LaserSoft Imaging

Silverfast Ai 5.5 with NegaFix does a superb job on most of my color negatives.

A am not at all happy, however, with my scans of B&W negatives, especially on Ilford XP-2 Super.

I've tried everything I can think of. Negafix manual and automatic. Manual and automatic image correction. I've adjusted the histogram and curves adjustments every way I can.

I've tried 48 bit scans allowing PhotoShop to do the inversions. I've tried other negative profiles.

My B&W scans seem to have poor tonal range and they don't seem sharp.

I use a Microtek Scanmaker-5. I've found that the bundled scanning software, ScanWizard Pro v. 3.06, seems to do a much better job with B&W negatives.

Is it possible that the Microtek software is controling some hardware setting of the scanner that SilverFast does not recognize?

Or perhaps there's something amiss in the B&W negative profiles.

In any case, I find myself using Silverfast for my color negative work and reverting to ScanWizard Pro for Black & White. I would much prefer to use silverfast for both.

I would appreciate some guidance.

Thank You.

George Butch
Plantation, FL USA


ADDED


Good Morning,

I don't mean to be a pest.....

And I suppose it's bad form to use a new post as a reminder of an old one, but I am wondering if my comments and questions regarding B&W negative scans has gotten lost in the press of new business on the board.

Or is it possible that no one else here is experiencing frustration with B&W negative scans under SF Ai 5.5?


Thanks.

GButch.....



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: LS_Glet on 2002-02-08 10:30 ]</font>

Dear User,

I would appreciate a description again of what B&W negative films you have problems with. Also the scanner used and if possible you could submit raw data scans (ca. 3-4 MBs) of some samples.
Please forward to my account:
khz@silverfast.com

best regards
Karl-Heinz Zahorsky, CEO

Mr. Zahorsky,

Thank you for the reply. I'll attempt to send you some scans no later than tomorrow.

I am scanning Ilford XP2 Super into PhotoShop 6.01 on a Microtek Scanmaker-5 under Windows 98 SE. The computer is a 350 MHZ Pentium II with 256 mb of RAM.

What makes this so frustrating is that my color scans of Kodak Portra 160 NC are beautiful.

I have found that scanning the XP2 negatives as positive transparencies and inverting them in Photoshop seems to yield good results. I'm led to the conclusion that Nega-Fix is not properly handling the B&W. I'm wondering if there is a problem with the XP2 profile.

Thank You again.

GButch
Plantation, FL

I tried to scan B&W-Negatives today for the first time.
Film: Agfa
Scanner: Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ED
Software: SilverFast Ai 5.5 with Adobe Photoshop Limited Edition
Prescan was OK, but the main Scan was inverse and without nearly any contrast, so that you cant use the scans at all. I tried scanning on different ways but didnt succeed.

I found a first solution: Nikon scanners can't do ICE on B&W. (Look to viewtopic.php?topic=190&forum=10&6). So ICE has to be switched off.

I'm using a demo version of SilverFast 5.52 on my Polaroid 4000 with thoughts of purchasing it to use as my main scanning interface. As of late I've been shooting a fair amount of Ilford XP2 400 and the profile within SilverFast does not seem to be processing the film correctly (All my pre-scans look like a cyan duo-tones). I've tried to adjust the curves and color manually but to no avail.

My system consists of a PowerMac G3 B/W 450Mhz running OS 9.2.2 and Photoshop 6.01. The Polaroid software that shipped with the scanner is basically useless (I purchased the scanner right when it was released, pre-SilverFast bundle days), and I have been using v**s**n by Ed Hamrick with much success up to this point. After reading rave reviews about SilverFast in several FLAAR reports and on their websites I decided to give the software a try. I am extremely happy with quality and control that SilverFast offers with color, but I do shoot a fair amount of B/W and would like to have a complete solution for scanning through the Polaroid.

Any help, direction, comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chip Riggs