extreme grain when scanning black and white film.

<p>Hi!<br>

I shoot a Mamiya 7 which produces 6x7 negatives.<br>

Made shots at dusk, and the lighter part of the sky looks perfect on the negative, normal very fine grain) but when scanned I get extremely coars grain.<br>

I use an Epson V750 pro at 2500 DPI and silverfast software. The image was saved as a JPEG of high quality (Photoshop 12)<br>

Can you tell me if there's something that can be done about it?<br>

Here is the shot, first the complete image, and then an area 600 pixels wide.</p>

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<p>600 pixel wide part of the image (a bit to the left and above the tower)<br />The neg looks perfect.<br>

You can see the tower is normal, no visible grain.</p>

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<p>ICE option (or Epson equivalent) checked?</p>

<p>Applying overall sharpening always seems to exaggerate grain.<br>

I'm not familiar with the Epson scanner so I don't know if sharpening is applied at the scanning stage. If so maybe it can be reduced or turned off.<br>

I got better results by applying sharpening in Photoshop, but only to those areas that needed it.</p>

We have used our V700s a bit for film scanning, but this is unusual.

 

The only advice I will give for now is that 2500 is not one of the "default" or "detente" or pre-defined settings. I would

try 2400 ppi.

 

Judging by tests of scanning times, the detente settings are as per those that the scanner actually works at. Other

settings you type are really only interpolations.

<p>1) Put your epson scan in pro mode. Go into configuration and under the color tab, select "No Color Correction". You will now notice all the correction options are grayed out. Do a scan of the image, but save it as a 16 bit tiff. You will notice that it is dark. It is supposed to be.</p>

<p>2) Bring it into PS (or what ever you use) and do an "auto-levels".</p>

<p>Now look at the area in question. If it is smoother you know this is how you need to do your important scans. Otherwise I would suggest you up your dpi on the scan and reduce during post processing.</p>

<p>There's no question that sharpening exaggerates grain. And so does the ability to zoom in on the screen.</p>

<p>The real question is, at the size print you wish to make, are you still seeing excessive grain?</p>

<p>You may be producing "grain aliasing."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Grain.htm">http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Grain.htm</a></p>

<p>I'm wondering if the scanner is underexposing and producing noise. The light parts are the densest part of the negative. I don't know your scanner but are there any options to increase the hardware exposure? Sometimes I scan twice and blend it together in post to extend the scanner's dynamic range. Here are a few thoughts: http://jingai.com/scanningguide/slide%20exposure%20blending.html</p>