Scanner image adjustments are a joke I use PS

J
Posted By
johnkissane3
Jan 17, 2004
Views
352
Replies
4
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Closed
Conventional wisdom, trade books and scanning tips always state that you should do all the corrections and crops prior to the final scan. Sounds good to me.

However, in reality, I always get better results with just a basic scan with no corrections (except some crops) and then work things out in PS7 or PS CS.

I know "whatever works for you" is the way to go, but the question is are these long standing text book rules just wrong?

I scan 35mm Pos via Scan Dual III.

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Y
YrbkMgr
Jan 18, 2004
are these long standing text book rules just wrong?

In a way, yes. What is at issue, really, is who’s got the better algorithms. It’s photoshop in most cases. That said, GIGO – whatever you give photoshop is all it has to work with.

My source images are reasonably consistent in lighting, etc. So I have found a sweet spot with my scanner that gives me predictable results, and once in photoshop, I know what to do to it. But don’t ever think you can get a perfect scan. It happens, but it’s not that common.

When it comes to bit depth and resolution, then yes, the text books are correct. But everything in between is subjective, IMO.

Peace,
Tony
J
johnkissane3
Jan 18, 2004
Tony, thanks for your response. Helps clear my foggy ideas of the standards.

Best.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 18, 2004
I agree with Tony, with one exception. The "sweet spot" is dependent on the quality of the material being scanned vs basic scanner settings. I inadvertently left the scan parameters on my Epson 3200 set to "Color Negative" and "16 bit gray scale". I was scanning a B&W neg. The scanner has a B&W neg setting also. When I caught it, I re scanned as B&W, 16 bit, and was amazed at the way the basic shape of the histogram changed.

Now, I regard this as a possible tool. If I am not quite happy with B&W scan, I can shift to color neg, and try that.

BTW, I opened both in PS and attempted to match the B&W version to the color neg version, which I thought the better scan. Couldn’t nail it, but I did get close.
RB
Robert_Barnett
Jan 18, 2004
While what you say is true it is always best to do everything you can at scanner level as on many really good scanners the controls are software and hardware based which will do better than software only options. However, the kill comes in that most modern scanners come with really… crappy software with little or no in-depth controls. So you often end up with better options in Photoshop. For example the software that comes with my Epson 2450 has a simple check box for unsharp on or off. No controls for how much is applied you either have it on or off. In cases like this you are better off in Photoshop.

It is a shame that scanner and other such hardware don’t come with better drivers with better controls. There is SilverFast but it is costly and I don’t much care for it either. But, it does have more options. I just don’t think it is worth the money.

With Photoshop CS I just scan at 16-bit and the do my corrections in Photoshop at 16-bit this gets you closer to hardware level corrections. It isn’t exactly the same but about all one can do when your software kinda sucks.

Robert

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