I have found the same..what I tend to do is to take the 16 bit scan into PS and use levels on it to push the sliders in to near the black and white points but leaving room on both sides to get it 'closer' and then converting to 8 bit and then using adjustment layers from there on to get things just right.
Howard << Some people in the recent discussion on 8 vs. 16 bits have mentioned the histograms in vuescan. In my experience, the preview histogram is not very useful for what I would have thought was a primary use: setting the whitepoint and blackpoint. For example, if I adjust these points so that the histogram stretches almost all the way across the graph, I find that the scan image has black in it, as indicated by turning on the switches to show black and white areas. In short, the preview histogram looks right, but the scan doesn't; and I haven't found empirically a way of reliably fudging the blackpoint adjustment. The default blackpoint is zero, I believe (I'm not at the machine that has Vuescan); but using it seems to leave a lot of "space" on the left, at least according to the histogram. This occurs on slides that are properly exposed, both visually and according to the histogram (i.e., no unintended areas of black or blown-out highlights. Am I doing something wrong? Should I just go with the defaults? >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body