Linear RAW scans with Vuescan. Part One

Transcription

1 Linear RAW scans with Vuescan Part One Step by step tutorial for scanning the best out of your films to get the best colours possible for colour negative and slide films with ColorPerfect

2 Install and start Vuescan. On the first screen, click More.

3 On the Input tab, check if your scanner is correctly shown in the Source menu. If not, choose correct source.

4 In the Media menu, choose Slide film for all kinds of film. If you choose Color negative, Vuescan tries to calculate an inverted positive image out of the scanned negative data. Vuescan isn t bad at all in doing this, but ColorPerfect does this job far better. ColorPerfect needs the negative scanned as a slide.

5 In the Quality menu, be sure to choose Archive. If not, you won t get the maximum resolution.

6 At Bits per pixel, choose 64 bit RGBI. This will ensure that the whole information that s captured on your film will be extracted. In 64 RGBI mode the infrared information is stored together with the RGB colour information. Vuescan can later use this information to edit out dust and scratches.

7 Scan resolution is set to its maximum value. Each scan takes time. You want to get the best result each time you finally hit the Scan button. Downsizing can be done later in your favourite editing program.

8 If your scanner features auto focus, select the event when focusing will be executed. It should at least be done at every Scan, but I prefer do have it set on Always. However, this option will cost a few seconds as the preview will also be auto focused.

9 I always use 16-fold auto sampling. Every single pixel will be sampled 16 times before the CCD moves on to the next pixel. The average of all 16 samples will be stored. This averages out CCD noise in dark areas. But be warned: 16 samples take a very long time.

10 With the Nikon 8000 scanner, it s better to choose Fine mode, as only one of three CCD lines is used. When all three lines are used, some sort of banding may occur. The Nikon 9000 scanner reportedly does not need Fine mode to consistently produce clean scans. Fine mode certainly takes three times as long :-). Now you re done. Hit Preview.

11 The preview grows.

12 A cropping frame is shown in the complete preview. If the preview shows the wrong orientation, you can rotate it with the Rotation menu.

13 I chose Flip to get an upright preview.

14 This is the auto focus point. It can be moved to where it is needed.

15 Crop the frame as desired. The vignetting seen here is the result of a wrong hood combined with two screw-in filters on a 55 mm Mamiya TLR lens. Because the TLR viewfinder uses a different lens, I did not notice the mistake.

16 Move the auto focus point to the desired spot.

17 On the Filter tab, set Infrared clean to none. Don t worry, the entire IR data will be captured, stored and used later on for cleaning the scan.

18 On the Color tab, you must define the scanner, film and monitor colour spaces, if you have got specific colour profiles. It really makes a big difference!

19 Choose ICC Profile as scanner colour space.

20 Then search for the right location of the scanner profile on your hard drive.

21 Choose the right profile.

22 Next step: change Film color space. This only applies to slide films, as there are no calibration targets for negative films. For negative films, leave Film color space as Built-in. However, the scanner profile set in the Scanner color space menu should also be used for scanning negatives.

23 Choose ICC Profile as film colour space.

24 Search for the right location of the film profile on your hard drive.

25 Choose the right profile.

26 Next step: change Monitor color space.

27 Choose ICC Profile.

28 After hitting button, locate the correct monitor profile. With Windows XP you should find it at WINDOWS > system32 > spool > drivers > color.

29 In the color folder, choose the correct profile. Nota bene: In this tutorial I certainly use MY profiles that bear the names I chose. You will have to profile your devices before scanning.

30 Now the Input, Crop, Filter and Color tabs are correctly defined. Before hitting the Scan button, we still need to configure the Output tab.

31 First, select the folder where the final scan will be stored.

32 Beware of the Printed size menu! It often has the smallest size as default! If you don t change this, the resulting scan will be MUCH smaller than defined in the settings of the Input tab!

33 Set Print size to Scan size! Otherwise, the hourlong hi-res scan will result in a tiny file.

34 Uncheck JPEG file. We want RAW!

35 Check Raw file.

36 New RAW options appear. Change Raw file type.

37 Choose 64 bit RGBI.

38 Set Raw output with to Scan. This will store the unchanged 64 bit RGBI data to the resulting file. If you choose Save, infrared cleaning and ICC profile data will be processed to the image before storing the file. You can and should do these corrections later and get an untouched original file of nothing else than what the scanner saw now.

39 Double-check the Input tab options. If they are still correct, you re done. Then hit Scan.

40 Take a rest. The Nikon 8000 is an old boy. He won t do it in a hurry.

41 Only one hour and eleven minutes later the scan is complete. The Nikon 9000 should be a bit faster. But it s also more than twice its price today.

42 We now have a file of the original scanning data. Exactly what the scanner s CCD has seen. This is called the RAW scan, even if the data is stored as a TIFF file. The original RAW file contains all the dust and all the scratches and further defects of the film. On the other hand, the effects of the dedicated colour profiles cannot be seen. Therefore we must process the raw data to get a clean image with the best colour. First, load the raw scan. In the Media menu, choose File.

43 That s a whole new story. I ll tell it another time. If you need to know it now, hit Preview and proceed just as if you were scanning with the scanner. In the Filter tab, set Infrared clean to Light or Medium. In the Output tab, set Raw output with to Save. That s it.

44 That s a whole new story. I ll tell it another time. If you need to know it now, hit Preview and proceed just as if you were scanning with the scanner. In the Filter tab, set Infrared clean to Light or Medium. In the Output tab, set Raw output with to Save. That s it.

45 Linear RAW scans with Vuescan Part One To be continued.