Canoscan FS4000US green and grainy

[Brian Wickham]

My Canoscan FS4000 has taken ill after not using it for quite a few
months. It scans greenish showing a lot of grain and no contrast.
I'm using Vuescan Pro (latest download) and my Portra scans are now
terrible. I'm reasonably confident it isn't the software's fault.

I took the cover off and blew it out with Dust Off which made a slight
improvement. So I suspect the light source or the optical path may
need a cleaning. Can that be done? Or is it a deeper problem than I
thought? Can a scanner tech handle the job at a reasonable price?

Brian Wickham
NYC

 

[Roger S.]

It could like a Vuescan issue. Different versions function very
differently.
Please post a scan of what you're seeing (scan at 500dpi is fine) and
tell us all the color and exposure settings in Vuescan.

 

[bmoag]

You can get that kind of scan if film is blocking the slit at the proximal
end of the film holder that the scanner uses for calibration.
Also you should try scanning with the Canon software driver and see if that
yields better results.
In my humble experience Vuescan was not usable for scanning negative
materials with this scanner although it often yielded better results
scanning non-kodachrome transparencies.

 

[Brian Wickham]

You can get that kind of scan if film is blocking the slit at the proximal
end of the film holder that the scanner uses for calibration.
Also you should try scanning with the Canon software driver and see if that
yields better results.
In my humble experience Vuescan was not usable for scanning negative
materials with this scanner although it often yielded better results
scanning non-kodachrome transparencies.

Film was not blocking the slit but that was a good suggestion. The
best suggestion was trying the Canon software. It proved that my
problem was not with my scanner!

I had originally tried reinstalling VueScan 8.3.38 but the results
were the same as with the new 8.3.57. So it wasn't a glitch in the
upgrade. I just didn't recall having this much of a problem earlier
but I haven't scanned film in quite a while.

In any event I previewed a known dense daylight neg and made my
adjustments in VueScan to get a reasonable scan. It's not spot on but
at least I'm in the ballpark.

For anyone who wants the readings, this is for Kodak Portra 400NC with
a Canoscan FS4000 and is only a seat-of-the-pants setup:
Color Balance: Manual
Neutral Red: .79
Neutral Green: 1
Neutral Blue: .91
Black Point: 0
White Point: 1
Curve Low: .251
Curve High: 75
Brightness: 1
Brightness Red: .76
Brightness Green: .565
Brightness Blue: .76

I'm using these settings now to scan some thin negatives (I believe my
developer screwed up and didn't tell me because I did a lot of
bracketing but you wouldn't know it) and the results are good so far.
Of course there is always the possibility that something happened to
my flash since I used it quite a while ago. The variables will kill
you!

Now, if anyone tries these settings and comes to the conclusion that I
must be crazy, please let me know. I also found that some old
Ektachrome 160 is scanning green using the VueScan settings but I
haven't tackled that yet.

Thank you all,
Brian Wickham

 

[Robert Feinman]

Film was not blocking the slit but that was a good suggestion. The
best suggestion was trying the Canon software. It proved that my
problem was not with my scanner!

I had originally tried reinstalling VueScan 8.3.38 but the results
were the same as with the new 8.3.57. So it wasn't a glitch in the
upgrade. I just didn't recall having this much of a problem earlier
but I haven't scanned film in quite a while.

In any event I previewed a known dense daylight neg and made my
adjustments in VueScan to get a reasonable scan. It's not spot on but
at least I'm in the ballpark.

For anyone who wants the readings, this is for Kodak Portra 400NC with
a Canoscan FS4000 and is only a seat-of-the-pants setup:
Color Balance: Manual
Neutral Red: .79
Neutral Green: 1
Neutral Blue: .91
Black Point: 0
White Point: 1
Curve Low: .251
Curve High: 75
Brightness: 1
Brightness Red: .76
Brightness Green: .565
Brightness Blue: .76

I'm using these settings now to scan some thin negatives (I believe my
developer screwed up and didn't tell me because I did a lot of
bracketing but you wouldn't know it) and the results are good so far.
Of course there is always the possibility that something happened to
my flash since I used it quite a while ago. The variables will kill
you!

Now, if anyone tries these settings and comes to the conclusion that I
must be crazy, please let me know. I also found that some old
Ektachrome 160 is scanning green using the VueScan settings but I
haven't tackled that yet.

One thing to try is to delete all the copies of vuescan.ini on your
system (they may be in several folders) and then restart Vuescan.
You can save your present values under a different name if you wish.

Many strange problems go away with a clean vuescan.ini file.

 

[Roger S.]

I use this scanner with Vuescan, and can give you settings for a number
of films that should be quite neutral if you use the same films and
would like to see if you get better results. I'm using 8.3.55 which
works fine.

I have saved ini files for Reala, 160C, 160S, NPZ, 400UC, and 100UC
that use the advanced workflow. Email me at the address I use with
this group if you want any of them.

Best,
Roger