Preparing for automatic scanning

In this segment, I'd like to show you how to set some of your preferences for controlling automatic scanning mode. Here before us, we have the WorkflowPilot, which is the automatic scanning mode interface in SilverFast. But you will notice that if we go to the SilverFast menu and choose Preferences, we can't access them when we're actually in Automatic mode. We have to move to Manual mode. So to do that, we'll click on WorkflowPilot and bring up the Full Manual mode, then we go underneath the SilverFast menu and choose Preferences. And there's two sets of presences for us to address for automatic workflow, and that is the Auto and then the WorkflowPilot.

We'll adjust some of these other preferences later on in the course. So let's go right to Auto. I'm not going to go over each and every one of these. I want to address the most important ones here for automatic scanning mode. The first two ones to address are the Highlight Offset and the Shadow Offset. Notice the Highlight Offset is set at 2, and the Shadow Offset is set at 98. What this means is that when SilverFast sets a highlight automatically, it's going to set the lightest highlight at 2%, which may be fine if all your printing devices can print a 2% white highlight and print a 98% shadow without it filling in.

What I typically like to do is set mine at 5 and 95, so my white highlight is set at 5% and my shadow is set at 95%. That way I know my highlights are always going to have detail in them and my shadows won't plug up. Okay, the next one down is Color Cast Removal, which you can turn off altogether if you uncheck the active. Or if you don't want quite as much color cast removal, like 100%, you can leave it turned on and then back it off. Let's say if you are scanning a lot of interior shots with yellow and red lights, or you shoot a lot of sunsets and you don't want to remove as much color cast as SilverFast normally does, then you can turn it off altogether or back it off a little bit if you want to.

And next is the Auto Adjust Brightness and the Auto Adjust Darker. These are both set by default on 30, and this one is for when SilverFast sees a darker image it's automatically going to brighten it by 30%--and alternatively a darker image that it will automatically brighten by 30%. If in the course of scanning your images using your Automatic scanning mode, if you see your images are overall too light or too dark, then you can come in here and adjust the Auto Adjust Brighter and Auto Adjust Darker. SilverFast tends to automatically increase contrast in most images just by the fact that it's adjusting highlights and shadows. But if you want a little bit more contrast in your images on a regular basis than what you're getting, then you can come in here and check on the Auto Contrast.

So the main suggestion that I make to you here is the 5% and the 95%. One of the things that I might mention, if you scan a lot of text like logos, and you're working in Automatic mode, then I'd recommend that you check on the Levels check boxes here. Otherwise, if you're not doing a lot of text, if you are primarily scanning images, just make the adjustments here to Highlight Offset, Shadow Offset, the Color Cast and then the Auto Adjust Brighter and Auto Adjust Darker. And if you want more contrast, go ahead and check that on. Otherwise, leave it as it is.

All right, then the second thing you might want to pay attention to is the WorkflowPilot preferences itself. If you recall from earlier in the course, I've mentioned that when you go into Automatic mode, when you choose a Source and a Task--an input and an output--that controls the tools that are available to you. And here in these preferences you can actually adjust which tools are available to you in which combinations of source and task. For instance, the common one we talked about using is Photo and Print. These are all the tools that are automatically set to come up when you choose that. So for instance, if you wanted to work in Photo and Print, and you wish, "Oh gee, I wish I had that Global Color Correction." You can just turn on Global Color Correction and then it will automatically be available to you when you choose Photo and then Task, Print.

And, by the way, if you're working in any of these tools such as the Global Color Cast Correction tool, and you save any settings out of those tools, those settings will be available to you right here. For instance, here's one called CP2 warm, which would be a little bit of warming Global Color Cast Correction. So you can fine-tune what actually comes up in your WorkflowPilot when you choose a specific source and a specific task.