Unhappy with Epson V500

[JeremyLangford]

this screenshot shows exactly what Im talking about. It seems that the Epson pixels are just completely unorganized and grainy looking. Once I edit these pictures in photoshop and downsize them for the web, the same sharpness difference that you can see in the screenshot is still apparent in the face in that picture.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/8823/fullscreen1tb7.jpg

Walmart scan is on the left, Epson V500 scan on the right. My Epson software is set 2400dpi, 1818px target size (Same as Walmart scan) 48bit, and with Grain Reduction, Digital Ice, Color Restoration, and Backlight Correction selected.

 

[ben@btwhite.org]

I think I would turn off the Grain Redution, as I think you are losing detail to it as I suspect the posterized look you are getting is from that. I would do the color correction in Photoshop, as the Colors in the Epson scan look overcorrected. I would agree the Epson scan looks quite soft, I am curious to see what it looks like with all of the special features of the scanner turned off.

My 0.02,

Ben

 

[RFOBD]

I'd try it without any of those software settings selected to see if it makes a difference...specially grain reduction. It already appears to be a pretty grainy shot so this software based grain reduction is going to have to take away a lot of image quality to reduce the amount of grain.

Edit: Ahh, beaten to the punch.

 

[hans voralberg]

this screenshot shows exactly what Im talking about. It seems that the Epson pixels are just completely unorganized and grainy looking. Once I edit these pictures in photoshop and downsize them for the web, the same sharpness difference that you can see in the screenshot is still apparent in the face in that picture.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/8823/fullscreen1tb7.jpg

Walmart scan is on the left, Epson V500 scan on the right. My Epson software is set 2400dpi, 1818px target size (Same as Walmart scan) 48bit, and with Grain Reduction, Digital Ice, Color Restoration, and Backlight Correction selected.

I guess that's 100% crop, otherwise you got some rather grainy neg to start with. Turn off everything on the Epson software, except USM. Try not using ICE, see how it goes. And btw that's about the worst scan I've even seen.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Here's half a roll I shot with a Robot Star on AGFA UC100, and scanned in the V500 at 2400dpi. All the scans looked terrible until I corrected everything in Lightroom. There was no easy template of settings that worked for all pics. (Granted, many of these were blurry and overexposed to begin with--I was testing the camera to see what needed repair.) I'm happyish with the results, but it took me three hours to do this.

http://flickr.com/photos/mabelsound/sets/72157604592053244/

Those moire type rings...those are artifacts of scanning? How the hell do I get rid of them? And obviously, I didn't use ICE, you can see dust everywhere...

 

[joachim]

Here's half a roll I shot with a Robot Star on AGFA UC100, and scanned in the V500 at 2400dpi. All the scans looked terrible until I corrected everything in Lightroom. There was no easy template of settings that worked for all pics. (Granted, many of these were blurry and overexposed to begin with--I was testing the camera to see what needed repair.) I'm happyish with the results, but it took me three hours to do this.

http://flickr.com/photos/mabelsound/sets/72157604592053244/

Those moire type rings...those are artifacts of scanning? How the hell do I get rid of them? And obviously, I didn't use ICE, you can see dust everywhere...

They are newton rings. Did you put the film directly on the glass (or glass mount your slides)?

 

[MikeL]

Jeremy, please turn all the software junk off. I can see why you are bummed. Looks like a software setting problem. Yuck!

 

[joachim]

this screenshot shows exactly what Im talking about. It seems that the Epson pixels are just completely unorganized and grainy looking. Once I edit these pictures in photoshop and downsize them for the web, the same sharpness difference that you can see in the screenshot is still apparent in the face in that picture.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/8823/fullscreen1tb7.jpg

Walmart scan is on the left, Epson V500 scan on the right. My Epson software is set 2400dpi, 1818px target size (Same as Walmart scan) 48bit, and with Grain Reduction, Digital Ice, Color Restoration, and Backlight Correction selected.

Looks out of focus to me, but might be an effect of all the things you checked. As suggested before, try un-checking them one by one, to see whether one or more of them do real damage.

You also might try vuescan. Even my Nikon Coolscan IV showed a dramatic improvement when driving it via vuescan. A demo download is free. Just all output is spoilt by $-signs - good enough to evaluate.

 

[aad]

I will fourth the motion-all the ICE, grain reduction etc. is killing the image quality. If you find the Epson scans too noisy (I doubt you will) get NoiseNinja or some such. Turn off all correction settings, except possibly auto-exposure.

ICE is really over-rated in my opinion, and all the other grain/scratch "tools" make evrything blobby.

I'd ditch the 48 bit color depth too, for now. It won't help your image quality and makes the files big.

 

[joachim]

ICE is really over-rated in my opinion, and all the other grain/scratch "tools" make evrything blobby.

You haven't seen the IR-scratch-dust removal in vuescan. That is actually very good, a lot better than the ICE software used in Nikon Scan 4.0.

But Jeremy really has to check, how the ICE on the Epson software is doing.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Ok. Heres a picture of the settings I used. (No Adjustments)

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/430/settingsjc9.jpg

And Heres the scan after I changed it to 600px tall in photoshop.

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4255/scanac1.jpg

 

[JeremyLangford]

I know that I should have to edit the scan from the Epson and get it to look the same as the Wal-mart scan, but I have been trying stuff all day and I cant get even close to getting as sharp as the Walmart scan.

The main problem is, with the Wal-mart scan I can take the unsharp mask up a ridiculous amount and the picture will still look fine (and obviously very sharp).
However, with the Epson scans, I can barely take up the Unsharp Mask because I just get this crappy grain look that comes out.

 

[JeremyLangford]

I am pretty convinved that theres nothing I can do to get my pictures as sharp as I want. I think I am going to have to sell my Epson and get a better scanner. Im super bummed out about it though.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

They are newton rings. Did you put the film directly on the glass (or glass mount your slides)?

I put the neg film right on the glass, because it was too bowed to stay in focus otherwise.

Is there a way to have them right on the glass and avoid the rings?

 

[MikeL]

I am pretty convinved that theres nothing I can do to get my pictures as sharp as I want. I think I am going to have to sell my Epson and get a better scanner. Im super bummed out about it though.

Jeremy, it sounds like you are convinced. I still think you have a settings problem (film height or software). I'm not near mine right now, but why is it scaling at 53%? All I know is if I had to rely on Walmart/Walgreens scans, I'd dump film like 1st period French.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Jeremy, it sounds like you are convinced. I still think you have a settings problem (film height or software). I'm not near mine right now, but why is it scaling at 53%? All I know is if I had to rely on Walmart/Walgreens scans, I'd dump film like 1st period French.

Thats what Ive always though. Maybe its just my Walmart, but my Walmart scans truly do blow my Epson V500 scans out of the water.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Ok. Heres a picture of the settings I used. (No Adjustments)

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/430/settingsjc9.jpg

And Heres the scan after I changed it to 600px tall in photoshop.

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4255/scanac1.jpg

I took that Epson scan^ and edited in photoshop to get the best possible result. I also took my Walmart scan and got the best possible result in photoshop. Here are the end results.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8084/comparesx5.jpg

(you may have to click on the picture somewhere to see it full size)

The Walmart scan is on the left and the Epson V500 scan on the right. If you look at the subjects face, you can see that difference I am talking about. The Walmarts scan is crystal clear and the pixels look clean and organized. The Epson scan just looks horrible if you look close at the face.

This is truly a very dissapointing thing for me to find out about my scanner.

 

[Ducky]

Please pardon a simple question, did you set all default settings and calibrate the scanner before using? Most have a reset and calibrate in the toolbox someplace.
I have a $99 canoscan 4400 that was good from the start. I recilabrate periodicaly but have had consistantly good results.
From the example posted either reset defaults, turn off all "assists" and go at 1200 dpi. Otherwise, I'd return it.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Please pardon a simple question, did you set all default settings and calibrate the scanner before using? Most have a reset and calibrate in the toolbox someplace.
I have a $99 canoscan 4400 that was good from the start. I recilabrate periodicaly but have had consistantly good results.
From the example posted either reset defaults, turn off all "assists" and go at 1200 dpi. Otherwise, I'd return it.

I will try that but I think the problem is in the detail that the scanner is able to get. Its just not good enough for what I want (as you can see from the comparison picture.)

 

[Gray Fox]

First off, I would say that by laying the negs on the glass that the height is probably incorrect and the scanner cannot focus properly. I would also suggest putting your negs in a sleeve page and flattening them under a stack of books overnight, then trying them in the OEM neg holder. I have an Epson 4490 which gives good results with the above method, and even better results with an after market adjustable height neg holder for 6x6 and 6x9. All of the above does not mean that you might have gotten a bum scanner, though. Just tossing a couple ideas into the mix. Oh, I, too have had good luck with Vuescan's IR dust and scratch remover with the scanner set to the lowest USM setting to counteract the slight softening. Think I read that tip on here a while back.