Help with poor scan from negative (Part II)

[yizen]

Hi everyone,

I recently got 7 rolls of negatives scanned by Color Lab Photo. The scans turned out to be very noisy / grainy. A sample scan is as follows.

The small version (scaled down using Batch Thumbs) is here:

http://www.stargazing.net/yizen/F1050025Small.jpg (200KB)

The original version is here:

http://www.stargazing.net/yizen/F1050025.jpg (3.1MB)

The strange thing is that I got 2 4R prints from the image files and they look good.

1) Why does this happen - i.e. why do the image looks poor on the screen but prints well?

2) What can I do to make the image look good on the screen? I hope to make a webpage out of the images I scanned. I do have photoshop, although I do not know how to use it.

Thanks for the help!

Yi-Zen

 

[yizen]

Terrible grammar:

"1) Why does this happen - i.e. why do the image looks poor on the screen but prints well?"

It should instead read

"1) Why does this happen - i.e. why does the image look poor on the screen but print well?"

or

"1) Why does this happen - i.e. why do the images look poor on the screen but print well?"

 

[ST1100]

What negatives were you using? Consumer 400 negs ARE grainy. Try Kodak Supra 400, if you need the 400 speed. Supposedly optimized for scanning.

The other reason is poor exposure, which would be a camera fault if it's wrong for all 7 rolls.

When downscaled, the grain is not visible. If you print at 8R, it might be visible. Larger than that, the grain would be quite visible.

You can use NeatImage (download trail version for free) or just photoshop to remove the grain.

How much did you pay for the scans?

 

[YSLee]

They're fine. Nothing wrong with them.

However your resizing program is pretty poor, use a program with a downsampling alogrithm.

Supra 400 will yield equally grainy shots; plus they've been discontinued.

 

[reno77]

They may have scaned the negative with only 1 pass. I'm not sure what scanning software they use but i find the white balance in vuescan makes dark pictures grainy. How about asking a friend with a film scanner to scan the picture using 8 time pass with no white balance but use Using PS auto levels or curves instead.

 

[Stoppable]

I have seen some of your problems too. But I scan my own negatives. I have resolved it setting my desktop settings to a higher resolution. Sometimes hi-pixed digital images do not look good on screen due to the computer squeezing the high number of pixels into one.

 

[yizen]

I forgot to mention that the film used was Fuji Superia X-Tra 400. I believe this film should be fairly fine grain?

What sort of program can I use to resize my images properly in batch? I don't think Photoshop can do it.

Thanks!

Yi-Zen

 

[GitS]

i think the lab may have screwed up......it shouldn't look grainy at screen resolution....

 

[GitS]

on second thought, i downloaded your original file and opended it in PS, it looks pretty OK, slightly grainy perhaps but bear in mind the amount of sharpening needed for output on the lab's machine print.