Scanning Problems With Caffenol Processed Film - Help.

[Tom Dunne]

Last night my scanner (Canoscan 9000F) would not detect my caffenol processed colour film. A few days ago it did, with a similar film, and I posted some results on the forum. I rebooted everything, uninstalled the software and reinstalled. Still the same problem.

The message I get is this
"The film could not be detected. Please check if the Select Source is correct or confirm if the film is set correctly and execute preview again. Otherwise please switch off the thumbnails view mode."

I have done all this and have tried all the selections available in Select Source.

Out of curiosity I scanned and old lab processed B/W neg and it previewed and scanned with no problem at all.
Now I'm beginning to wonder if the scanner is confused by the caffenol film (as it neither looks like a colour or b/w neg; well, just looks like coffee) but surely this cannot be the case. You would imagine it should at least carry out the routine of scanning, whatever the look of the negative.
Has anyone experienced this?

Would really appreciate any assistance anyone can offer. many thanks

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

It does sound odd Tom. I have the same scanner although my daughter use it mostly to scan her films, so not having used it for a long while I cannot really comment on the technical side.
I did use silverfast a programe that came with the scanner, then stopped that and reverted to using the cannon software, as it was problematic . As said it sounds odd as you can throw anything in to be scanned even you hand or an old boot.

 

[Brian Moore]

Have you tried scanning as a color film as well as a B&W Tom?

Also, are you scanning them as JPEGs or TIFFs? (My scanner--Epson V500--stopped letting me do B&W TIFFs a while back. It likes color TIFFs just fine.)

I guess what I'm saying is try different settings (although I'm guessing you probably have). Sorry I can't be much help here. Good luck with it, Tom.

 

[Hamish Gill]

With Epson scanners you can select to not auto-detect frames ... maybe you can do that with a canon too?

 

[Pete Askew]

I think Hamish might be on to something there and it might be that there is insufficient contrast between the 'negative' area and the frame for the scanner to detect the frames and so it thinks it can't see the film.

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Tom I have just glanced at the 'on screen manual' for the 9000f. It does explain a method of scanning Film if not detected . The manual I am looking at got loaded from the disk that came with the scanner.

 

[Tom Dunne]

Thanks everybody for help and suggestions. I'm working on what you said and will come back and let you know how I got on.

 

[Tom Dunne]

Well lads.
As a result of Julian's post I returned to the manual and saw what I didn't see first time around. Took me a while to 'get it' but have now managed to scan the whole film. What a relief so thank you so much Julian for your most helpful prompt.