Scanning 35mm Transparencies - Any Help Welcome.

[Lancashire Lad]

Thanks once again Geoff F.

I've had a look at your modded image and can certainly see a few differences.
It's difficult to judge whether this has fully solved my problems as I'm only able to view at the small resolution of the WAB upload image - as indeed you could on mine.

My concerns on these scans relate to areas such as the barracuda's teeth, where there seems to be an out of focus "shadow" around the teeth, (on my original scan), and general softness of focus overall.

Up to very recently, I was scanning at 24bit depth with very similar results. I've started using 48bit only because my system will allow it and I thought that it would wring out the last bit of quality.

You've given me some food for thought though, and I will certainly be trying what you suggest on both the original scan of this, and others.

By the way, I also agree with what you are saying on storage. I dread the thought of anything happening to the originals.

I'm doing these scans as a means of having the best of both worlds, to be able to make prints and easily show people. (My days of carousel projector slide-shows are long gone).

Regards
Mike.

[Geoff F]

Just another idea about an alternative 'advanced' sharpening trick which may be worth a go.

Duplicate the image and hide the original.

Possibly experiment by using the Erasure Tool to remove areas which don't need to be sharpened or sharpen badly. Feather the effect by reducing the tool opacity in several stages as you get nearer to the main subject. Try to end up with around 20% opacity. Vary the brush size as required. Cut in around the main image but you don't have to be exact as long as you are just outside.

Either way, sharpen this layer with the Unsharp Mask but slightly oversharpen. Still use 1 level of Threshold though. Try two passes, say first at 150% and then a second sharpen at 50%. Possibly a bigger radius on the second pass, upto 3 radius. Very approx suggested figures here.

Show the original background image now. Experiment with altering the duplicate layer Merge Mode (called other names in various programmes). Possibly Soft Light might work. Also experiment with reducing the duplicate layer opacity (transparency) maybe 70-80%.

If nothing else, this will be an interesting experiment. Some professionals always sharpen in this way.

[Lancashire Lad]

Geoff F

Tweaked some more "off scanner images" earlier today using unsharp masking based around your suggested values yesterday. The end results do seem to be slightly better than my previous efforts.

There doesn't appear to be any noticeable difference between the 48bit and 24bit image but I'll scan some more images at both depths before making a final decision as to which way to go.

Must admit, I hadn't thought of using layers and varying the opacity. This should get the best from slides that have one "stand out" subject with a bland / uniform background. The softer background would then serve to keep attention on the main subject.

Most of the slides I'm doing are no great shakes, so they don't really warrant spending lots of time on each one. But I will persevere with the hundred or so that I really want to get the best from.

I've attached one of the best results so far so that you can have a look.



Note that the female fish on the anemone was the focal point, the male was some way behind and was out of focus in the original shot.

Regards
Mike.

[Geoff F]

Looks fine to me. Images tend to go a little bit soft when resized here so it is difficult to see exactly how your original looks. But I can't see any problems with pixelation on what is a difficult background; so I reckon you are on to the answer there.

Photography and digital editing involves a steep learning curve - and you never finish learning.

[Davy Crockett]

Originally Posted by Lancashire Lad

Geoff F

Tweaked some more "off scanner images" earlier today using unsharp masking based around your suggested values yesterday. The end results do seem to be slightly better than my previous efforts.

There doesn't appear to be any noticeable difference between the 48bit and 24bit image but I'll scan some more images at both depths before making a final decision as to which way to go.

Must admit, I hadn't thought of using layers and varying the opacity. This should get the best from slides that have one "stand out" subject with a bland / uniform background. The softer background would then serve to keep attention on the main subject.

Most of the slides I'm doing are no great shakes, so they don't really warrant spending lots of time on each one. But I will persevere with the hundred or so that I really want to get the best from.

I've attached one of the best results so far so that you can have a look.



Note that the female fish on the anemone was the focal point, the male was some way behind and was out of focus in the original shot.

Regards
Mike.

Hi Mike, just noticed this post from 2008. i have loads of slides to convert, they always seem to be much darker that the original. Did you decide which way to go with equipment or did you sus it out. Cheers David

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi David,

In the end, I played around with the settings on the Epson 2400 Photoscanner scanner until I was getting the best out of it that I could, and I generally do a small amount of post scan tweaking with Paintshop Pro or Elements.

For the small numbers of scans that I do, it wasn't worth buying a dedicated 35mm scanner.

Regards,
Mike.

[Davy Crockett]

Cheers Mike every thing is helpful. Regards DC