I've got VueSmart for my HP Smartscan and now I can see the raw file comming out of the scanner. Negatives are scanned the same way as slides, and as a negative has neither white nor real black, only 50% of the tonal range is used! The scanner software later does a lovel adjusting high and low to 255 and 0, butthen I loose 50% from the original! Does all scanners do so?

I have acces to a Nikon LS-2000. Does this do the same, or can the software change the analog to digital conversion or by others means better use the information in the negative?

-- Erik Hartwell (erik.hartwell@usa.net), January 24, 1999

Answers

Hard to say, as you don't get to see the raw data from the CCD on the LS-2000. My guess would be that there are differences in the scanning, as most higher-end scanners include an analog "gamma" adjustment ahead of the A/D. Another point though: Even if you were throwing away half ot the dynamic range on the LS-2000, you'd still have 11 bits left, more than enough to get all the information you're likely to need out of the negative...

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), January 24, 1999.