scanning negative film

[davidkelly]

I have had trouble with colour accuracy when scanning colour negative film with my Canon 9500 flatbed scanner. If I let it warm up for 10 minutes, then load calibration data, the colour is reasonable (using 48 bit output) with the Canoscan software, but the instructions say nothing about this (and it took me months to discover it). Has anyone had similar problems, and is there a better way without buying more expensive software? I usually use Fuji film.
Dave Kelly.

[Killakoala]

Have you checked to see if there is a Photoshop plugin to use Photoshop to acquire images from your scanner? (Assuming you have Photoshop)

I use a Konica-Minolta negative scanner, but i only use the software provided with the scanner. I haven't actually tried to scan using Photoshop.

[Steffen]

With negative film, the scanner software needs to know which type of film you're scanning. The orange masking varies considerably from film to film.

Cheers
Steffen.

[davidkelly]

Thanks for the tips. I could buy Silverfast or Vuescan, but I have found I can get similar results to commercially scanned film as follows, with the Canon software supplied:
I tell the scanner the film (actually negative) is colour positive and scan it in 48-bit.
I then shift the histograms of the three primary colours until they match up (ignoring low counts). If I then equalize the histograms, I get reasonably close results to the same photos when commercially scanned. This works for landscapes (might not work on some image types).
I would be ready to spend money on scanning software if I wasn't planning an imminent switch to digital.
What happens if I want to scan old film and can't remember exactly what type it was, if I use software that wants to know this?
Dave Kelly.

[davidkelly]

Eventually, I bought Vuescan and IT8.7 calibration targets from Wolf Faust, and they do a reasonable job with my Canon 9900 flatbed scanner, though I'm not sure the colour is exactly right. It's certainly a lot better than with the Canon software. The on-line help for Vuescan is not very friendly, so I had to experiment a lot before I got it right.
Vuescan also supports the Nikon RAW format of the D200, so I'm hoping it works with the D80 which I have just bought, and it is updated very frequently for new hardware.
Dave Kelly.