Topic: scanner problems

[seekingfocus]

Been having some trouble with my scanning my medium format films lately... using an Epson 4990, no sharpening in scanner software or otherwise.

It seems there's some type of artifacts or something showing up in my scans (see photos) and I'm thinking it's possibly dues to the film not being quite flat in the negative holder? I've gotten them on and off in the past but lately the last couple of batches seem to be more pronounced than usual...

Is this something a glass negative carrier might solve? Does any one use them or have any other ideas that might help? I've always rather avoided the glass carriers since it just seems to be a lot of extra work. Though if I'm not going to get usable scans anyway, who knows...

-Jason

[seekingfocus]

All seems ok at the smaller size...

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[seekingfocus]

But with some crops at about 50% full size and the larger version of the file (http://www.reciprocityimages.com/proofs/20071217_Tyler.jpg) show it much more clearly:

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[david b]

Those are Newton rings.  One quick thing to try is scanning the film the other way up, this often works although it remains a common problem with flatbed scanners.

[seekingfocus]

So, emulsion side down instead of up? Then I'd get a reversed image that would need to be flipped, correct?

Thanks for the quick reply!

-Jason

[david b]

Yes and yes.

I think it also depends though on what film you're using - I remember having terrible problems with Newton rings when scanning Agfa films which had a very thin base, and far fewer with the thicker and stiffer Ilford varieties.  In my flatbed days I also used to use the MF holder sold by betterscanning.com which improved matters quite a lot.

[seekingfocus]

Thanks, David. I'll give it a try and see how that works then. BTW, this example was with Kodak Tri-X 400, though I scanned a batch of Ilford Delta a few days ago, and a few images did have some newton rings, though certainly not as pronounced.

I was looking at the betterscanning filmhodlers just the other day actually, and they do claim to have glass inserts that eliminated newton rings (http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/insert.html), just wasn't sure if it was worth $100 for the holder and glass inserts... might have to think about it though.

-Jason

[seekingfocus]

Incredible! Made a world of a difference. Thanks again, David.

Now I'm wondering why in the heck the scanner manufactures would tell you to put the film in the other way if it's gonna cause problems! 

-Jason

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[david b]

Great, glad it worked!

[al]

They happen if the film actually touches the scanner glass, so if the negative is curved badly, place it so it curves away from the glass.    I've also used tape at the neg carrier edges to hold the film tight, but don't recommend doing this at it leaves gluey gunk on the carrier which is a pain to remove! Grrrr!

[seekingfocus]

Yeah- I've resorted to tape many times in the past!

-Jason

[Wally]

FWIW I do that with my films, and for some strange reason with 90% of my landscape stuff I find it looks better flipped so I don't flip it back with photoshop