Scanning medium format with Epson V600

ulrichsd · Mar 22, 2013

Hi everyone, hope I posted this in the correct forum since it is about scanning film.

I recently purchased an Epson V600 and have been trying it out with reversal B&W. I've been testing it out at lower resolution (1200 dpi) to test the settings to see what works best.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips regarding
1) Dust removal vs Digital ICE
2) Using Unsharp masking, grain reduction or backlight correction
3) If scanning B&W do you still output to 48 bit color or 8-bit greyscale?

I feel like I get some scans that seem ok (other than my shoddy darkroom practices leaving scratches on the negatives) and others that seem very pixelated (sample 2 below) a result of sharpness masking or using 8-bit greyscale maybe?)

I'm still learning the differences between all these settings and I still need to read the manual, but if anyone would like to share their favorite settings or settings to avoid it would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Scott

usayit · Mar 22, 2013

For B&W negative, turn off digital ICE.

djacobox372 · Mar 23, 2013

Don't sharpen with the scan settings, you can always sharpen later--frankly you shouldn't do anything while scanning that can be done later--you want your original scan to be as unmolested as possible. Also adjust your levels to ensure that you aren't clipping any black/white data, the epson scan software likes to default to a high-contrast setting that clips your blacks and whites. The goal of the scan is to get a good digital negative, not to create your final print.

Dust prevention is best done with a clean environment, an anti-static brush, and blower (hand or compressor, not canned). Whatever sneaks through is easy to cleanup digitally. Avoid any anti-dust options the scanner has, they'll rob you of detail.