I have had my SprintScan for about a month and have seen similar problems,
especially super graininess and posterization of the shadows in shots taken
with Kodak Portra 160NC. This is especially true with the Polaroid Insight
software.
I upgraded SilverFast to AI 5.5 with Nega Fix, and is does quite a bit
better job, but not always great. Be especially careful to specify flesh
tones if they are present, otherwise you get grainy posterized orange cheeks
in Caucasian skin.
If you scan as raw color slide, 16bit (or HDR 48 bit color in Silverfast),
and then undo the orange mask yourself in Photoshop, you will not see this
posterization--so I think it is an artifact of the algorithms used to undo
the negative mask.
I undo the orange mask by going into levels and adjusting the black and
white points separately for R, G and B, and then inverting. After that I
usually go into curves and increase the contrast by shaping an "S" curve.
By the way, do you find that you have to flatten the negatives to be able to
see uniform grain? The only negatives I have that scan well have been
sitting in a notebook for about a month and are very flat. Fresh negatives
don't scan well.
Mark Davison
Seattle Washington, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Auckland" <craig@aucklandphotographer.co.uk>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 1:50 AM
Subject: filmscanners: Sprintscan 120 problems - negs
> HI
>
> I brought the sprintscan just over a week ago and have had problems
scanning
> negs - they seem to display quite visible noise; I think this is a scanner
> problem but wanted to confirm. As with most problems it is best to view
for
> yourselves so if possible please look at
>
> The image is a section of a 6x9 NPS neg (about 500k); a variety of negs
> display a similar fault, as do using various software packages
(silverfast,
> vuescan etc)
>
> I need to know whether anyone else has seen this problem, especially
people
> also using the sprintscan 120.
> Thanks in advance for your help
>
> Regards,
> Craig
>
> _______________________________________________
> Craig Auckland | Photographer
>
> Tel: +44 (0)7930 337 226
> Fax: +44 (0)7931 607 428
> Email: craig@aucklandphotographer.co.uk
> Portfolio: www.aucklandphotographer.co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> providing images of the built environment
>
>
>
>
