Thanks for your inputs.

From whatever I have read on various sites so far, it seems that the 4000 does all the brightness/contrast and curves adjustments post-scan via software anyway, so as you say it is better to do all adjustments in the image editor.

I do think though that at the minimum one should use FilmGet to set the black and white points. For some scans I have also found it better to set off Auto Gain and set the exposure manually. Any thoughts on this?

Re VueScan, I have just downloaded and was trying it. Since installing it, my PC seems to be behaving very badly (I have XP with 1GB mem, 80GB HD and Pentium 4). The previews in VueScan are terrible - shot through with spots of red and do not provide any basis for assessing what the final scan will look like. I dont know if this is because I have my settings all messed up. Also, I like the thumbnails that FilmGet provides before the preview so that I can see all the frames on the strip of negative.

Cheers,
Satish

: I belived both statements are essentially correct. You can adjust density curves for R, G and B channels separately, but not actual exposure. You can't really make precise adjustments. I do fine scanning with FilmGet with minimal adjustments. The key is that I use 48 bit color files, and I make sure all information is preserved-- shadow detail is maintained and highlights are not washed out.

: VueScan ( http://www.hamrick.com ) is an excellent inexpensive alternative if you don't like FilmGet. I do my adjustments in Picture Window Pro ( http://www.dl-c.com ), which is superb (the curves controls include histograms) and also inexpensive. So you needn't make a big investment. You need an image editing program anyway. You definitely can't get by with a scanner alone.