Epson V500 and similar - Adjust while scanning slides or later?

[Neil]

I have the Epson V500 and Photoshop. Scanning slides -- is your
preference to uncheck all boxes -- no color correction, no backlight,
no unsharp mask -- just leave Digital Ice checked. And do all the
other adjusting after the scan using Photoshop's tools and menus? Or
is it better to use EpsonScan's tools -- if so, what settings and
levels to you use? Thanks.

 

[Philippe Boite]

I have the Epson V500 and Photoshop. Scanning slides -- is your
preference to uncheck all boxes -- no color correction, no backlight,
no unsharp mask -- just leave Digital Ice checked. And do all the
other adjusting after the scan using Photoshop's tools and menus? Or
is it better to use EpsonScan's tools -- if so, what settings and
levels to you use? Thanks.

I just bought this scanner and scanned several slides, and most of the time
the best results come from scanning with the following settings :
- everything unchecked but unsharp mask (use digital ice only if a lot of
dust on the slide; think also to clean the dust on the scanner glass)
- click on the curves and select the "lower contrast" curve (sometimes I
select "linear" when the slide lacks contrast)
then tune the result if needed in Photoshop.
This makes the most natural scans.
The automatic adjustment curves give too much contrast.
The other settings are OK for slides.

 

[tomm42]

I have the Epson V500 and Photoshop. Scanning slides -- is your
preference to uncheck all boxes -- no color correction, no backlight,
no unsharp mask -- just leave Digital Ice checked. And do all the
other adjusting after the scan using Photoshop's tools and menus? Or
is it better to use EpsonScan's tools -- if so, what settings and
levels to you use? Thanks.

Depends on the slide, I'll use the curves function to make a better
scan, I get many slides that are underexposed and the curves function
keeps the shadows from blocking. You of course try to keep the
highlights too. I only use Digital Ice if I have to, filthy slide,
which do exist, but the way I keep my slides it is easier to clone/
healing brush out the dust that the time it takes to do the Digital
Ice. Also Digital Ice slightly degrades the image. After the scan I
evaluate the scan on a calibrated monitor and make slight adjustments
there if needed. For high res scans I use 16bit scans for low res,
mostly for PowerPoint I scan in 8 bit.

Tom