as input? Or put the output size as required and have the resolution only about 200? Either way gives a similar file size but very different screen values.
Many thanks for any help.

You are using a flatbed scanner which is not a dedicated film scanner (although it has an option to scan slides and film negatives), real scan resolution for that kind of scanners is not very high.

Both options you proposed are valid,In the first one the slider can be moved completely to the right and then returned one step which will show you the highest optical resolution of your device.
The second option is similar, it is important however that you set your printer at 200 dpi at the moment of printing the job, if you use a higher printing resolution the image will shrink.

Cheers

Many thanks for detailed reply.
1. I can get this to work now if I prescan x6. I can then zoom without it re-prescanning and it hasn't been crashing.
2. This is very disappointing, as one of the reasons I bought Silverfast was to be able to remove dust etc easily while scanning. Surely all professionals want hi-res scans, which will mean they will have to 'spot' their images in many tiny squares. The Navigator window is too small to use a mask with any accuracy - and you would still have to check what was happening in many squares. I will have to use Photoshop so I can see what I am doing and move around the image and zoom in and out with ease. I think the literature and videos are very misleading in this respect.
3. In terms of file size as you say, it doesn't seem to matter which way I set the resolution. And both scans look similar in Photoshop. Can you tell me what the screen number signifies? Is it good to be higher or lower or doesn't it matter?

Thanks.

Hi jos21

jos21 wrote:1. I can get this to work now if I prescan x6. I can then zoom without it re-prescanning and it hasn't been crashing.

Sweet!

jos21 wrote:2. This is very disappointing, as one of the reasons I bought Silverfast was to be able to remove dust etc easily while scanning. Surely all professionals want hi-res scans, which will mean they will have to 'spot' their images in many tiny squares. The Navigator window is too small to use a mask with any accuracy - and you would still have to check what was happening in many squares. I will have to use Photoshop so I can see what I am doing and move around the image and zoom in and out with ease. I think the literature and videos are very misleading in this respect.

Most likely the next product generation will have a different approach to this

jos21 wrote:3. In terms of file size as you say, it doesn't seem to matter which way I set the resolution. And both scans look similar in Photoshop. Can you tell me what the screen number signifies? Is it good to be higher or lower or doesn't it matter?

The q-factor and screen value are two multipliers used in the prepress where special screens have to be used for printing. The screen value is more or less equivalent to dots per inch which is then multiplied by the Q-factor

Cheers