Mods - please close. I figured it out!

Digital Camera Scanning
1

Hi there,
I’m scanning properly exposed 35mm film (mostly Portra 400, Tmax 400) using a Valloi Easy 35 and Nikon D780 / Macro 105mm set up (ISO 100, f/8, 1/200, center weighted histogram). My NLP scans ALL come out needing lots of exposure, brightness, and contrast increases before starting in on color corrections. I can get them looking good, but find it odd that I need to do this. I’ve scanned film from various rolls shot on various cameras and the problem persists, so it’s not an exposure issue. It is my norm to have to up the exposure slider into the mid-high 20s on NLP and the brightness and contrast sliders into the 'teens and low 20s.

Can someone suggest what I might be doing wrong?

Here’s a sample scan preview, before any corrections.

image
image1920×1176 1.57 MB

Thanks!
Mark

2

Here’s the same image with exposure adjustment (second post as it couldn’t fit into the first).
And here’s a copy with exposure corrections (no color adjustments yet)

image
image1920×1158 1.8 MB

Mark

4

Another example:

image
image1920×1147 1.49 MB

5

And with exposure correction:

image
image1920×1155 1.67 MB

6

Welcome to the forum @MarkHS

Hm, don’t understand the thread header: "…please close. I figured it out?

Just add one post saying that you have, or change the title please.

If you still have issues, pleas add an image of the unconverted scan or share it, e.g. with wetransfer.com or any other means that you (and we) can access. A unedited/unconverted scan could help us to debug your situation.