I read recently (can't remember where now) that scanning film is a bit of an art, and it is one I assume requires a fair amount of trial and error. Bearing that in mind, any wisdom fellow Flextight users would have to share from experience that helped you get the most out the scanner would be greatly appreciated. I'll be using this scanner for fine art with the hope of creating bright, some what-desaturated, soft-color images from Portra 160 & 400.
So, the answer to your question is, yes, it's as much of an art as a science...and it takes skill and experience. But there are some generally excepted approaches. First off, cleanliness is next to glodliness. When you scan film, you need to clean it really well and pay close attention–not unlike the old days when you cleaned a neg before putting into the neg carrier of the enlarger. The cleaner the neg, the less spotting (cloning) you'll be doing...
There are some odd things about the Hasselblad Flextight X1 (formerly the Imacon Flextight). As far as I know, the darn software will STILL add sharpening unless you turn sharpening on but move it down to -120 amount...yeah, I know, but that's the way it used to be. There are better ways and places for sharpening and noise reduction than in the Flextight software...
Another important thing to consider is at best, all you can do in the Flextight software is a global adjustment...and that should drive the way to want to set the scan settings...in general, don't click either blacks or whites in the scan. It's far better to do so later in Photoshop where you have both global and local adjustments.
Yes, fix color casts in the scan...but be careful of trying to do too much when dealing with crossed-curves (color cast that are different in hoghlights and shadows) cause the scanner software is primitive compared to Photoshop.
Do yourself a favor and create a custom scanner profile for your scanner–don't just scan into a working space. I would suggest using a working space of ProPhoto RGB and scan into 16 bit tiffs. Forget about the IIIF format.
In general, I tend to scan soft (no clipped blacks and whites) with a decent neutral clor balance (not obvious color casts). I turn sharpening and noise reduction off in the scanner software. I would suggest PhotoKit Sharpener for sharpening but only after noise reduction using
Noiseware. (that's what I do...substitute your own favs here).
And just know that a good scan is gonna take a lot of time to clean up and perfect...so I suggest you only spend the time on really good images!!!
