filmscanners: Re: Nikonscan v VueScan

["Colin Maddock" <cmaddock@clear.net.nz>]

>Jawed wrote:.........By vitality I don't merely mean 
>contrast/black-point/white-point.  I also
>mean the nature of the tonality of the image.  Something related to the
>question of "gamma" and also the inherent S-shaped response that all films
>have (so far as I know).  So, all the effort I put into obtaining the full
>tonal range in a negative (in the form of a flat scan) is wasted because I
>get distinctly more pleasing images from Nikon Scan.

Have you tried an S correction, stretching the mid-tones of a VueScan scan? 
This definitely will put back the missing "vitality", in my experience. 

I too find that Vuescan gives a flatter looking image than my scanner's own 
software, Canoscan, but by experimenting with the S-correction in Curves, and 
perhaps increasing the black and white clipping, a Vuescan scan can be made to 
look identical to a Canoscan scan, if that is what one wants.  It seems that 
writers of filmscanner software (Nikon and Canon at least) have decided that 
the "default" scan needs some stretching in the mids, and a degree of black and 
white clipping. That is what we get from most commercial D&P stores, going by 
the prints, so they have gone some way towards matching that look.

At least withVuescan, both these factors are under our control.

Colin Maddock