RE: filmscanners: Nikon Scan & VS Negative dynamic range

[Julian Robinson <jrobinso@pcug.org.au>]

Alex - glad it helped - I was beginning to wonder if anyone read any of this.

About the combing, are you using 12-bit?  I always scan in 12-bit and I 
have not noticed this being a problem except for outrageous manipulations 
(which I must admit I seem to need too much of the time).  I presume you do 
this too.  If some of yours only cover half the histogram range then things 
are getting squeezed a bit.

I agree it would be nice to get more control over scan contrast, but AFAIK 
there is absolutely no way of setting the white and black points to 0 which 
is really what we want to do.  Pre-scan I mean, not post-processing.

I wrote to Nikon about this, they (Nikon USA) directed me to Australia 
Nikon, who won't answer my emails.  Surprise!

Julian

At 18:56 24/09/01, you wrote:
>Julian,
>
>thanks for the VERY useful information - I had missed this contrast setting,
>too. This is really a saver on most images, and I find that it also
>definitely improves color balance, not only contrast. The only drawback is
>that often the resulting histogram is very narrow (sometimes it covers only
>about half the available range), and so you get the infamous combing as soon
>as you touch levels or curves to increase the contrast a bit. I'd really
>like to have a continuous control, rather than three fixed values, for
>contrast. There is, of course, the "Contrast" slider, but I understand from
>your post that this is just another post-scan tool, and therefore not as
>effective.
>
>Alex Pardi
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Julian Robinson [mailto:jrobinso@pcug.org.au]
>Sent: venerdì 7 settembre 2001 06.44
>To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
>Subject: RE: filmscanners: Nikon Scan & VS Negative dynamic range
>
>
>OK mystery solved at last.  I looked at the manual for the first time
>(which must say something about ease of use of NS3.1!) and there it is -
>"Lo-contrast" is a facility only available on the LS2000 and the LS30.  I
>attach the relevant page so that you can see (as a GIF 30k, I hope this
>doesn't exceed our list limit but I am sure it'll be chopped into bits and
>dropped into the sinners bin if so) .
>
><snip>
>
>Incidentally, the manual also includes an excellently informative flow
>chart (p109) to show where different bits of processing are done, something
>I always wanted in the LS2000 manual, and something I never understood till
>now.  This shows that the only adjustments that take effect at the scan
>level (as opposed to post-processing) are Scanner Extras functions, ICE and
>Analogue gain.  Of these the only ones which affect exposure are 'Analogue
>gain' and 'prescan lo-contrast' so these are two very important
>functions.  To lose the latter with the recent scanners is a bad move IMHO
>and means - use Vuescan.  Unless there is something I've missed.