Disappointed with Epson V700

[Roma]

Hi folks,
I'm quiet disappointed with scanning 35mm negatives on my Epson V700.
I scanned the negatives in the Professional mode of the Epson software in 16-bit greyscale mode, Film (with Film holder) document source (and selecting individual frames from there so I can get the film border around the frame), scanning in 2400 dpi resolution with best scanning quality and with the lowest compression setting and the scans are not sharp at all.

I compared the negative scan with a scan of an 8x10 print at 240dpi that I made in the dark room a week before and there is no comparison in sharpness. The scan looks terrible.🙁

I realize that an 8x10 print has a much greater surface for the scanner to work with, but maaaaan, what a difference.

Am I doing something wrong here? Sharpening the scanned negative looks bad with funky artifacts that make it look like the shot was taken with a cheap digital P&S camera.

I was so disappointed that I didn't even upload any of this mess.

Please help if you can!

Thanks in advance,
Roman

 

[beethamd]

Hi Roman,
Let's see an example. It could be a film flatness issue.

 

[jlw]

Did you read the review on Photo-i.uk? He discussed adjusting the film thickness "feet" on the film holders to get better sharpness. It seemed to make quite a difference in his results.

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

It's not the scanner (or yours is faulty), Roman. Up to 8x10 the scanner should do fine.

You didn't scan classic b&w film with some infrared cleaning turned on?

 

[35mmdelux]

i haven't had any trouble w/ my V750-M. I would be interested to see what others say about the 700. Good luck

 

[VinceC]

I have an older Epson 3200Photo. It requires Unshap Masking (USM) to achieve halfway decent results.

 

[Roma]

Example:

Example:

Here is an example of the film scan.

It's very soft compared to what I printed on paper in the dark room. I don't have the scan of the print at at this time, but can post it later as a comparison.

Beethamd, I think it is the flatness issue.

JLW, I'll have to reed their review again. I read it in the past and forgot many things from it.

Robert,
"You didn't scan classic b&w film with some infrared cleaning turned on?"
I'm not aware of this option, where do I check it?

 

[Pherdinand]

I am rather satisfied with my v700. Though, a darkroom print on 8x10 inch paper (i suppose you mean inch, not cm) is much much better, no wonder.
The scans do need some unsharp masking, and it does matter a lot how you do that. I usually do it as the last step before saving, or before converting to 8-bit if i want to save 8-bij jpeg, AND< i use a small treshold value (2-4) to prevent artifacts. For a 2400dpi scan of a 35mm or 6x6, i use USM with a radius of 4 to 6, depending on the case, sometimes even 3, and an "amount" of 40 to 70.
Film flatness is indeed an issue,as well as the height of the film above the glass. Pick a really nice sharp frame, put it in the holder, and do a test of your own with the height adjustment thingies. Scan the same thing w same setting, three times: with the heigh adj pointing towards the plus sign, then without them, then pointing to the other way.

Also, i don't usually apply any sharpening via the scanner software, only later in photoshop.
If you scan and dowensize for displaying on the web, two more things to consider:
Reducing image size in PS works best if you reduce to 50%, 25%, 12.5% etc, thus exactly to half quarter etc, not some weird in-between number. It's ju8st how digital resizing works🙂
Then, sometimes when you downsize, another round of USM will help alot. With much smaller radius, of course (a 800 pixel wide/tall image usually works best for me with a radius of 1.3-1.5 and an amount of 50-80 or even more).

Many of my images in my gallery are scanned on this scanner. Some are scanned with an amazing sharpness, but the best ones are from slides, not negatives...
Don't give it up.

 

[Pherdinand]

Your example does not show up.

 

[Roma]

The example is not showing up

The example is not showing up

I'm relatively new here and still don't know how to properly attach images to posts. Can someone tell me how to attach photos to my posts?

The link to the shot is here:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=51342&cat=500&ppuser=7866.jpg

Pherdinand and Vince,
I do the USM in Photoshop, it's still not that great. I'll try your suggestions though.

I think a big part of the problem is the height adjustment and negative flatness.

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

I like your shot, Roman! And, btw: it doesn't look like it lacks sharpness, or at least at this size.. Please forget the infrared cleaning remark I made, your picture does not suffer from this 'common scanning beginner problem'.

Which USM settings did you use? I assume the picture size was something like 2400x3600

Now this is _my_ approach, so others might disagree (and I don't use a flatbed so it's a bit of wild guessing): zoom into your freshly scanned image to e.g. 500% at the place of the hardest (sharpest) edge in brightness in your picture. Count how many pixels are necessary for the transition (from light to dark). Take half of that as radius of USM, threshold=0. Now play with the amount (you might need even 200% or so) watching the preview at 66-100% size. Note that this is what I'd do (and I might be not the biggest expert 😉 )

 

[Pherdinand]

...And the result is like your avatar, Robert?🙂
Sorry, just teasing you.
It's a good trick what you say there, by counting pixels🙂
However I see that it's tri-x pushed to 800... Not the ideal case for best sharpness, i guess! Anyway. If all goes fine, you should be able to see the grains of tri-x (even un-pushed) when using the V700 at 2400 dpi (eventually, after some USM). Do you?
If you don't see the grains then it's something out of focus on the scanner; play around with the height adjusters. If the film is not flat, at least the central OR the edge region should be possible to get in good focus and make the grains visible.

Another thing: When printed, usually less shaprpening is required. That is, on the screen an image always looks less sharp, until you apply USM. Or the other way aroiund, when you scan a negative and want to print, it does not have to look super sharp on the screen in order to get a sharp image on the paper.

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

...And the result is like your avatar, Robert?🙂

😀

Btw: I thought you'd need more sharpness for prints than for screen display.. 😕

 

[RObert Budding]

I have an earlier 4990 Epson scanner. Sites such as photo-i.com and kenrockwell.com claimed it was as good as a film scanner. What a load of cr*p! Now I'm saving my pennies for a Nikon Coolscan 9000.

 

[Roma]

Here is what I came up with

Here is what I came up with

Thank you for your replies Robert! I tried to mess a bit more with Photoshop to get better sharpness. I ended up using what you and Pherdinand recommended and also put the image through a small amount of High Pass filtration to get better blacks. The scanner doesn't give me as much dynamic range as the traditional dark-room print does, but the final image looks a bit better than what I posted before.

Here is my final scanned negative scanned without the height adjustment feet on the film holder:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=51547&cat=500&ppuser=7866.jpg


Pherdinand, this was a T-Max 400 pushed to 800 shot, not a Tri-x. It's actually not all that grainy printed on silver halide paper in a dark-room. It looks worse on the screen. I have some prints where I pushed Delta 400 to 1600 and developed in DDX and it's still very clean.

Here is an example of a scanned silver halide print with NO sharpening or any other manipulation. This was Delta 400 pushed to 1600, printed in the dark room and scanned with V700.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=51548&cat=500&ppuser=7866.jpg

 

[Pherdinand]

Now, that looks better.

My v700 works best with the little tabs set to assure the largest film to glass distance, assumed the film is flat enough.
The real pain comes with the MF holders where the film surface is large and the film is heavy enough so it will bow downwards or upwards almost inevitably. This is easy to see when I scan e.g.a a 6x6 frame of delta3200...the grains at the edge are smeared out while in the center they are dead sharp. Or other way around, with different distance setting.
I can't upload an exaplme to show this since the full 6x6 frame at resolution needed to see the grains is *slightly larger* than the allowed file size here 😀

Anyway, I like the results. I think it's a good scanner. Certainly not up to a multiformat dedicated film scanner; certainly i would swap it for a MInolta Multi pro or such, any day! but for a fifth of the price, i think it's great.

 

[lZr]

I use Epson 4990 and it is nice piece of hardware and software. Sharpenning is the last action one will do before save. For every final size, sharpen is different

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I would contact Doug at betterscanning.com as i recently purchased alongside the MF holder with AN glass inserts - a glass insert to fit in the OEM Epson 35mm film holder - this certainly improves film flatness and isn't expensive.

 

[irq506]

Hi folks,
I'm quiet disappointed with scanning 35mm negatives on my Epson V700. (...)

Hey, if you still dont like it, I might buy it from you. hey im serious Im not being a Jackass, I need a scanner but cant afford a decent one like this.