Scanning pointers needed - B&W Negatives

[groovyone]

I have been driving myself nuts with trying to scan various negatives and print. My current dillema is freshly processed B&W 35mm negatives.

I am using a CanoScan 8800F scanning into PSE7. I am using the software from the scanner. Not the best I know, but it is what I have.

Source is set to Monochrome Negative Film, Color mode I have in color due to recommendations to scan in color then desaturate if needed for greater range.

Output resolution, I am trying 3200 dpi this time.

Image settings, Auto Tone is off, Unsharp mask is ON, and all other corrections are off.

Any pointers? Should I use Unsharp Mask or no?

I just had two rolls developed and am not real happy with the scan resolution I got. They are 1544 x 1024.

[tropicpine]

When I got into film for a class I decided I would use a hybrid process (Shoot & develop film, scan, manipilate & print on PC) for work at home. My output NEVER looked as good as my work on the enlargers in the classroom.
A few months after I bought a scanner I found a deal on an enlarger on e-bay and to this day my film scanner basically gathers dust.
I also would like to get better results from hybrid processing.

[Flea77]

I don't know your software so this may seem crazy, but "mono"chrome means one, or black and white. Does it have a setting for grayscale? Since black and white film really isn't black and white at all, trying to scan monochrome (the normal setting for a typed letter or printed letter off a laser printer) may massively reduce the scanner's ability to show tones.

What exactly is your problem with the scanned images? I use a Plustex scanner with Silverfast software and although still not as nice as an enlarger, they have been more than satisfactory for on screen viewing and printing up to 8x10.

Allan

[groovyone]

I changed my settings to Color Film and Grayscale. My scanner seems to be OOF. I started teh other thread and posted some samples there.

[Buddha]

Groovyone -
I have a scanner, but when I have a roll of film developed, I also have it scanned. Precision Photo in Austin has a much better scanner than mine. If they scan when they develop a roll, I can get a CD of the images for a low price. I assume that the images will be better than I could do, which is what I want, and it saves me the time of scanning myself, which is not inconsiderable.
My scanning is usually limited to scanning old negatives which require alot of personal thought in their selection.

[groovyone]

Joe, what resolution are the scans? The lab that did mine did do scans but they were very low resolution.

[Buddha]

Their scanner is rated at 4000dpi, and you can choose the file sizes. Large is 25M IIRC.
Go here: Photo Lab | Precision Camera & Video and click on 'Scanning', then click on film.

This was lifted from Precision's website: Looks like 4-5000 DPI to me
Low Standard High
Type 72dpi - jpeg 300dpi - tiff 500dpi - tiff
35mm N/A $8.99 N/A
*Scanned to size: 8”x12” 2400x3600px
120/220 $5.99 $8.99 $14.99
*Scanned to size: 8”x8” 576x576px 2400x2400px 4000x4000px
4x5 $5.99 $11.99 $22.99
*Scanned to size: 8”x10” 576x720px 2400x3000px 4000x5000px
ESTIMATED TURNAROUND: Next day at 5:30pm Monday through Friday.
* File format desired (PSD, TIFF, Jpeg) Default settings are: .tif RGB file on a PC format CD-ROM
*8”x12”, 8”x8” & 8”x10” are common sizes of scans. Your scan may be larger or smaller and therefore this chart should be used as a reference when figuring your final ppi.

IIRC, I pay about $13 for processed roll with a CD of large images that I can't do at home, but it's been a while, so I may be off some.