What's this on my scans?

[wyattspalding]

I've been getting this really weird artifact on most of my scans lately. I'm using an Epson v550 and scanning 35mm (I know it's not an ideal setup). Does anyone know what it is and how I can fix it?

 

[BernardL]

Newton rings. Caused by two shiny surfaces in close contact, with a micrometer-scale air gap. I assume you have the negative resting on the scanner glass. Try flipping it on the other side, emulsion down. The idea is that the emulsion side is dull (as opposed to the substrate) and less prone to Newton rings; reportedly some films have the emulsion side shiny also, invalidating that option. You will need to activate the "mirror" option.

If you have another glass plate above to press the negative, that won't solve your problem. You will need to replace that upper glass plate with a so-called anti-reflection glass (actually lightly frosted), found at framing supplies stores.

 

[bence8810]

If you have another glass plate above to press the negative, that won't solve your problem. You will need to replace that upper glass plate with a so-called anti-reflection glass (actually lightly frosted), found at framing supplies stores.

Definitely newton rings as suggested above!

By the way, even with the Anti-Newton ring glass I have issues from time to time and then I just move the negative around a little and that usually takes care of the issue.

Off topic but might be interesting, I even saw some newton rings on wet-prints I did using a glass negative carrier which was frosted on the top side. A hard thing to beat for sure...

Ben

 

[wyattspalding]

Thanks a lot guys! I flipped the film so that the emulsion side was facing up and it fixed the problem at least for these negs. I found some other methods on some blogs that I will try out if flipping the negative doesn't work. 😀