Scanning slides - is this what is expected?

Hi all

 

Just got a batch of slides processed in the USA and back to my country and been scanning. I don't do this often as I have to collect them up. This is 35mm Kodak E100G, been stored in the freezer since day 1. How does this scan look to you? Not that concerned with the detail, after all it is a flatbed scanner.

 

I scanned at 2400 dpi, TIF, 48bit color using Epson Scan, no sharpening and adjusted the histogram so the shadows and the highlights are not clipped and post processed in Lightroom.

 

I appreciate b/w and C41 film a bit more with scanning. Slides to me look a bit dense. I have used Velvia 50 in the past so this time I went with some E100G for that reason.

 

 

Many thanks in advance :)

 

I don't think there is a good answer to this -- how is this different from what you photographed / expected?

The nice thing about slides is you have the original for direct comparison with the scan. with negative film, you have no frame of reference other than your skill ad adjusting the results and your personal taste.

That's far too blue by anyone's standards. It looks like Tungsten film exposed to daylight, but I see that E100G is daylight balanced.

 

There's something amiss somewhere. If the slide looks like the scan, then it's been badly processed at a guess. OTOH, if the slide looks "normal", then the scan settings are all wrong or the green channel is faulty.

 

"...with negative film, you have no frame of reference."

- That's why exposing the first frame to a reference colour swatch such as a Macbeth chart is a good idea. It keeps the processing house on their toes too if they think they're dealing with someone who knows what they're doing.

Looks way too magenta to me. Blue might be expected in a dusk shot, but that much magenta is aberrant.

It is not clear how this scene was when taken but with some tweeks in photoshop this is what can be achieved.

I would expect a sunset scene to be predominantly red/yellow/orange, not blue. Blue + red = magenta; hence the shot is blue heavy. I've never seen mauve clouds at twighlight/sunset.

Many scanners/software will produce a reasonable facsimile of existing slide colors from Kodak films at the default settings. Sometimes, however, intervention is needed to balance out things to what seems "natural" and also to achieve what you want in the final image.

 

Since neither the original medium nor the scanning process is ever "true" or "neutral, the scan is only a starting point, period.

 

Some of my earlier experiences are here and at other links therein (LINK)

 

[a long line of gibberish in the middle is a pasted in image that didn't survive the transition to the new system here--just keep on scrolling)

I've never seen mauve clouds at twighlight/sunset.

 

I have to say I have often seen mauve colors, most frequently after 1859 though. Before that we didn't know what to call it.

When scanning slides, the question is not do the colors look right (e.g., compared to dusk in our memories), but does it look like the slide. That is the fundamental starting point for successful scanning. Afterwards you can tweak to your hearts content, even change colors, eradicate blemishes, or crop freely.

 

On of the things I've found is that the colors in scanned slides look like film colors, not what we generally see when using a digital camera. It is very difficult to make a scanned image look like film, but making scanned slides look like slides is surprisingly easy.

 

I use Silverfast to calibrate the scanner, using a standard color chart on Ektachrome film (with a digital reference file). You can get a Kodachrome reference too, which is advisable if you scan a lot of Kodachrome. If you record the images with 16 bit color depth, you have a lot of room for adjustments.