[filmscanners] Re: Scanning Overexposed Slides

["Al Bond" <al@greenspace.freeserve.co.uk>]

Bill Fernandez wrote:

> My Nikon LS4000 has analog gain controls accessible through the Nikon
> scanner driver.  I can sometimes turn down the anaalog gain to get
> more detail in light areas.  Does your software and scanner have such
> a feature?
>
> Don't remember exactly the options on VueScan (have it and use it...)
> but isn't there a way to turn the exposure way down (Manually) or set
> the brightness to be very low?
>

The Minolta software (I have the original Scan Elite) has a fixed minimum
exposure and blows out the highlights so I have to use Vuescan on these
slides to keep the detail.  It doesn't lose any highlights but they are very 
flat
and compressed on the actual slide, and hence on the scan as well.

Unfortunately, as I am still using PS6, I don't have the luxury of the
Shadow/Highlight tool in PS CS.  Because the images need a lot of
adjustment, it really has to be done in 16 bit so I am limited to the 16 bit 
tools
in PS6.

So far, the most promising approach seems to be to change to LAB colour and
use a gentle Curves adjustment on the Luminosity channel to shift the
highlights back towards the mid-tones and repeat the same adjustment several
times.  If I try to do it all in one big Curve adjustment, it starts to look 
nasty
very quickly (due to my lack of proficiency with curves rather than any
deficiency in PS!).

I don't think the recovered images will ever look brilliant but at least my wife
might get some mementos of her Spanish trip.


Al Bond

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body