Scan Correction For Pyro Stain?

[thronobulax]

I have an ancient Scanmaker 5900 that will accommodate a 4x5 negative. I silver print anything I seriously care about, but I find scanning a useful tool for a quick first look at the negative.

I am desaturating to monochrome during the scanning process because if I don't, the Pyrocat stain seems to confuse the white/blackpoint calculations of the scanner. However, I am unhappy with the resulting scans because they don't really capture the effect of the stain as I will see it on silver paper.

So... is there some resource that explains how to adjust the scanning system to take the Pyro stain into account more faithfully?

 

[Ian Grant]

I've been scanning my negatives to update my website and also for publication usung an Epson V750, I've found that my Pyrocat HD negatives scan very easily and match my darkroom prints well. It was the same with my old Canon scanner and also when another photographer scanned my negatives with a V700 when we were making Digital negatives for Platinum printing.

It may be the scanner's software, mine has presets for different films.

Ian

 

[thronobulax]

I've been scanning my negatives to update my website and also for publication usung an Epson V750, I've found that my Pyrocat HD negatives scan very easily and match my darkroom prints well. It was the same with my old Canon scanner and also when another photographer scanned my negatives with a V700 when we were making Digital negatives for Platinum printing.

It may be the scanner's software, mine has presets for different films.

Ian

Hmmm, is there a way to tell your software the that negative has Pyro staining to account for that effect? Also, are you scanning in colour or desaturating the scan?

Thanks

 

[Ian Grant]

I'm scanning as B&W, the Epson scanners come with Silverfast Ai which has numerous ways to optimist the scan, but you can preview and tweak. I've not found any differences between unsteadiness Xtol or Rodinal negatives and stained negatives in Pyrocat, the heaviest stain is with HP5 and Fortean 200.

Perhaps it's because I'm not using the Auto setting and will tweak the histogram or curve to get the best as can.

Ian

 

[David M]

Scan in 16-bit monochrome and make adjustments before the final scan. I use Vuescan, but there must be similar adjustments in Silverfast. You may be able to choose which channel to scan from, which could help.

As an aside, I’ve never quite understood the logic of scanning a monochrome negative in colour and then discarding most of the information. It’s never done anything for me, but that may simply be my own low standards. Things will be different when converting colour originals to B+W, of course.

 

[Ian Grant]

Some years ago Sandy King mentioned scanning his Pyrocat HD negatives in colour and separating the Channels, one colour was sometimes better than the others when converted to B&W, not always the same Channel. You'd need to scan the negative as a Transparency sparate the channels, convert yo B&W then convert the negative image to a Positive. I should add Sandy King makes enlarged Digital negatives for alternative processes,

Ian

 

[thronobulax]

Scan in 16-bit monochrome and make adjustments before the final scan. I use Vuescan, but there must be similar adjustments in Silverfast. You may be able to choose which channel to scan from, which could help.

As an aside, I’ve never quite understood the logic of scanning a monochrome negative in colour and then discarding most of the information. It’s never done anything for me, but that may simply be my own low standards. Things will be different when converting colour originals to B+W, of course.

Tragically, my scanner is so old it is not fully supported by VueScan.

 

[thronobulax]

Some years ago Sandy King mentioned scanning his Pyrocat HD negatives in colour and separating the Channels, one colour was sometimes better than the others when converted to B&W, not always the same Channel. You'd need to scan the negative as a Transparency sparate the channels, convert yo B&W then convert the negative image to a Positive. I should add Sandy King makes enlarged Digital negatives for alternative processes,

Ian

Hmm, I may have to try this. Thanks!