Need your opinion on a scan sample...

[Gilo25]

This is a full resolution crop of an image I shot with Leica M6/Summicron 50/2 using Velvia 100 slide and scanned with a Noritsu minilab at 72 ppi (total image size about 18MB).
Apart from the skin tone which is not ideal (and may be due to the type of film), I find it too grainy. Can the grain be due to the film processing or the scan or both?
Many thanks for your usual help!

 

[charjohncarter]

From my experience with hundreds of scans from a Noritsu at Costco (mostly all not slide film). I would say this looks like most of mine. When I do Black and White negatives I copy them with my Pentax DL; one, it is convenient and two, I seem to be able to control things better than with the Noritsu or my own scanner. And I have noticed I don't get that look that you are dissatisfied with.

Goofing around this Winter I went though some of my old Color Negatives and Copied them; here is one slightly cropped, but the main thing is it doesn't have that aliasing look. I did convert from color to B&W.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=75636&ppuser=8685

 

[Joe]

Velvia scanned with a flex light(?) at ~5000dpi then downsized to 72dpi jpegs. Original and detail.

 

[charjohncarter]

That one looks a little better, to say the least.

 

[TJV]

Having worked quite a bit on the latest Noritsu machines I can tell you that they don't handle trannie very well at all, let along negative film. They're tuned for digital output and input mostly and the scans capture nowhere near as much detail and density as any other modern negative scanner like a Nikonscan. Don't know the D-Max numbers for the Noritsu but I've been fooled many times into thinking I've stuffed things up in my exposures, blowing out highlights etc, by looking at my proof prints only to find that a good scanner will pull everything thing I want back.
As for the grain, Noritsu machines have many settings to tweak, including sharpening and grain reduction. Most labs these days don't really have the right combo of settings and overshapen. Plus I always found the scans I did at work VERY grainy, even if I have tweaked the machine for output. If you see how fast the things scan your negs you'd understand why your image looks like this. It's sad that the turn to digital in mini labs has really killed the quality of traditional film photography. If a lab near you used an old optical machine, go there instead - although that'll be no good for your trannies.

J

This is a full resolution crop of an image I shot with Leica M6/Summicron 50/2 using Velvia 100 slide and scanned with a Noritsu minilab at 72 ppi (total image size about 18MB).
Apart from the skin tone which is not ideal (and may be due to the type of film), I find it too grainy. Can the grain be due to the film processing or the scan or both?
Many thanks for your usual help!

 

[RF-Addict]

It must be the scanner or you under-exposed the shot significantly and the scanner had to pull out the highlights, which produces a lot of grain. A well exposed slide should have hardly any visible grain when scanned

 

[benno]

When I do Black and White negatives I copy them with my Pentax DL;

Could you elaborate on that for me please? I was looking into that as an option instead of scanning my negs... just not sure how to go about it!

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Gradskater]

here is a similar picture I took. shot on kodak something-or-other iso200 and scanned with a plustek 7300. this is a much smaller jpeg and doesn't look nearly as good as the 60mb tiff file . This doesn't have the grain (noise?) you are seeing with your scan.

 

[Shac]

Noisy scan

Noisy scan

Hi - just for curiosity - I ran your scanned image through my copy of Neat Image. It certainly reduced the noise/grain (as it should) - but the bottom line is that the scan wasn't v. good to start with I'm afraid.
I hope the attachment works
Cheers
David

 

[Gilo25]

Thank you all for your inputs. So you seem all to agree that the problem is with the scanner, not with the processing of the slide?

 

[kipkeston]

It's probably the scanner yes.

 

[lZr]

Velvia is grain free slide when exposed well. Also, scanning at 72 ppi was not good idea at first.