So even if, in the intervening years, your film has deteriorated, you've got the scan data from better days. The main advantage of that is simply that you can return to the Raw scan data stored in the archival file (instead of rescanning) years after the scan when smarter defect removal software can do a better job on your original data. By separating the defect information from the color data (which, it must be noted, is not itself pristine), HDRi and RGBI allow you to postpone the defect removal and other image processing operations just as your camera's Raw format allows you to postpone all the post-processing that creates a JPEG. HDRi files also record a gamma value to help image processing programs render the expected contrast and files larger than 30 megabytes include an embedded preview.Īdvantages. If you're scanning in black and white, that's a 32-bit HDR file (a 16-bit channel for grayscale tone information plus the 16-bit channel for infrared defect data). For a color scan, the usual red, green and blue data are available as 16-bit channels (for a subtotal of 48 bits) but LaserSoft has added an additional 16-bit grayscale channel to file (64 bits total).

Under the hood, HDRi is also a four-channel image format conforming to the TIFF specification. It's available in SilverFast v6.6.1 and later. LaserSoft Imaging President and CEO Karl-Heinz Zahorsky recently wrote to us describing his company's nearly identical concept called HDRi (High Density Range infrared). VueScan can save the RGBI format as a TIFF but without a preview. Color data is scanned in 16-bit channels for red, green and blue data (48 bits) plus a 16-bit channel for the infrared scan that documents the dust and scratches on the film. Since version 7, the Professional edition of Ed Hamrick's VueScan has offered what it refers to as a 64-bit RGBI image format in 64 bits. The formats are conceptually similar but not interchangeable. It can give you a worse headache than the whole bottle of wine.īoth VueScan and SilverFast can save a scan in a format that postpones processing - and all those decisions except which resolution to scan. What resolution? Which scanner? What software? Should you use defect removal to clean up the scratches? The trouble is that there are so many decisions to make. There's no time like the present to preserve your memories by scanning your old negatives and slides. So leave the bottle corked and crack open the scanner.

Vuescan x64