Having trouble getting crisp scans from a V500 flatbed/colour management

[peter_youssef]

<p>Hi all,<br>

I have a few questions regarding scanning film. I scan into photoshop so all my photographs are in Adobe RGB, however they seem too grainy and not very crisp. I'm scanning 6x7 negatives at 300 DPI (though 1200 wasn't making a difference). I'm leaving all the Epson software settings off. I size the photographs up to about 15x13.</p>

<p>Also, if I'm working in Adobe RGB, is it proper to set my iMac display colour settings to Adobe RGB?</p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>Could you post a scan, so we can see what you are dealing with?</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p>Yeah here's something I'm working on</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrfxe2O8YW1qmhsjzo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1315968895&Signature=s0hcy43fKOmShbElDHBIIUE3WsQ%3D" alt="" /></p>

[richardsperry]

What magnification are you looking at them in Photoshop ?

 

If it's an off number like 67% or 52 for example you will see aliasing. While 100, 50, or 25% will not have the aliasing.

 

I don't see anything obvious with the posted pic. You may want to post sharpen though. And if youre upsizing you may want to scan at a higher resolution, then upsize to 300dpi output.

[peter_youssef]

<p>ok thanks for the suggestion. The posted image has unsharp mask done to it. I just feel like when I zoom in (in PS), especially around dark areas, I see lots of grain. The film is Fuji Pro 400, can that have something to do with the quality?</p>

<p>now for a question on colour, my iMac profile is set to Adobe RGB, and I scanned the negatives as Adobe RGB files, so I did the editing based on the colours I saw under those display settings. Should that print relatively well on an an Epson 3880?<br>

I'm thinking of purchasing a monitor calibrator.</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>Definitely get a calibrator as you don't want to use a working space as a display profile (you're better off using no display profile.)</p>

<p>400H will look a bit grainy in the shadows. If that bothers you increase exposure a stop or use a finer grained film. You can also use a program like Noise Ninja to remove grain. In general I don't worry about grain on properly exposed images as it is the structure of the image and rarely looks bad when printed.</p>

[richardsperry]

I misread your first post.

 

Are you scanning photos or negatives?

 

If you're scanning negatives, 300ppi is way too low. The conventional wisdom here is that the V500 maxes out at

2000ppi. Regardless of that, I scan at 6400 at 50% or 25% size. Minimum scan for me would be 2000 at 100% size.

[starvy]

<p>You really need to be scanning at least around 1800 dpi to get acceptable results. However, scanning is itself a bit of a craft and needs to be mastered. I have made so many posts here regarding scanning technique and had much helpful advice from the members. After almost four years of scanning I am only beginning to feel that my efforts are worthwhile!</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p>Thanks for all the suggestions.</p>

<p>In the ppi selector, the max is 1200 i believe and the rest is all greyed out. Not sure why that is. Also I tried scanning at 1200 but it took too damn long and the files were like 4gb, am I doing something wrong?<br>

Also, a calibrator is in the works, I just don't have the funds for it at the moment. Should I ditch Adobe RGB profile for the standard iMac display profile? what about Epson RGB?</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Your are scanning to a target size greater than 100% or something like that so the scanner won't go above 1200ppi.</p>

<p> Set it up like this example, I have 35mm loaded in this example, your document size and target size will be larger as you have 6x7 film resize in photoshop if you want a different size document. I don't think the v500 really has resolution above 1800ppi but sometimes scanning a higher setting will help to drag out a bit more detail and seems to produce a cleaner image once downsampled. I don't bother scanning at 6400ppi it's just not worth it.</p><div></div>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Here is what I get from 35mm TriX with the v500 scanned at 2000ppi</p><div></div>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Here is another setting sample showing what happens when you increase target size and how the other sizes become greyed out.</p><div></div>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>You can see that now my target size is 300mm x 211.9mm thats about 12x8 inches. Now it is not possible to select anything larger than 1200ppi. When we adjust the target size to our print size we typically use the resolution required for printing which is usually 240-360ppi.<br>

In the example here we would have a file that is about 8x12 inches @300ppi</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p>Thanks a lot for that. I always thought I should scan at the size I want the final to be, as opposed to enlarging in photoshop.</p>

<p>So if I want to st the target size as the print size, I should scan at 300?</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Scan at what ever resolution your printer needs. Usually 240-360ppi. I tend to resize in photoshop myself rather than try to scan at exact size in the begining. The V500 is not the sharpest of scanners so you just have to apply enough unsharp mask to make the images sharp enough for use.</p>

[richardsperry]

<p>So, at a 1000% target size, you are really scanning in at 3000 dpi equivalent(to 100% target). </p>

<p>And at 1200, that would be 12,000 dpi comparatively. And with 48 bit(I scan at 16), it makes sense to me now why you were getting 4GB files.</p>

<p>It never occurred to me to scan for a larger output print resolution.</p>

<p>Anyway, my research has shown that many retouchers write or say they will sharpen a file about 3 times, capture sharpen, edit sharpen, and a post sharpen during the post process. I only just figured out and started to post sharpen, and do think that it makes a substantial improved difference on a monitor viewed image.</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>To answer your earlier question tell the operating system to use the stock profile that came with your monitor (or nothing if you have nothing) rather than AdobeRGB, Epson RGB, etc. Do try to prioritize a calibration device. I have an old Eye One Display and it's good enough for my uses.</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p>I'm all about the sharpening.</p>

<p>I'm still iffy about upsizing in photoshop though. I always thought that there was lots of data loss when moving up big gaps in sizes. I spoke to the lab technician at college and he confirmed that I knew all along: better to scan at the largest size you want to print and 300dpi. Upsizing in photoshop extrapolates the bit of data available into the size you're forcing it to be. this causes</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p>Thanks Roger, I read up a little bit about the colour calibration and macs are "wonky" apparently, and I read it's best to use sRGB IEC###### or something to that effect. Though a calibrator is not out of the question, just need to round up $200.</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>I don't usually upsize the scan usually I am down sizing for smaller prints.</p>

[peter_youssef]

<p>But in your screen shot, your target size is the same as the negative size, at high resolution. How would you print larger than those dimensions without upsizing? Doesn't photoshop upsizing cause artifacts?</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>It does not really matter, a 10 inch wide print @ 300ppi needs a 3000pixel wide image. so 10 inches at 300ppi is the same as 1 inch at 3000ppi. The inches and ppi are just tags in the header of the file, some page layout software will read them and so will the printer driver and some RIPs, when I resize in PSE I uncheck resample so no resampling takes place. I scan everything usually at 2400ppi at negative size. I sometimes try a higher setting to see if the image may look better, usually it does not it's just bigger with no more details.</p>

<p>I have to take the image into PSE to color correct, sharpen, remove dust and crop the excess edges away so I'd rather change the image size setting in PSE than set the target size in Epson Scan. When I downsample in PSE for a smaller 6x4 inch print then I leave resample checked and just set a smaller image size say 6x4 inches @ 300ppi.</p>

[john_simon5]

<p>There seems to be a bit of confusion about colour profiles. (I'm not sure if it's accurate to say Mac's are 'wonky' - they are generally better than Windows machines at dealing with colour profiles but historically had a different 'gamma'.) Even though it isn't the core issue it's one I can, hopefully, shed some light on.<br /> There is a difference between display/printer profiles and working space profiles and you should not mix the two up. A display profile tells the computer how your monitor displays a given RGB value. For example, (100,100,100) may display slightly red on your monitor. The computer can then calculate what set of RGB values it needs to display in order to get an objective grey. So, for example, if (100,100,100) is slightly red, it will send the monitor the signal (98,100,100) to generate a grey output. It is more or less the same with a printer profile - just telling the computer exactly how it will print a given RGB triplet.<br /> A working space is one way of assigning numbers to the universe of colours we can see. There are obviously a myriad of ways of assigning those numbers. While (100,100,100) is going to be grey in almost any RGB working space, it might be a brighter shade of grey in one rather than the other. And (255,0,0) is a different intensity/shade of red in Adobe RGB than in sRGB.<br /> Now, once an image is assigned a working space that is a statement of how the numbers in that file correspond to objective colours. If you change the working space you will change the colours. The display profile, on the other hand is kind of used in reverse by the computer to work out how to display the objective colours on your imperfect display in a way that looks closest to the 'true' colours represented in the file.<br /> Bottom line, as people have advised, is to get a calibrator that can determine exactly how your monitor displays various RGB triplets so that the computer can use that information to more accurately display your images. Built in profiles are better than nothing, but only very approximately. And using a working space profile (e.g. Adobe RGB) as a display profile is worse than nothing.</p>