Any reduction in Provia 100F pepper grain of late?

[mendel_leisk]

I'm wondering if anyone has noticed any reduction in Provia 100F

pepper grain of late, when scanning?

 

This is what I was getting, about 18 months back. It's crop of 2820

dpi, upsized to 5640 and moderately sharpened:<div></div>

[ity]

Bloody good question! The pepper grain is the thing that puts me off this otherwise

most excellent film. But then I'm still in love with Kodachrome. Tried E100G ?

[jose f.]

Haven't noticed it much in the last 6 to 12 months, and I'm now working off stock bought in April. Blamed the processor until I heard other reports. It's relatively easy to rubber-stamp out of light areas if you're scanning.

[mendel_leisk]

Ian, I haven't tried E100G, but might just do that. Took a while to find a local source, and it's a bit of a drive, but nothing ventured...

 

Saw a comparison here:

 

http://www.photographical.net/kodak_e100g.html

 

Josef, I can't see cloning out pepper grain (and staying sane). Looking at my sample, the pepper grain is not the isolated darker blobs, but the lighter specks that are uniform and tightly packed.

[jose f.]

Do you also notice it in the finished prints?

 

Upsizing and sharpening is almost a worst-case scenario for calling attention to that kind of defect. As I said, it hasn't been apparent to me the last couple of months but I also don't find a need to sharpen a lot and don't make bigger than 6x9 inch scans off a 2800 dpi scan. Also use 4x sampling which might reduce the effect.

 

Wonder what Fuji would say if you sent them a sample?

[jose f.]

Have you seen this discussion?

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/film/fuji-pepper.shtml

 

Seems to address most of the points raised here, and I confess I thought your concern was the dark spots, not the light clumps.

[mendel_leisk]

Josef, I agree the sharpening does accentuate it. Thanks for the discussion reference. I guess I'm hoping Fujifilm has been listening to all the complaints and revising the way they produce their film base. I like the color and the fine grain of Provia 100, the pepper grain is a pain. I think no film is entirely immune, though some are better than others.

 

Near the bottom of the comparison page of the link I posted:

 

(http://www.photographical.net/kodak_e100g.html)

 

the 4800 dpi car pictures all show some degree of pepper grain. But the Provia is much more pronounced, I think.

 

With my archaic Deskjet 1000C, I have no problems. It's just on screen at 100%. Especially if you try any amount of sharpening.

 

Here's the same crop, but without sharpening, a little more subdued:<div></div>

[umd]

In my experience it seems inconsistent between different batches, some are severely bad, I can't say whether it got better or worse in time. I don't recall seeing that much grain on the light table and disappointed when I saw so much of it in the scans, and I had always related this to bad processing till I saw the mentioned article at the Luminious Landscape. NeatImage handles this kind of grain pretty well.

[phil_v.]

Fwiw, I've found that Grain Surgery 2 does a good job of clearing this up on 100F.

 

But like Ian (above), I still have a love affair with Kodachrome!

[jan_brittenson]

That doesn't look like particularly bad grain at all. Except it seems to show at relatively low resolution. I've attached a scan of RDP3 at 43MP (6000 ppi), which looks similar in structure but less pronounced. I don't find the "satin" texture particularly offensive or difficult to work with; it shows the quantization is from an actual real-world medium rather than an ethereal image projected by a lens. Personally I like that. Highly collimated light sources like LEDs tend to emphasize grain, so perhaps the difference in appearance is due to differences in illuminant.<div></div>

[mendel_leisk]

My Scan Dual light source is described as:

 

3 Wavelength Cold Cathode Fluorescent

[mendel_leisk]

For John Kelly in particular, and for anyone interested, this is provia100f scanned at 5400 dpi with Elite 5400, with ICE and Grain Dissolver. The pepper grain was giving me real problems before, with my Scan Dual II, see top of thread.

[mendel_leisk]

Woops, forgot to convert to jpeg. Try again:<div></div>

[mendel_leisk]

And this time with ICE and GD both off:

 

In both instances, unsharp mask of 500%, .3 rad and 0 threshold was used, to accentuate things.<div></div>

[jtk]

Mendel...thanks...the combo of grain dissolver and Ice are confusing the story for me. I'll reread, but I'd think gd alone would be the meaningful test (standard Ice has never seemed to affect sharpness).

 

I've just shot two rolls of Provia 100f...I'll scan with Nikon V straight-up, no adjustments, Nikonscan, and with Vuescan, with "slight grain reduction" ...neither one with Ice. And both with Ice. 4 scans each, one pass.

 

I don't expect to see any differences at all, other than from obvious dust, since the film will be fresh and cleanly processed tomorrow, when I scan it.

 

Stay tuned. :-)

[mendel_leisk]

John, this one's grain dissolver only, no ICE. Interesting exercise.<div></div>

[mendel_leisk]

Short of doing something sneaky, like physically disconnecting/removing the grain dissolver plate (yes, I've contemplated this), I can't do the fourth combo: ICE only.

 

I could resort to Vuescan, but then it's apples/oranges.

[rishij]

Hi Mendel,

 

Seems to me like the grain dissolver and ICE are working in conjunction to yield rather

spectacular results on reducing pepper grain... is that what you finally settled on to deal

with pepper grain?

 

Also, is the 'grain dissolver' an actual piece of hardware?

 

I recently ordered the scanhancer and have plans to test that with the Nikon LS-5000 to

yield a more diffuse light source. Pepper grain isn't *always* a problem for me, but

sometimes it is & I'd rather not pixel peep every scan :)

 

Cheers,

Rishi

[mendel_leisk]

Rishi, the Grain Dissolver is similar to the Scanhancer. I believe there was some collaboration between Minolta and Erik, and then a "falling out". Anyway, it is hardware level, a frosted panel that goes between the light source and the film.

 

I've opened my 5400 up to see: it is quite small, on the end of a paddle arm that swings in (or out) of the light path.

 

It is quite effective, especially in conjunction with ICE.

[rishij]

Dear Mendel,

 

Just ordered a Scanhancer from Erik for the Nikon LS-5000. Let's see how it performs. Apparently the LS-9000 incorporates some sort of diffuser, as pepper grain is not visible, yet sharpness is maintained. It's even better, in terms of pepper grain, than an Imacon Flextight 848, making the Imacon a hard choice to go for even when I have free access to it next to a Nikon LS-9000 (i.e., pepper grain, no ICE dust removal, etc.)

 

The multitude of considerations when scanning never ends!

Rishi