Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park

Hi y'all. Scanning question for you. I'm trying to get some new stuff up and going here. This one is from my recent trip. The slide is clear as a bell and color seems good to me, but doesn't look clear and is much darker after scanning. I can tweak the color a bit to lighten it, but have no idea what to do about the fuzzyness (is that a word? I guess my question is, does this have to do with my scanner or the way I am scanning/saving? Any ideas? In case anyone is interested, I'm using an Epson 1660 with slide/film adapter. Thanks!

Sorry, don't have a scanner myself so I can't help with the scanning question. Hopefully Steve or someone can. My biggest nit with this image is that the left side meander of the creek is cut off. Try panning more to the left next time to get it all or use a wider angle lens. Morning or evening light would probably improve this as well. Did you use a polarizer? It doesn't look like it. It would've punched up the colors on this. Otherwise this is a nice image. I have yet to get a landscape image from Hayden Valley that I liked well enough to share. Maybe this year.

I can't help you with the scanner question either...I don't use one anymore now that I'm digital, and I never really got proficient at using the one we had. I can, however, recognize a bad scan from thirty paces!

 

Donna, what program are you using to edit your images after you scan?

 

I'll offer a little advice on sharpening your photos. First, make all your adjustments, including getting the image size and resolution appropriate for Photo.net. When you're satisfied with the overall look of the photo, just before you save it, use the UNSHARP MASK tool to sharpen the image. Don't let the "unsharp" thing fool you. I exclusively use the UNSHARP MASK to sharpen my images. How do you know how much unsharp masking to use...I go as sharp as I can until I begin to get a look that is similar to film grain or color banding. Each photo is different. Let me know if you need more help.

 

Over and out©

Have you tried rescanning this one? Did you get the same effect, and if so, is this the only one it happens to? It almost looks like the slide is bowed a bit in the mount, which could be throwing portions of it out of focus in the scan. Do you have a projector? If so, try projecting it big on a wall or something and see if it shows the same thing. If so, that might be the problem, and it would be awfully tough to spot eyeballing it with a loupe. If this is the problem, you might have to pull the mount apart and redo it.

Doug, you are correct, no polarizer used on this one. I agree with needing a wide angle lens. Don't see that one coming for a while due to $$$. I remember that I was having a tough time getting all I wanted in view. I remember repositioning a few times to no avail. I still didn't get it quite right. Do I need to go back and do it again? hehehe. To be truthful, I wish I had taken more time at this location. I like it a lot.

 

Bubba, I am using Photoshop Elements 2.0. I tried the unmask thing today and can't say that I got the hang of it but also didn't have a lot of play time. I do know that everytime I barely touched the levels, it really threw things out of whack. Again, I'll give it another go. Pretty much all my photos come out looking unfocused online and I can't quite figure out what I'm doing wrong yet. The one thing that I've been very pleased with so far, is that most of my slides are clear and crisp. Maybe not perfect, but the majority are very much in focus. I lose it someone between the scanning, the saving and the posting. I have some slides from the last trip that I love, but scan so dark that I can't seem to do anything with them. Frustrating. Anyway, in the meantime I'll keep plugging them on here.

 

Thanks y'all!

I've been letting the photo processing place scan my pics to a CD lately. Usually much better than what I can do with a HP flatbed, though they do mess up occassionaly.

I played around with this a bit in Photoshop. Added some saturation and sharpened a bit.

I've also played around a bit with the photo and have made it a bit more crisp. The only problem is that I don't know how to replace this one without deleting it and losing all the comments. That's okay. At least my original is a bit better. I'd like to try having my photos put on a CD, but it's just another cost to add since I'd also like to have the original slides as well. I'll keep on playing. :)

Donna,

You should be able to replace the photo, without losing the comments, by using the "Edit Image Info" option when you display this image in your workspace. You can re-upload the photo from there, and I *THINK* the comments will stay in place. You might want to do a test on an un-commented-on image in one of your other folders first, just to make sure. If you need me to, I can make some bogus comments on a photo for you to experiment with. As always, I'm here to help!

 

Over and out©,