How to scan a black and white negative?

I plan on renting a Nikon Coolscan 9000ED from my local camera shop this weekend ($75). But before I do so, I would like to read up on how to scan a negative! Is there any step-by-step instruction that talks about how one should set their computer (I suppose the scanner will come with the appropriate software). But is there anything written in a book about exactly what steps to take to get to the best scan?

As always, thanks in advance.

Greenlake

Hi

I don't know what suggestions other users will come up with, but you may wish to try scanning as a positive and then inverting. You should then inspect the Red Green and Blue channels separately to see which has better characteristics (eg focus or noise) as they will not be equal. I have outlined my method for colour negative here. I have no reason (based on my experience with other scanners) to believe that black and white would perform differently but I have not scanned black and white with the Nikon. I have done quite a bit of colour neg, colour slide and black & white on Nikon and Epson and find their behavior characteristics to be quite transferable between each other.

You may not see focus problems between the channels as I have documented on the Epson (here), but you may find one has more preferable noise or tones to work with. I suggest inverting and then assigning profile rather than letting the machine muck it up.

ohh ... and speaking of focus and film flatness problems focus will make the difference between this scanner "killing" the flatbeds and merely equaling them. You don't mention what you're scanning though (35mm, 645, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9 ...)

I keep my negs really flat and have some pressure on them to keep them that way.

greenlake said:

I plan on renting a Nikon Coolscan 9000ED from my local camera shop this weekend ($75). But before I do so, I would like to read up on how to scan a negative! Is there any step-by-step instruction that talks about how one should set their computer (I suppose the scanner will come with the appropriate software). But is there anything written in a book about exactly what steps to take to get to the best scan?

As always, thanks in advance.

Greenlake

Click to expand...

Maybe this can help.

http://www.scantips.com/

Waybe's site is dated but a lot of the info still apples.

Don Bryant

This site:

http://www.marginalsoftware.com/index.html

has heaps of very good and relatively actual information on using the 8000 and 9000.

The biggest problem I had with my 9000 was sorting out focusing problems. Still not perfect but miles ahead of what I was getting before.

As pellicle said: achieving accurate focusing will be the major factor in delivering a quality result with Nikon film scanners.

Nikonscan is not a bad piece of software. I still think vuescan will extract the best results but with the 9000 it's a bit fiddly and Nikon's software will get you there faster. Make sure you got the latest patch applied.

I've never been very successful with scanning in positive and reversing in an image editor as pellicle does. Mostly because I scan at 16-bit colour and none of my image editors will accept a 16-bit input file without downgrading it first to 8-bit. Which defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

But with care in focusing and careful adjustment of the light source in the 9000, you can get a very good result straight out of the scanner.

And this touches on one of the major aspects of using the 9000, 5000 and V: rather than adjusting curves to balance colours and levels in the scanning or editing software, make your first port of call the changing of lighting levels (light sensitivity is the correct term to use) to adjust colour balance and histograms.

Only after you are happy with the overall balance should you then start fiddling with the Nikonscan/editor histograms, gammas and such: adjust the lighting on the scanner first.

And for b&w, just divide by 3.

Don Bryant said:

Maybe this can help.

http://www.scantips.com/

Waybe's site is dated but a lot of the info still apples.

Don Bryant

Click to expand...

Thank you, but it really doesn't apply. The link you gave me is for a flatbed scanner and I the Nikon Coolscan 9000 is a film scanner

greenlake said:

Thank you, but it really doesn't apply. The link you gave me is for a flatbed scanner and I the Nikon Coolscan 9000 is a film scanner

Click to expand...

Hi

unless you're seeking specific instructions on using the 9000 then flatbed or nikon is not important when understanding the basics (and yes, I've got both and have used Nikons since 2001). I understand given your question phrasing why that link was suggested (and its still good reading).