LaserSoft Imaging

I'm trying out Silverfast to see if I can get better results than the Dimage Elite's 5400 II software for scanning in Kodak Tmax 400 film. Any suggestions on the best way to scan B&W negs on SilverFast? Many thanks for any help.

Dear lucianp.
Since you are using a scanner with a diffuse light source, like the Elite 5400 II, you already made a good choice for b&W negatives, which still contain silver halogenide. Other thn that you might want to make sure that you will be scanning with no less than 2700dpi in order to cope with the kind of potential a well exposed b&W negative (shot from a tripod) can give you and in order to maintain the authentic grain of the film.
Tests have shown that SilverFast considerably increases the dmax of this particular scanner by our multisampling with auto-alignment. No I can not tell you how much the damx was increased because this info is part of a publication being released in August, sorry. I would like to point you towards a tutoriaal from Ian Lyons on the Auto-Adjustments which needs to be tweaked a little for b&w negs http://www.computer-darkroom.com/sf5-negafix/edit_2.htm

Best,

JAN

Jan,

Your comment about the August article on how Silverfast improves dynamic range with the 5400 II piqued my interest. I'm currently using Ai Studio on a Sprintscan 4000 Plus for 35mm. Some comparison scans with my Epson 4870 have indicated to me that an upgrade is perhaps in order. Since the Minolta is the least expensive (other candidates are Nikon 5000 or maybe even 9000), I would be very interested in reading this article. My Primary output device is an Epson 7600, so I need a good scanner.

Will this article be posted on your web site or can you elaborate on where it will be published? Thanks!

Lloyd O'Daniel