Scanning colour slides

Nikon Coolscan V ED scanner

David Hollander

Contents
1. Using the ScannerStep by Step ........................................................................ 4
2. Nikon Scan Software in Detail ............................................................................. 6
a. Scan Window ..................................................................................... 6
b. Layout Tool ........................................................................................ 7
c. Preview Area ...................................................................................... 8
d. Crop Tool ............................................................................................ 8
e. Curves Tool ........................................................................................ 9
f. LCH Editor ........................................................................................ 10
g. Digital ICE4 & Post processing ......................................................... 11
h. Unsharp Mask .................................................................................. 11
i. Other Tools ...................................................................................... 12
This document contains instructions for using the Nikon Coolscan V ED slide scanner. This is
a specialised scanner for scanning images on 35mm film (usually colour slides, but also B&W
and colour negatives). If you wish to scan strips of film, a special film adapter is available.
Negatives are usually cut into strips (4 or 6 negs per strip)you do not have to cut negatives
and mount them individually in slide mounts.
Please contact me (David.Hollander@lincoln.ac.nz) if you wish to use the film-strip adapter.
The first section of this document, Using the ScannerStep by Step, offers abbreviated
instructions for people who wish to scan a few slides quickly and move on.
The second section, Using Nikon Scan software, explains most of the scanning controls in
more detail. This section will be useful if you:
are interested in scanning,
have a lot of slides to scan,
want to get the very best quality images from this scanner.
If you have other questions that are not answered in this document, try the online help
within Nikon Scan. I have also placed a copy of the Nikon Scan 4 Reference Manual in PDF
format on the local computer in C:\Scanner Manual. Double-click on this file
(NS4_manual_En.pdf) in Windows Explorer to read the ultimate reference for the scanner.
Instructions for other models of scanner are available on the web, as is a general document
entitled About Scanning. These documents are available in PDF format from the
Photography & Digital Imaging web page on the staff intranet.
This web page includes links and other information about photography and digital imaging.
David Hollander
September 2010

1. Scanning Step by Step

1. Log into the computer. Check that the scanner status light is onthe scanner should be
left on all the time.
2. Access Nikon Scan 4 by clicking on the icon
Scan 4/Nikon Scan 4.

or selecting Start/Programs/Nikon

3. Insert a slide into the slot at the front of the scanner. There is one correct way to load
slideswith the slide correctly oriented as you view it facing the scanner, insert the
slide so that the long dimension points into the slot (see Figure 1).

Status light
glows green when
the scanner is
turned on

Slide eject button

Insert slide
lengthways into
scanner

Figure 1. Loading slides in the scanner.

4. Click on the Preview button in the Nikon Scan window (see page 6). The scanner will
make a buzzing noise as it scans the slide. This step may take 20 30 seconds. When
this step is complete an image of your slide will appear in the preview window.
5. Your image may have the settings from the previous scan applied to it. To eliminate
these, click on the Settings menu bar (Figure 2 #1). From the resulting menu, click on
Reset to Factory Defaults.
6. If the Tool Palette is not visible on the screen, click on the Tools button in the Scan
window and select Tool Palette 1 from the drop down menu.
7. If your image is not oriented correctly, open the top tab in the Tools palette (Layout
Tools). To open tabs in the Tools Palette, click on the arrow at the left of each label. The
Layout Tools tab contains buttons to rotate or flip the image so that it is oriented
correctly on the screen. When finished with this tool, close the tab by clicking again on
the arrow on the tab title bar.
8. Click-and-drag in the image preview area (Figure 2 #2) to define the scanning area. The
scan area will be marked by a dashed-line rectangle. You can change the shape and size
of the scan area by clicking and dragging the lines to new positions.
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9. Open the Crop tab in the Tool Palette. This is where you enter values for resolution and
scale. Enter appropriate values (see page 9) and close the tab.
10. Open the Scan Image Enhancer tab (second from bottom). This is a quick fix tool to
optimise scanner settings. Click in the box to turn the tool on. Click on the Redraw
button to see a visual impression of the effect of the tool on your preview image. Using
this tool may slow down the scanning step, but makes for easy, accurate scanning of
good original slides. If your slide is not correctly exposed (too dark too light) you will
probably be best to use manual controls, see pages 6 14 for more detail.
11. You can use Unsharp Mask to make your images look crisper and clearer. Open the
Unsharp Mask tab and click on the top button in the window. From the menu that
appears, click on All. This will load some default settings. If you are not familiar with
unsharp masking, it will be best to leave these at the defaults.
12. Check the last three tools: Digital ICE4 is great for removing dust-marks and scratches
from images, but will slow scanning considerably. If your slides are clean and in good
condition, Digital ICE4 and Post Processing should be turned off (no ticks in boxes).
Analog gain should be set to 0 and under Scanner Extras, check that the Scan bit-depth
is set to 8.
13. Now click on the Scan button in the Preview window. Wait for the scanner to perform
the final scan with the settings you have made. When the scan is finished your image
will appear in the Nikon Scan window. Close or minimise the Scan window.
14. Save the image. Nikon Scan offers a limited range of file formats:

BMP

standard Windows file format (uncompressed).

JPEG

standard compressed format.

TIFF

a standard file format (uncompressed).

TIFF (Convert to CMYK)

specialised format do not use this option.

NEF

Nikon proprietary RAW format.

If you want to perform further image editing in a full featured image editor (e.g., Corel
Photopaint) you may wish to save your file in an uncompressed format. It is best to use TIFF
for this. The resulting file size will be large but there will be no loss of image quality due to
compression. After you have performed further editing in Photopaint you can save a
compressed version of your file in JPEG format from Photopaint.
If you dont want to perform any further editing on your image you can save it immediately
in JPEG format to reduce file size. Select the JFIF (standard) option. There are five
compression options the default is Good Balance which will be suitable for most images.
You can now import your image into another document (e.g. a Word or PowerPoint file). Do
this using the Insert/Picture/From file option in Word and PowerPoint. I have prepared a
document on dealing with images in Word (available in PDF format on the web at
www.lincoln.ac.nz/its/photog/digimg.htm ).

2. Nikon Scan 4 Software in Detail

The Nikon Scan software may take 20 30 seconds to load. Nikon Scan provides three
windows for scanning control. When you open the software at least one of these will
appear:
a) The Scan Window
1
2

4
5

6
7
Figure 2. The Scan Window.
1. Control area contains scanner control buttons and menus for settings, film type
& scan type.
2. Preview area. After a prescan, an image of your slide will appear here. Click and
drag here to define your scanning area. Two tabs (Processed and Natural) show
how scan settings affect the unprocessed image.
3. Buttons to access Preferences, Online Help and Tools (see page 7).
4. Information panel. Check that the settings here are as shown above. In
particular, check that Analog Gain is set to Neutral. If not, you will need to Reset
this in the Tools palette (see Figure 3).
5. Preview button.
6. Scan button.
7. Interactive help this area displays brief information about controls as the
mouse cursor moves over them.
1. When you have placed your slide in the scanner and opened the scan window, check
the Control area (#1) to check that the film type and scan type are set correctly. This area
consists of five small buttons and three menu bars.
The first menu bar (Settings) allows you to clear the scanner controls set by previous
users (a good idea!). Click on Settings and from the subsequent menu click on Reset to
Factory Defaults.
The second menu bar controls the type of film being scanned. For normal slides this
should read Positive. Other options are:

Neg (colour) colour negatives

Neg (mono) B&W negatives

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Kodachrome use for Kodachrome colour slides only. These will probably be
mounted in cardboard slide mounts and will have Kodachrome printed on the
slide mount.

2. Next check the bottom menu bar. This has two options:

Grayscale

Calibrated RGB

If you wish to scan in colour, select Calibrated RGB, otherwise use Grayscale for noncolour images.
3. Now click on the Preview button (#5). The scanner will scan the slide and an image will
appear in the Preview area (#2). This may take 10 30 seconds depending on the nature
of your image.
4. When your image has appeared, do not worry if it is not oriented correctly. There are
tools available to correct this. If the Tools Palette is not visible, click on the Tools button
(#3). The Tools Palette contains many options to optimise your scanned image.
1
2
3
4
Figure 3. The Tools Palette
1. Click on the small arrows at the left of each panel to expand that tool.
Click again to collapse the panel.
2. These arrows allow you to save, reset or re-use settings for some tools
so that you can use the same settings for different scanning jobs.
3. Some tools have a tick or cross symbol by the tool name. A tick makes
the tool active; a cross makes the tool inactive. Click on this symbol to
turn these tools on and off.
4. Enhancer tool for quick & accurate scanning.
5. If the Analog Gain setting in the Scan Window Information Panel is not set to Neutral
(see Figure 1, #4), expand the Analog Gain panel in the Tools Palette (second from
bottom in Figure 2) and click on the Reset button followed by the Redraw button. The
preview image will change to reflect the change you have made.
N.B. Analog Gain is a specialist tool for difficult pictures. You may inherit an Analog Gain
setting from a previous user. It is always best to start with this tool turned off!

c) Layout Tool
This tool controls the orientation of your scan.

Figure 4. The Layout Tool

The four buttons highlighted in Figure 4 control image orientation: the top two rotate an
image 90 left or right, the bottom two flip an image vertically or horizontally. The letter R
symbol at left reflects the changes made.
6. Now click-and-drag in the image preview area to define the scanning area. The scan
area will be marked by a dashed-line rectangle. At any time you can change the shape
and size of the scan area by clicking and dragging the lines to new positions (see Figure
5, #3).
d) The Preview Area
1
2

Figure 5. The Preview area

1. Natural tab shows the raw scanned image. The Processed tab shows the
image with changes made by the scanning tools.
2. Scan area defined by dashed line.
3. Cursor changes shape when placed on dashed line click-and-drag to redraw
this edge of the scanning area.
The next step is to enter the desired scanning resolution and what size you want the final
image to be. To do this, click on the Crop tool in the Tool Palette.

e) Crop Tool
1

2
3
4
5
Figure 6. The Crop tool.
1. For most scanning, click on the top button Keep this crop. The numbers show
the size of your selection area (in this case in pixels you can change the unit of
measurement in the drop down menu to the right).
2. Shows the size of the final scanned image. Work out how large you want the final
image to be, then enter that value in the box for width or height.
3. File size. This will show the uncompressed size of the resulting image file. This
size will change depending on image size resolution.
4. Scaling. Shows the degree of magnification applied during scanning.
5. Resolution. Determines the number of pixels in your final image. Optimum
resolution depends on how you will use the file. See below for more information
about correct resolution. Or you can choose an option from the Custom button.
The Crop tool defines how large your scanned image will be (in terms of picture size) and
also how large the resulting image file will be. This is determined by the scanning resolution
(#5 in Figure 6). What resolution you set depends on how your image will be used
whether it will be printed (and how) or viewed on a monitor. Below is a table that shows
suitable resolutions depending on output type.
WWW

POWERPOINT

B&W LASER

B&W photo

72

96

115 150

Colour photo

72

96

COLOUR
LASER

150 200

All values are in ppi (pixels per inch) and are much lower than the factory default of 4000
(which is the scanners optical resolution). Enter a new value from the table above. Where a
range of values is shown in the table, the upper value will give better quality. Lower values
within the range will give reduced file size at some cost in image quality whether or not
this loss in quality is visible depends on the nature of the subject. The lower the resolution,
the smaller your file size will be.
It may be easier to select a prepared resolution click on the Custom button and choose
one of the options that appear in the lower half of the submenu:
Laser Printing
PowerPoint

200 ppi

Photo Printing

96 ppi

World Wide Web

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300 ppi
72 ppi

In order to set the image size using the Scale slider (# 4 in Figure 6) you need to know how
large you want your image to be:

If you are scanning an image for PowerPoint, the default size of a page in
PowerPoint is 254 190 mm.

Word documents are usually printed on a vertical A4 page (210 297 mm, 160
267 mm allowing for standard margins), so you will need your images to be some
fraction of that size.

If you are scanning an image for the web, the size of your web page is measured in
pixels so it is best to work in pixels rather than inches or centimetres.

When you have finished making your settings in the Crop tool, close the tool and open the
Curves tool.
f) Curves tool

1
2

3
Figure 7. The Curves tool.
1. Channels menu. You can make changes to individual colour channels
(Red, Green and Blue), but this setting is usually best left on RGB.
2. Control buttons. The most important of these is the second one from the top.
This will automatically set optimum controls for your final scan. The changes will
be shown in the Preview windowyou can toggle between the Natural and
Processed tabs in the Preview Window to compare the results. The next three
buttons allow you to set control points manually and the bottom buttons reset
the controls for Grayscale and colour images.
3. Histogram. This area shows a histogram of pixel brightness values, which
changes to reflect the tool settings.
The Curves tool is a powerful tool that you can use to change the brightness and colour
values of your scanned image. The manual settings are for skilled users only, but the Auto
button (# 2 in Figure 7) offers optimum settings for most images.

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g) LCH editor
This tool gives you control over Lightness, Chroma and Huethe most important of these is
Lightness. This is a powerful tool that lets you affect the brightness of an image without
affecting colour (unlike the Curves tool which affects both at the same time). Arrange the
LCH Editor and the Curves tool so you can see them both on the screen at the same time.
Changes you make using the Lightness tool will alter the Curves histogram.
1
2

3
4
5
Figure 8. LCH Editor (Lightness)
1. Make sure Lightness is selected from the drop-down menu.
2. Auto button click once to optimise lightness setting.
3. Reset button click once to change settings to original values.
4. Histogram area. Changes caused by tool settings are reflected
here. Manual changes are possible by dragging on sliders.
5. The triangle icons here can be dragged to change the Black &
White points and change the Gamma setting (middle triangle).
You can click on the Auto button (# 2 Figure 8) to set this control, but this usually makes too
great a change. You can move the Black and White points (see Figure 8, #5) in the Lightness
window and view the effects on the Curves histogram. A good histogram shows a full range
of values from black to white with no gaps.
The Chroma and Hue options within this tool are specialised tools and are not needed for
normal scanning.
h) Digital ICE4 & Post Processing
Another feature on the Tools palette is the Digital ICE4 tool. This is very effective at
removing dust and scratches from your scanned images. You will always get best results
from scanning clean slides in good condition, but if your original slide has marks that cannot
be removed by cleaning, this software tool will probably eliminate them. While Digital ICE4
is very effective, it will slow the final scan considerably, so unless it is needed, make sure
this tool is turned off.
N.B. Digital ICE4 will not work with B&W negatives. You must scan B&W film with Digital
ICE4 turned off. If you scan these film types with Digital ICE4 turned on, your scanned
images will appear very blurred and fuzzy. If your image preview appears this way, perform
another preview scan with Digital ICE4 turned off.

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1
2
3

Figure 9. Digital ICE & Post processing.

1. Click in the top tick box to enable Digital ICE. This will slow scanning but will remove
dust marks and scratches.
2. Post Processing. There are two options:

ROC (Restoration of Colour) can improve colour rendition of old or faded slides.

GEM (Grain Equalisation Management) can improve grainy slides.

3. Digital DEE can help reveal details in dark shadow areas and improve contrast
in burnt-out highlights.
Post Processing and Digital DEE are advanced tools. Please refer to the user manual see
pp. 63-4 for Post Processing and p. 65 for Digital DEE.
i) Unsharp Mask
Despite its name, Unsharp Mask can make images appear crisper and clearer. If you intend
doing more editing on your image in Photopaint, it is best to leave sharpening until then. If
you intend to use your image direct from Nikon Scan, you can improve the appearance of
your final image by applying unsharp masking.

1
2

Figure 10. Unsharp Mask.

1. Click on the top button. For most images, select the top option (All) from the
resulting menu. This will apply the settings shown in the figure.
2. Control sliders. You can use these to alter the sharpening control. If you are not
familiar with unsharp masking it will be best to leave these at the default settings.
Unsharp masking works by increasing the contrast of edges in the image. If too much
sharpening is applied you will introduce artifacts that will degrade your image. The default
setting (5%, 5%, 0) is conservative. You can change these settings by dragging the sliders
(see #2).

Intensity controls how much the contrast increases.

Halo width controls the spread of the edges after sharpening. If this is set too high
you will see edge effects in your image.
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Threshold controls where sharpening is applied. A threshold of 0 means all edges will
be sharpened. Raising the threshold means sharpening will only be applied to already
distinct edges (better).

How much sharpening you apply depends on the type of image and more particularly on
the resolution of the image. Higher resolution images will stand (and need) more
sharpening. As a rough guide, the effect of sharpening will appear more pronounced on a
monitor than it will on a printed page. So if you are printing your image you can apply a bit
more sharpening than looks good on the screen. If you are preparing images for PowerPoint
or the web, go by what you see on the screen (i.e., dont overdo it!).
j) Other Tools
There are three other tools in the tool palette:

Colour balance

Analog Gain

Scanner Extras

Adjusting colour balance is fraught with difficulty. Firstly you cannot really believe what you
see on most monitors. If you intend to print your image, make a print first before you alter
colours and then change the colour balance in relation to the print. This is best left as a task
for post-processing using Photopaint. Within Nikon Scan it is best to leave colour balance
alone.
For all but the most difficult slides, Analog Gain should be set to 0. This tool should not be
used for normal scanning.
The last option is Scanner Extras. Check that the Auto focus when film is inserted box is
ticked and that the Pixel Data Size Scan Bit Depth is set to 8.
Even if you selected Reset to Factory Defaults as suggested in step 1, these tools (Analog
Gain & Scanner Extras) may retain the settings that a previous user has chosen (which will
almost certainly not be suitable for your image!). If Analog Gain is not set to 0, click on the
Reset and Redraw buttons.
N.B. If you need to reset Analog Gain, you will need to reset the Curves tool to Auto
(
see pages 9 & 10) to optimise scanner settings for your image.

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