Scanning(?) Artifact

Hi,

 

If this is the wrong place for this kind of thread, let me know. Or just move it to where it belongs.

 

This is a 100% crop from a frame I scanned yesterday. It has a line right down the middle of it that doesn't represent anything that was actually in the scene. It's not, for instance, the reflection of a power line or anything like that. It's also not just this one frame. It's definitely there in the next two frames too, and it may be present, but not noticeable, in all of them, for all I know.

 

I know I can clone it out, but does anyone know what would have caused this? (I haven't adjusted the exposure, yet.)

 

Not sure, but it looks similar to what I sometimes get when there is dust on my filmscanner - but not sure what kind of scanner you use. This kind of dust should be difficult with something like a flatbed, and pretty easy with scanners like the Reflecta/Pacific Image or Plustek scanners.

If the line runs in the same direction as the scanner runs across the frame, my bet would be dust on the scanner itself.

Hello everyone. I have noticed a similar line on occasions with my V600. This is a SWAG, but I think it is one of the LED lights not "on" or being blocked by some particle of "dirt". My line has always appeared in the travel direction of the top light source. The scanner is "cured" by being turned off / on.

The offending scanner is here in Hawaii, so the tropical climate might also be a factor. Since purchasing & using a Digitdeckcovers unit & cleaning BOTH glass surfaces before each scanning session, I have not had this line repeated in over a year. Aloha Bill

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I solved the problem, at least for now. The bad news is, I don't know what fixed it, because I tried both solutions, turning the scanner off and back on, and cleaning both sides of it. FWIW, this is a flatbed Epson V370 Photo and, yes, the line runs in the same direction that the scan head travels.

Well, this time I have bad news and more bad news. The bad news is that the stripes are back, despite restarting and re-cleaning the scanner. The additional bad news is that they've brought friends. Now, it's not just one fuzzy purplish stripe, it's two distinct sets of stripes.

 

This is at 100%.

 

And this is at 300%, centered (sort of) on the stripes on the right in the image above. It appears to be made up of yellow, red/purple, and green stripes.

 

Looks like I'll be contacting Epson, but has anyone seen this before?

Hmm. Further research on the web seems to point to it being a calibration problem caused by dust in one particular area, but I don't know where that area is. I did notice that there are three tiny little holes in the film holder that could be used for calibration, I guess. I didn't see any dust in them, but I used canned air to blow them off/out. I also gave the bed glass another good wipe with a lens cloth. There is no glass in the lid; it's got a translucent plastic panel over the light. I wiped that, too.

 

I tried another scan and got more or less the same results, but the stripes were in completely different locations! So, it looks like something I did had some effect, but not the desired effect. And I still don't know where this "calibration area" is. I suppose it could also be the big rectangular opening in the film carrier, below where the film goes. Ain't no dust getting stuck in that, though. It's measured in inches, rather than millimeters.

 

I hate using liquids on electronics, but I guess the next step is to try wet cleaning the glass and/or plastic. But, if it's going to be this touchy forever, the step after that may be returning it to Amazon, while I still can. I cannot maintain a lab grade clean room environment for this thing.

I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news. Wet cleaning the glass seems to have made the problem go away, for now. I still don't know where this critical calibration zone is, and I don't know if I want such a temperamental beast around.

 

But, it also seemed like there was some kind of coating on the glass that was not at all evenly applied. There were several distinct stripes, an inch or so wide, that responded quite differently to the cleaning liquid than the surround glass. So, maybe it just needed an initial cleaning to remove that, although there's nothing in the instructions about it. But, I've run two scans of the same negatives that had the stripes shown above, and the new scans are stripe-free.

There's generally a gap in the film holder, at the starting end of the scan, where the scanner sensor can see the full output of the back-light for the film. This has to be uncovered, and spotlessly clean. If there's a spot of dirt, it will just think the sensor pixels under it are weak, and make them read brighter (darker once flipped negative->positive).

Send it back while you can !

If the lines move about from time to time, it's most likely dust in the calibration area.

 

If they stay stubbornly put, then the dust is further in the system - on the mirror or on the surface of the CCD sensor.

 

Dust on the glass platen would just show up as a single spot where the dust particle was. It wouldn't get dragged the length of the scan.

 

Welcome to the joys of scanning!

There's generally a gap in the film holder, at the starting end of the scan, where the scanner sensor can see the full output of the back-light for the film. This has to be uncovered, and spotlessly clean. If there's a spot of dirt, it will just think the sensor pixels under it are weak, and make them read brighter (darker once flipped negative->positive).

 

Thanks, John. That makes sense because that's where the big rectangular opening is in my film holder.

 

Send it back while you can !

Thanks, Bill. I'm considering it, but I'm interested in your reason(s) for recommending it.

 

If the lines move about from time to time, it's most likely dust in the calibration area.

 

If they stay stubbornly put, then the dust is further in the system - on the mirror or on the surface of the CCD sensor.

 

Dust on the glass platen would just show up as a single spot where the dust particle was. It wouldn't get dragged the length of the scan.

 

Welcome to the joys of scanning!

Yes, platen! That's the word. Thanks, Joe. They definitely moved, most likely due to my cleaning efforts. But, are you saying that the calibration area is <i>not</i> on the glass platen? You think it's under the glass? That would be bad, because it doesn't look removable. And, if that's true, then I have NO explanation for why cleaning the glass would change the results.