Workflow for Scanning on Coolscan 9000

Hi all,


I guess this might have been asked before but if so please just point me towards the most relevant thread. I did a quick search but couldn't see any recent posts on the subject...


Anyways, I have managed to finally purchase a Coolscan 9000. My main usage will be to scan 6x7 transparencies (mostly Velvia/Provia) and also some negatives (B&W - Ilford, TriX, Colour - Portra, Ektar). I did have a Coolscan 5000 before and had some kind of workflow but I want to start again from scratch to create a new one. The old workflow was a little hotch potch and didn't always give predictable results. I do have Nikon Scan v4.0.3 and Vuescan already. I have managed to get the CS 9000 recognized and working under Windows Vista 64-bit (thanks to this incredibly useful thread here :


http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00Ryck


So, essentially I am looking for a professional workflow to get from the raw neg/slide to a 'Master' and then a 'Working File'. Some initial questions I have:


1. How useful for general scanning are the ICE, DEE, GEM, ROC functions? If not general usage, when would you use them?
2. I believe it is always best to get a Master file at 16-bit, 4000dpi as the first step but these things weigh in at 550MB for a 6x7 slide. I don't mind storing this file in an archive (TeraByte drives are cheap these days) but what steps are involved in going from this to a file I can work with in Photoshop/Lightroom, etc?
3. My initial experience is that Vuescan is a little slower than NikonScan with the CS9000. Is that the general consensus? I do appreciate having the ability to use colour management in VS (I have the Wolf Faust 35mm IT8 targets). Do people generally find using the IT8 targets helps obtain the best 'Original' colour rendition?


Thanks again,

Rick

I can't comment on the 9000, so I don't know how helpful this answer will be.

FWIW, though, I have a 5000, and I'm about a quarter of the way through scanning about ten thousand 35mm colour negs that have been sitting in a cupboard for years. I don't have the prints, so I don't know what I've got, so I need to scan all of them!

For general scanning, I've found that only ICE is worth using on every scan, and it's very well worth it indeed. There's always at least some dust and other crap on the negs, and it's too much of a faff to clone it out individually. ICE is marvellous for that!

I experimented a little with the others, but couldn't reliably improve on the default settings.

I only do 8 bit, single-pass scans in the first instance, with ICE on normal (not fine).

I've tried 16 bit and ICE=fine, but the difference is so marginal that since most of the images are unremarkable at best, there's no advantage in doubling the file size from 70MB to 140MB !

As far as workflow is concerned, I use this procedure, which works just fine, and I can scan a strip of four in a little under 8 minutes, with the only intervention required being the few clicks at the beginning of the strip.

I have a couple of 1TB external drives to which I back up alternately, daily, or twice daily if I'm scanning a lot.

I also tried VueScan, but the results were no better than NikonScan, and the workflow less convenient in a 'fire-and-forget' sense.

I don't do anything else to the resulting TIFFs - I just open them in PhotoShop and save them as PSDs, or JPGs when I'm done.

HTH, but I suspect your needs are a bit more specialist than mine.

Yes, I think my intended workflow with the scanner is different to yours, Chris...

I'm planning to use the scanner to scan medium format (6x7) images and then after some post-processing/colour correction to have them printed at medium to large sizes. So I'm probably only working on a handful of my best images but happy to spend a lot longer on each one to get the best end result in the form of a print.

But it's useful to know your workflow and it certainly reminds me of the need for some 1TB (or larger) drives and a backup/archival strategy.

Thanks
Rick

I don't think my workflow will be very helpful to you either, but for what it's worth I use an Epson V600 flatbed scanner with the supplied Epson Scan software (I'd love a Coolscan 9000 but short of a Lottery win...).

The largest print size I go to is 10x10 so I scan at a target resolution of 3000x3000 pixels (this is from my Rollei and my Ikonta - I still don't have a P67). I scan at 8 bit resolution as I can't see any difference between that and 16 bit (other than larger files) and I save the output as the highest quality JPEGs. In terms of ICE etc I turn everything off - as I'm only doing 12 negatives at a time on an infrequent basis I'm quite happy to do the dust-spotting myself in Photoshop afterwards. I find I can do a much better job than any automated software and it speeds up the scanning time no end (three 6x6 negatives take approximately 6-7 minutes to scan plus an extra 2 minutes to load into the film holder / dust with a rocket blower / adjust the bounding boxes in the preview).

Overall I can do a roll of 120 film from start to finish (including the manual dust spotting and a touch of USM in Photoshop) in about an hour. I only shoot 1 or 2 rolls a month so that's fine with me.

My one suggestion to you would be to think about how big you're likely to print most/all of your pictures to and scan with that in mind rather than trying to extract the maximum from every negative. If you later decide that there's one you specifically want printed at poster size you'll still have the original neg/slide and you can always scan that again at a higher resolution.