Plaza de Armas, Cuzco, Peru

I'm interested in the perceived quality issues between two scans I've

done of the same picture. One is with a Nikon slide scanner and the

other is with a fairly cheap, flatbed scanner. Comments anyone?

 

-A.

FYI, here is a link to the older submission: Original scan

Arlo,

 

This is certainly a superior image: the picture over all is less murky, colors are better defined and areas with light are brighter. It sent me looking for the scanner, only to notice that it costs around $2000.

Beautiful! Love the colors.

Actually, I don't think you could see a quality difference between the two at 630x450 pixels. There is a difference in the color balance, and I actually prefer the other one; but you don't need to do a new scan to change either to the color balance of the other. A simple Curves move in Photoshop will do it. As for the "murkiness" of the other: could be, but a very small amount of Unsharp Mask eliminates that, too. For uploading to the web, your not getting much benefit from your expensive scanner, I'm afraid.

 

Probably the difference between the two scanning approaches would show up in a large print, but not in these web uploads.

 

hmm.. my opinion that its a bit under exposed specially the buttom left side,but still good composiotion , I like the contrast between the sky and the building.

This one is by far superior in image quality. The other one already shows nasty artifacts from sharpenning and jpeg compression furthr sharpening will decrease quality while increasing sharpness. On this one you can clearly see every individual brick. I could even tell you what time it was on this one. Although it may seem minor it does make a better impresson on someone viewing the photo.

 

This is a very nice photo. I love taking nighttime shots. The structure could use just a little more exposure but that would ruin the sky.

 

I would also crop in a little more. The left most part of the frame should be that rounded bright strcture and the shadowsaround it. Crop out the more modern looking roof lines on the left out completely. Then A little on the left and bottom to even it out a bit.

 

I'd say with that crop make a print that is a little lighter. Then burn in the sky and that bright structure on the left so it's not so bright and that would turn a great photo into an incredible one. Just my opinion.

 

 

Crop the bottom.

The quality difference is quite noticeable, and pleasing. The detail becomes more relevant, and the shadows contain more information. Good choice to upgrade.

Thanks! I can remeber the first one - YES this is a lot better! I was thinking to got for a coolscan also. Now I'm sure I will! It's a big difference!

I think a little more exposure would have given a better effect.

 

Also, cropping from bottom will make it better as this dark area draws a lot of attention but doesn't add much to the picture.

I agree that this shot is incredible. I only wish it were larger, as it would make a great wallpaper.

There have been several comments regarding the unfortunate size of the uploads, and I agree. However, on my pics, I include a link to my gallery at ww.deviantart.com. It is free, and they allow you to upload files of any resolution and size so you don't lose a lot of quality.