On 10/17/05, jking@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <jking@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> by the time I have scanned my slides even with the minolta scan elite 5400
> they are not even close to what I see on the light table with a 10x loupe,
> there is less dynamic range with less shadow detail, its less alive, there
> are bags of general detail but its all soft it does not have the sharpness
> of the slide. The greens are no where near as saturated.
> James
Just a comment, you always lose some sharpness when scanning. You can
get a bit of the "snap" back by doing some sharpening post scan but
that obviously won't pull out detail that's not in the scan. Playing
with unsharp mask is one of the more common ways. I prefer to use a
technique I read online (on Luminous Landscape if memory serves). The
steps are:
1. Create a copy of the layer. If you've worked with multiple layers
up to this point you'd have to flatten them now (I leave sharpening to
the end because of this).
2. On the new layer run the high pass filter (I believe it's under
filter then other). I usually use a 10 pixel radius. You'll get a very
grey picture.
3. Set the layer's blending mode to "hard light". This will give a
very over-sharpened result.
4. Adjust the transparency to adjust the sharpening effect. I find 75%
is usually fine but sometimes go as low as 50%.
You can play with soft light and pin light but I find hard light works
best. Soft light sometimes gives a very good effect but sometimes I
find it's not as sharp as I'd like so I find it better to start with
too much and then dial it back with the transparency.
What I like about this is that the sharpening is in a separate layer
so it's very "tweakable". It's especially nice if you send digital
files out for printing as it allows you to adjust the sharpening at a
later date after reviewing the print.
As for colour saturation, that *should* be adjustable to get a pretty
good match.
But obviously dynamic range can be a big problem. If your scanner
supports it, try using multi-sampling. It should pull out a bit more
shadow detail as it will clean up the noise in the shadows. I'd also
recommend scanning in 16-bit/channel mode as this tends to give you
more leeway in where stuff gets clipped. Some scanners also have
exposure control and you may be able to do a 2nd pass with a "long
exposure" which can help pull out more shadow detail.
And finally, I'd recommend using Vuescan. I find that once you get
used to its interface you can really get much better scans than with
the (frequently abyssmal) packaged software. Not sure how Minolta's
software is but the software that came with my Canon 9950F was utterly
useless unless I was happy with the automatic settings (even in
advanced mode there was very little control over the scan).
That's not to say that there isn't still more information in the slide
that you're missing I just wanted to throw out some ideas for how you
might be able to get some better results from your scans.
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|