Looks like a scratch, but

My latest scans on my Epson V700 had a red line running across all of my scans. This was the first time scanning film from my new 3d printed 6x9 camera. The red line was in the same spot on all frames from two different rolls of film. The film was commercially developed on different days in the same lab. My first thought was a camera scratch.

I could not see the line on the negatives. I switched to a different negative holder which put the film in a different spot on the scanner and the line went away.

the scans that had the red line were held in a Epson v850 carrier with anti newton ring material. I used this holder before on my 6x17 negatives with no problem.

The 6x9 scans without the red line were held in a regular 120 carrier that holds two strips of film.

Any thoughts on what caused this?

I see a tiny, tiny, tiny little image with something that may or may not be a horizontal line...

Shaps said:

The red line

Click to expand...

Longitudinal lines that are pure red, green or blue often relate to a problem with the scanner's sensor or a calibration issue; either a defect in the sensor, dust on the sensor, or dust on the calibration area. Start by cleaning the calibration area, then take it from there.

Sorry for the small image, hard to get a correct size on my Ipad with Light Room.

koraks said:

I see a tiny, tiny, tiny little image with something that may or may not be a horizontal line...


Longitudinal lines that are pure red, green or blue often relate to a problem with the scanner's sensor or a calibration issue; either a defect in the sensor, dust on the sensor, or dust on the calibration area. Start by cleaning the calibration area, then take it from there.

Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by calibration area. Both carriers have been adjusted for the correct sharpness.

So your regular 120 carrier looks like this when placed on the scanner:



and the V850 120 carrier looked like this on the scanner bed?




The calibration area is the clear rectangle that shows up at the top of the scanner bed. And in both cases, the white triangles of the carrier should line up with the white triangles on the scanner bed.

Is that how you scanned the 6x17 neg?

I scan 6x17 negs all the time using both negative carriers on a V750 scanner with no problems. I also just tried using the Digitaliza 120 film scanning mask (using the Film Area Guide) to scan 6x17 and it worked pretty well too. That arrangement looks like this:

djdister said:

So your regular 120 carrier looks like this when placed on the scanner:

View attachment 412810

and the V850 120 carrier looked like this on the scanner bed?

View attachment 412812


The calibration area is the clear rectangle that shows up at the top of the scanner bed. And in both cases, the white triangles of the carrier should line up with the white triangles on the scanner bed.

Is that how you scanned the 6x17 neg?

I scan 6x17 negs all the time using both negative carriers on a V750 scanner with no problems. I also just tried using the Digitaliza 120 film scanning mask (using the Film Area Guide) to scan 6x17 and it worked pretty well too. That arrangement looks like this:

View attachment 412813

Click to expand...

Yes that’s what I have. Can dust get into the scanner from the calibration holes?

How it gets in there, I don't know, but sooner or later, there will be dust inside the scanner.

Note that when I referred to the calibration area, it's the clear strip of glass left free at the start of the holder, see here:

The glass there needs to be particularly clean and free of any dust. Start there as it's the easiest fix and also the most common cause of stripes on flatbed scans. If cleaning that part of the glass doesn't help, then you'll likely have to open up the scanner. At that point the first thing to do is clean the underside of the glass of the calibration area, if that doesn't help dig deeper until you get to the sensor. Most of the time you don't have to anywhere near there however. On the other hand, we have seen on this forum reports of a select few instances of Epson flatbed scanners with apparent sensor damage. If that's the case, nothing other than replacement and/or editing out the stripes from the scans will help.

Shaps said:

Yes that’s what I have. Can dust get into the scanner from the calibration holes?

Click to expand...

As Koraks notes, dust can and will get into your scanner over time, but I don't think its a dust problem. That calibration area needs to be clear at the very top of the scanner frame. The V850 carrier with the anti newton glass is a different beast from the v700 negative carriers - after loading the carrier you flip it over onto the scanner glass, make sure the two short "pegs" align into the scanner bed, and the two sets of white triangles should be pointing at each other. Is that how you scanned your 6x17 neg?

Scanner sensors can get dead pixels just as camera sensors and screens can. It would help to have a detailed image of the line.