I am scanning cyanotypes.
My monitor is an Asus PB338, set to sRGB. The Apple monitor calibration system looks reasonable with the sRGB settings.
My scanner is an Epson V800.
I have my choice of two scanner drivers: Silverfast 8 and Vuescan.
I have an IT8 target from Silverfast, so I have an ICC file for the scanner written by Silverfast. (Since Silverfast supplies the target data as .cxf rather than .it8, I haven't yet managed to do the corresponding calibration with Vuescan. If I claim that the cxf file is an it8 file, the resulting icc profile turns everything gray).
Nothing I do renders a produces a blue tone range that resembles the original paper image very well (unless I go into PS and start pulling curves). My goal here is to deliver an JPG containing a faithful representation of the cyanotype.
I am hoping that someone can suggest a set of settings or procedures that will do better.
To be clear on what I've tried:
- Silverfast after calibration. Close, but not quite.
- Vuescan consuming the ICC file written by Silverfast. This produces overly saturated images. Pretty, but unaccurate.
- Vuescan profiling the Silverfast target (using the .cxf file renamed to .it8). This produces gray images.
- Vuescan left alone.