How can I get better scanning results from labs?

[jean_hee_lee]

I recently had a roll of film scanned by a local lab, and was unhappy

with the results. I'm not sure what's wrong or how to correct it.

Can anyone see what might be wrong? Also, if anyone knows of a good

lab in Ottawa, ON let me know!<div></div>

[mendel_leisk]

You're not happy with the results.

 

You're not sure what's wrong.

 

Can someone tell you what's wrong?

 

Looks fine to me.

[dan_vidal]

That's about standard for a scan off of a Frontier machine. The pixel dimensions are consistent with what it generates, along with the quality. Don't expect a lot from it, it really isn't designed to generate exhibition quality scans. It is about good enough to do emails or web-postings...

 

I'm sure you paid next to nothing for this scan.

 

Check with the lab and see if they offer custom or drum scanning options.

 

I go through this battle all the time with customers, they want magic from a 10 dollar bulk-scanned roll.

[bjmarkowitz]

But Dan, I have gotten better quality than that at Costco. Costco's scans are great. A&I scans my film at extremly high quality. In fact they are the only ones I have seen that will give me TIFFs instead of JPEGs. Costco = $5, A&I = $10. The mini-lab by my office produces great scans for $8. Maybe you should invest more in giving you customers what they want rather than asking them to accept less!

 

Jean you should look for a lab that wll give you what you want. Don't settle for poor quality and crappy attitudes like "what do you expect from a $10 scan?" Thats BS! Never settle when you are paying.

[markus_ehrenfried]

I tried for quite some time to get scans of decent quality from several labs in my area. I

never got happy with the quality of the scans. Actually, your scan is *fine* for what you

can expect. I never really understood, how Frontier prints can look so perfect while they

are based on scans on which you can see even dust (like in your scan). You should really

decide, what your main application will be: do you really want 36 high quality prints from

each roll of film or do you sort out 30 of them and never look at them again as you like to

experiment? In this case you're probably better served by buying a film scanner, the

quality you get from such a scanner is SO MUCH BETTER than any Frontier scan. on the

long run it will even be cheaper: you look carefully at your pictures (which you scan from

slides or negatives), select the few you would like to print, manipulate them even in

Photoshop and let them print from a CD-ROM. I decided that this is the better solution for

me and never looked back.

[dan_vidal]

Believe me, I feel your pain. I know it can do better, but I'd say I'm under "orders" to steer people towards the pricier custom drum scans.

 

Such is the workplace I guess. Heck, maybe I shouldn't be posting this! :)

[van_camper]

You didn't specify the film format, but it looks like 35mm or less. The scan looks decent to me, the shadow detail isn't that bad in the stone work. In fact look at any desert shot (eg- monument valley), and the shadow side is as dark as what I see in your stone work ion strong sun. You didn't mention if it was slide or negative film, so it is hard to say. You didn't mention if there was detail in the shadows either. I'd say you got what you payed for, and better then most do. You can clean up the grain in a program called NEATIMAGE. It does a great job.

[mark_blackman1]

For those parts of the image in focus (the foreground), this scan looks pretty good to me, with good details in the shadows and highlights. As you have the orginal film, what differences can you see?

[jean_hee_lee]

I just want to thank everybody for their answers. I wasn't aware of things like the software to clean up grain and whatnot, and I will start looking into scanners since I have a ton of negs I'd like to convert. Any suggestions? I'm a student on a tight budget, so a lot of the ones I've seen are out of my range...