Which scanner are we talking about? One of the reasons I shoot slide
film - I have less trouble getting good scans. The contrast in negative
film is lower, so more "amplification" is needed to pull out the
contrast, which means everything else gets increased as well. Scanners
with a collimating light source can often enhance the grain structure
and other defects (this is more than the grain-aliasing problem). I
know my nikon ls-4000 can enhance grain and I've heard the Minolta
scanners enhance grain, but I'm not up on the latest in scanning.
In my experience, I have less trouble with grain in slide film. My
negative film of choice is Reala. I have observed that to get good
scans I have to have good exposure. Under or over exposed negatives,
while print labs can handle the latitude, I have trouble getting
consistency with the scanner. I think it makes it difficult for color
profiles to really work with negative film that has variations in
exposure. One scan will look absolutely brilliant and the just
under exposed one will have color shifts and muddy look, not to mention
more grain. But, my negative scanning experience is limited. I've also
wondered if the 4th layer in the Reala film causes the variation in
scan results when the film has different exposures?
I'm looking for some examples to show, and maybe I'll rescan them as
well. Always scan at highest resolution and process down. If scanning
at a lower resolution you need to de-focus the scanner to gain any
benefits in grain structure. The de-focusing acts as an anti-alias
filter, since the scanner sampling aperture does not necessarily change
with lower resolution.
Wayne
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