Scanning is Producing "Grey Areas"

[evanlberent]

Hi guys,

I have ( technically my father's...) a Epson 1660 Scanner which I've wiped down twice with a "wet" lens cleaning cloth, and see no

smudges, scratches etc where my developed photos are scanned. Except, when I finish scanning, i receive the following, these odd, seemingly random grey spots trickled throughout. I've also wiped the photos themselves,a nd checked to see any fingerprints... nada... I'm

pretty sure I've done it with all the photos.

This shot contains them in the sky,

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs32/i/2008/232/0/0/Seaside_by_Phosphotovescence.jpg

 

Third "yellow light" up from the bottom has a much smaller grey streak,

http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs32/i/2008/232/b/7/Focused_by_Phosphotovescence.jpg

 

The hand, and the face in the BG has similar spots,

 

The odd part was after rescanning certain images, the greys changed. Possibly it is physical, or maybe its some odd scanning

malfunction. Could it be these NEWLY (Only a few days old) developed photos have gotten some kind of dirt or oil on them?

 

Tell me what you can and if I can do anything about it.

Thanks!

[Ed_Ingold]

These spots look like a combination of a liquid stain and dirt or lint. You used a wet wipe - is it possible the glass was not completely dry? Did you change anything between scans of the same film?

 

My first guess is that you have junk on the slides (they were slides, right?). This can be hard to see unless you have good cross light and a magnifier.

[evan_goulet]

Are these scans from the negatives, or are these scans of printed photographs? You don't say which it is.

 

If these are scans of printed photos, then this looks to me like glossy print is adhering to the surface of the glass. I have seen similar marks when I have tried to scan glossy photo (particularly on a humid day). It seems that when there is too much of an interaction between the photo surface and the glass platen, the light gets refracted (or reflected) differently. I never found a good workaround for it in some cases. Scanning a matte photo results in picking up some of the matte texture, unless you scan at low resolution.

[evanlberent]

Yes they are Freshly printed photos, sorry about that. Posted this just before I fell asleep around 4am! (didn't realize there

was a "digital darkroom" either, pardon me.)

 

I'll try to double check for anything moist when I rescan. Thanks.

[jtk]

You can't remove easily cleaning liquids without leaving residue.

 

The glass may seem dry and clean, but it probably isn't.

 

If I were you I'd take one side of a clean t-shirt and thoroughly rub down the glass. Then I'd take the other side and do it again. Then I'd hope the problems aren't on the inside of the glass.