Scanning problems

[jcaliff]

Hi. I'm working on scanning some cels for my sister, and I've run into a problem I hadn't noticed before. On certain cels, I can't seem to get the scanner to see certain light pink colors. I'm using a relatively new scanner, a Brother MFC-6490CW that I got about a year ago since it could do oversized scans. Here's an example of the problem:



The darker pinks in her mouth and hair show up fine, but the lighter shade in her hair looks almost white (you can barely make out the white highlight). Compare to this one scanned many years ago:



The scan is actually a little darker than reality, but the colors show up. My old scanner software had the option to play with color balance during the prescan, but the software that came with the new scanner doesn't really give me any options at all. It's made for idiots. I don't know if I can download a more rigorous software program and have it work with my scanner, or what. Does anyone have any ideas?

edit: another example:



It's really just that one color of pink that seems to be the problem though. Every other color looks fine so far:



edit2: Hmmm, an interesting thread here

[sensei]

I've experienced a similar problem with pink (Canon Canoscan LIDE-90) and would be curious to hear of any solutions.

[pixie_princess]

I'm not sure if this helps or anything... in my experience dedicated scanners that do Film/negatives usually have no problems with scanning in cels. The color reproduction has to be spot on for negatives otherwise things turn out weird. With the exception of my first scanner (which had no problems either) I have always purchased scanners that also do negatives. I have heard of some people's scanners having problems with red (comes out like dried blood), and some shades of green (anti counterfeit measures is what I heard but I do not know for a fact).

I would try messing with your settings before you scan the cel, and then tweak individual levels in photoshop (or gimp). You might try lowering the brightness on the settings. Or maybe playing with the levels and messing around with the middle and upper parts until you can pull out those colors. Again, you want to do this prior to scanning it in. Also if you haven't already, calibrate your scanner. Mine came with a 4x6 print similar to the test prints photolabs print out to test their calibration so that photos are printed out properly on the printers (properly exposed headshot, color blocks on the side). After scanning that in, you can try tweaking the levels to get that to look properly.
Make sure your saturation levels aren't too high up and only boost those after you've tried everything else. They will increase the richness of your color. Contrast with have the effect of bringing out certain colors, lightening the image, but you don't want to go crazy with it as it can have rather adverse effects.

My current scanner is a CanoScan 8800F.

[zerospace]

Ditto what pixie_princess said -- I also use a similar model scanner to hers (mine are both earlier Canon units in the same line: I have both a Canon 8400F & an 8600F).

I had similar issues with color and sometimes just the quality of the lines on sketches with other scanner models before switching to these kind. I would also add that you could also try scanning at the highest resolution possible with your scanner and check your scan settings to make sure no auto-correcting of anything is being done while scanning. My Canons are capable of all kinds of auto-tweaks during the scan, and I find most of these have not-so-hot results when it comes to scanning cels and sketches. I leave all corrections to be done by hand in Photoshop (or GIMP) after scanning.

[jcaliff]

Well, I went through the manual, and I can't find any way to calibrate the scanner. It didn't come with anything, and there are no options in the software that was included with it. I went to Brother's homepage and downloaded all the most recent software, drivers and firmware updates and installed everything. It still gives the same problem. If it were purely a problem with scanner calibration, you would think that other colors would have problems, but it's only that one particular hue of pink. Even other pink colors and skin tones are fine. I sent an email to Brother's customer service center. We'll see if they get back to me about it.

[HigurashiArchives]

It's understandable that you'd expect the image to scan and look exactly like it did when you put it on the scanner. The reality is, since scanners use a bright white light to scan pictures naturally they'd look washed out. What you need to do is use a program that allows you to adjust the saturation and contrast. Raise or lower these values until the image looks similar to the actual cel. Or if your image editing program has a "auto correct" button, the program can do this for you. I do think it's the contrast ratio that needs adjusting because the first image you posted looks fine on my monitor (which has a ridiculously high contrast ratio).

[Mackettric]

I've had trouble with pinks and reds not scanning on certain scanners. It can be a real pain for Jem cels.
You could try a different scanner software. I've had less issues with reds using VueScan Scanner Software. It's about $40 to buy but you can download it and try it first to see if it works. VueScan gives you a lot more options when scanning without having to bring the image into Photoshop.
VueScan link http://www.hamrick.com/

[kizu]

I would remove any kind of auto tone and not set the white and dark points. Setting up saturation might help too. Oh and i dont think this is a color balance issue. There should be an advance option somewhere... Like maybe something that says use scanner driver.

[jcaliff]

Thanks for all the advice. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with a tech support guy at Brother. It was useless. He asked for remote access to my computer, which I gave him, and he removed all the software and reinstalled it. He then became convinced that I have some sort of mystery European driver on my computer because the scanner preview window shows the word spelled colour instead of color and that this is the source of the mystery of pink scanning white. He downloaded the software from their own website, the same software I had already downloaded. He then said he needed to do more research and would call me back. Never heard from him again.

Unfortunately, this scanner has no calibraton options. I asked the tech guy, and he said that the only thing they could do is reset it to factory specs, and that they didn't include calibration ability.

I've tried editing in gimp. The biggest problem is that there is so little color left in the pink that it's hard to edit. I tried figuring some differential stuff by looking at hlv numbers for other colors (pinks, reds, blues, and greens) comparing the old mylene cel to the new one, and taking averages in order to create an appropriate pink color for the hair. Problem is that it's almost impossible to select just the pink without the white highlight using a simple threshold value. I tried hand drawing a selection mask around the highlight, copying it to a new layer, and bucket filling the rest of the white hair, but it looks weird. I don't know even know where to start with the shampoo cel because the colors and white separating line are pretty much indistinguishable, and I don't have any old cel to work with. I finally just brought the problem cels to work and scanned them here, and they look okay on this scanner, so for now I'll just have to do that.

[zerospace]

Ugh. For kicks, I just looked up that model # you gave and well... if it's really an all-in-one printer/copier/fax unit, I wouldn't expect a lot out of the scanner portion, especially in the way of details in cel scans. I know they call it a professional unit, but my theory is that when they put so many kinds of hardware into a single device, the quality of each suffers accordingly.

If I were you, I'd buy a dedicated scanner that has proper calibration and related options built into the driver/software. But that's just me .

[pixie_princess]

There is one more option you can try with your scanner if you don't mind the extra work. In order to keep the whites from blasting the pink color, you could try scanning with the lid up and the room dark. The image should turn out a bit darker, and maybe it will be enough to allow for you to adjust from there.

[jcaliff]

Ugh. For kicks, I just looked up that model # you gave and well... if it's really an all-in-one printer/copier/fax unit, I wouldn't expect a lot out of the scanner portion, especially in the way of details in cel scans. I know they call it a professional unit, but my theory is that when they put so many kinds of hardware into a single device, the quality of each suffers accordingly.

If I were you, I'd buy a dedicated scanner that has proper calibration and related options built into the driver/software. But that's just me .

In general up until now I've been pretty happy with the scanner. All the other colors look good, and the image quality has been good. Unfortunately, I don't really have money or space right now for a printer and another flatbed scanner. For now, I'll have to use the one at work if I need to scan that particular pink I guess. I've been working on and off on updating my gallery, planning to eventually rescan everything. The Teddy Ruxpin part is pretty much done if you want to see how the rest of the scans look (all reduced for web browsing so there's some jpeg artifact of course):

http://www.jcaliff.net/celgallery/serie ... p?catid=62

I've been using that software I got from you.

[jcaliff]

There is one more option you can try with your scanner if you don't mind the extra work. In order to keep the whites from blasting the pink color, you could try scanning with the lid up and the room dark. The image should turn out a bit darker, and maybe it will be enough to allow for you to adjust from there.

I can give it a try, at least with the cels that won't work otherwise. Thanks!

[jcaliff]

Well, I think I've pretty much confirmed the problem. The problem is LED scanners in general. I bought a brand new Mustek A3 scanner. Unboxed it, installed the driver, and scanned a problem cel. This is a cel that had originally scanned the pink perfectly with my old CCD 8.5x11 Epson on this same computer a few years ago, but that the Brother scanner couldn't scan the pink. The Mustek scan looked exactly the same as the Brother scanner. Tried a different scanner software, still same problem with the lack of pink. I called Mustek's tech support. They were useless. They had no idea. Suggested returning it to the store and getting another. I've had it. I'm returning it, but i refuse to buy another LED/CIS scanner. Unfortunately, all the CCD large format scanners are either old scsi scanners or cost thousands of dollars. I guess for now I'll just soldier on with the scanner I have and maybe someday when I hit the lottery I'll buy a good scanner.