I Learned a New Scanning Trick!

For the last four years, I have been scanning and developing at home.   Scanning B&W film is usually straightforward, while color film can be a headache.   Rarely am I dissatisfied with B&W scans straight from the scanner.  A while ago, I learned to adjust the scanner settings using the histogram to ensure no clipping of highlights and shadows occurred.  That process change has served me well.   Lately, when I began seeing scans with blown-out highlights, I had no idea what to do.   Scanning software manuals are of zero help (I use Epson Scan II).   Online tutorials did not help either.  As a result, over the last year,  many images were not suitable to post.

My workflow was set up for Epson Scan I.   With Epson Scan II many options were moved around, changing the interface.   This change worked in my favor because it brought more image adjustment options to my attention, specifically “Brightness,” “Contrast,” and  “Saturation.”   One night, bored and upset with blown highlights, I did something I rarely do when scanning–experiment.    I rescanned the unacceptable frames and played with those three settings to see what would happen.  Saturation had little effect on my B&W images but Brightness and Contrast made a huge difference.

Below are three pairs of before/after scans. For each frame, contrast has been deceased, and brightness slightly increased. I’m much happier with the second versions.

2 Comments

  1. Nice. The scan program’s tools really can help. I tweak a little in VueScan, the program I use, as well.

    1. Author

      Thanks! Learning to use the histogram greatly improved my color scans. Playing with contrast during scanning instead of after has been just as helpful for B&W. When time permits, I’m going to grab a few frames from years past that had issues and see if I can improve them.

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