Scanning negatives - grain problems

m_liddell · Jun 27, 2007

All the film I have had scanned before has always been slide which I have sent out to a place that scans using a coolscan 9000. With scanned slides I have been relatively satisfied although the out of focus areas sometimes look a bit rough. I mainly shoot b&w which is all done traditionally.

I recently shot some colour neg film for the first time (portra 160vc) and the scans are pretty grainy, to the point where prints at 8x10 have visible grain - from 6x7 at iso 160 this is unacceptable. The neg is not underexposed. I now will often need to shoot colour neg since I sometimes do some wedding work or shooting landscape with my mamiya 7 where grad filters cannot be used.

Through extensive post processing with noiseware professional with extensive masking and only using capture sharpening part of the workflow with photokit the image is at a point where is printable without loss of sharpness at 11x14 but the shadows are still bad.

My reading on the net so far has indicated that CCD scanners often enlarge grain which has also been my experience scanning b&w even with acros. Drum scanning often has the same problems if they lab does not use wet mounting or appropriate skills/software apparently. Good pro lab scanning costs are crazy, 60 for just 150mb anyone? I know a lot of fashion pros use(d) portra 160 and 400 and all their work was scanned but I guess they had the budget to use top london labs to drum scan their negs.

1500 for a 5D without all the extensive post processing trying to minimise grain and massive scanning costs for drum scans is looking attractive, keeping film for traditional b&w only.

Any advice or other people's experiences would be great. Help save my mamiya 7 from ebay!!

sanking · Jun 27, 2007

Narcissist said:
All the film I have had scanned before has always been slide which I have sent out to a place that scans using a coolscan 9000. With scanned slides I have been relatively satisfied although the out of focus areas sometimes look a bit rough. I mainly shoot b&w which is all done traditionally.

I recently shot some colour neg film for the first time (portra 160vc) and the scans are pretty grainy, to the point where prints at 8x10 have visible grain - from 6x7 at iso 160 this is unacceptable. The neg is not underexposed. I now will often need to shoot colour neg since I sometimes do some wedding work or shooting landscape with my mamiya 7 where grad filters cannot be used.

Through extensive post processing with noiseware professional with extensive masking and only using capture sharpening part of the workflow with photokit the image is at a point where is printable without loss of sharpness at 11x14 but the shadows are still bad.

My reading on the net so far has indicated that CCD scanners often enlarge grain which has also been my experience scanning b&w even with acros. Drum scanning often has the same problems if they lab does not use wet mounting or appropriate skills/software apparently. Good pro lab scanning costs are crazy, 60 for just 150mb anyone? I know a lot of fashion pros use(d) portra 160 and 400 and all their work was scanned but I guess they had the budget to use top london labs to drum scan their negs.

1500 for a 5D without all the extensive post processing trying to minimise grain and massive scanning costs for drum scans is looking attractive, keeping film for traditional b&w only.

Any advice or other people's experiences would be great. Help save my mamiya 7 from ebay!!

Are you printing in color or B&W? If in B&W I would recommend that you scan in RGB and drop the red and blue layers. The green layer is almost always the one with the least noise. I have made a number of prints from ASA 160 color negative fmedium format film this way and grain has not be been an issue in prints up to 11X14 in size.

I would also recommend Bruce Fraser's Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2. He recommends specific steps for noise reduction prior to other image manipulations.

Sandy King

m_liddell · Jun 27, 2007

sanking said:
Are you printing in color or B&W? If in B&W I would recommend that you scan in RGB and drop the red and blue layers. The green layer is almost always the one with the least noise. I have made a number of prints from ASA 160 color negative fmedium format film this way and grain has not be been an issue in prints up to 11X14 in size.

I would also recommend Bruce Fraser's Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2. He recommends specific steps for noise reduction prior to other image manipulations.

Sandy King

Prints are in colour. I'll check out Bruce Fraser's Image Sharpening and the steps for noise reduction. Hopefully it is just a question of getting my workflow sorted.

I may also try a different film or just make sure I get things right in camera and have optical prints made

frugal · Jul 2, 2007

I know sometimes you can get what is called "grain aliasing" where the scan resolution is in proportion to the grain size in such a way that it causes the grain to "clump" up more. You might want to try a slightly higher, or lower, resolution to see if that helps with things.

Baxter Bradford · Jul 3, 2007

I also experience this effect with scanning Colour neg film, not B+W nor E6. My solution is relatively cheap and effective. Neat Image software works a treat, also Noise Ninja although that was dearer - hence my choice. It will work wonders with B+W if you want grain free HP5 for instance.

Plenty of sliders to twiddle with, personally I have found that Auto works very well indeed. Worth saving profiles, dependant upon neg size,/resolution etc. CAn then reuse these, it gives assessment of matching before carrying out the noise reduction.

donbga · Jul 3, 2007

Baxter Bradford said:
I also experience this effect with scanning Colour neg film, not B+W nor E6. My solution is relatively cheap and effective. Neat Image software works a treat, also Noise Ninja although that was dearer - hence my choice. It will work wonders with B+W if you want grain free HP5 for instance.

Plenty of sliders to twiddle with, personally I have found that Auto works very well indeed. Worth saving profiles, dependant upon neg size,/resolution etc. CAn then reuse these, it gives assessment of matching before carrying out the noise reduction.

Picture Cooler is an inexpensive noise reduction tool which may work well for grain reduction also.

http://denoiser.shorturl.com/

Don Bryant

Platonumb · Jul 3, 2007

Grain problems?

Grain problems- are you scanning with sharpening on during the scanning?,
try scanning with no sharpening and add it later during post in Photoshop,, if you need it,, or use layers and add it selectively with the eraser tool to just the important areas.
Truly Platonumb

m_liddell · Jul 4, 2007

Platonumb said:
Grain problems- are you scanning with sharpening on during the scanning?,
try scanning with no sharpening and add it later during post in Photoshop,, if you need it,, or use layers and add it selectively with the eraser tool to just the important areas.
Truly Platonumb

Scans were on a coolscan 9000 (4000dpi) with no ROC, GEM or sharpening and only ICE. Results appeared marginally better scanning as a slide and inverting/removing orange mask in CS2. Perhaps I'll ask for them to enable GEM next time.

Downsampling for print using imagemagick (lanczos filter) rather than bicubic sharper def. seemed to help grain. Noise reduction was with noiseware professional (I've found it better than the others). Sharpening was done with photokit with extensive masking so that most of the image recieved to sharpening at all.

I intend to get some drum scans from colour negs just to see if they are any better and isolate it as the scanner causing issues. I cannot see anything wrong with my post processing. To *just about* get an acceptable 11x14 (with borders!) with this much work from 6x7 is crazy, I can get totally grainless prints from b&w pushing 16x20. Maybe the lab is overdeveloping the film? This colour business is hard work!

Baxter Bradford · Jul 4, 2007

I think you'll find it is the same with a drum scanner. I am using an Imacon Flextight and yes sharpening is off. At about 30 Neat Image (pro-version) is less than cost of a couple of drum scans.... and it is quick and effective. They even do free trial version neat image

Processing C41 is a std process, where you get it done makes no difference, I had same issue with Pro-Lab and my own in a Jobo ATL machine.

SusanV · Jul 31, 2007

I have to second the recommendation to read Bruce Fraser's book Image
Sharpening. I really believe it will answer all your questions and solve your
problems with grain. I was having the same trouble as you a few months
ago, (I shoot medium format, usually tri-x, and scan them on an Epson
flatbed), and now, after reading the book and adjusting my workflow, I'm
completely happy with my results.

best of luck. report back so we can all learn what works for you.

Susan

lenny · Sep 26, 2007

Baxter Bradford said:
I think you'll find it is the same with a drum scanner. I am using an Imacon Flextight and yes sharpening is off. At about 30 Neat Image (pro-version) is less than cost of a couple of drum scans....

This is not correct. I run a drum scanner (Aztek Premier) and some of them have controls for aperture. The key is to match the aperture to the size of the grain. Some scanners can't do this well, like the Tango, which is set at 11 microns, which is good for most negs and chromes, but not color negs. There was a modification to one version of the software recently that allowed some modification to this, but a drum scanner with lots of aperture choices makes this easy.,

If you use a drum scanner you will have almost no noise. There shouldn't be any need to buy noise reducing software, just scan with the right machine and you should be fine. An no, an Imacon is not a drum scanner, not in the same class.

Lenny
eigerstudios.com

lenny · Sep 26, 2007

P.S. Ooops. sorry for the double post - don't know how that happened... weird.

jd callow · Sep 27, 2007

lenny said:
P.S. Ooops. sorry for the double post - don't know how that happened... weird.

No problem... I deleted the extra post.

toyotadesigner · Oct 3, 2007

@ Narcissist:

Scans with a Nikon 9000 shouldn't have too much grain if the operator knows what he/she is doing. Two things are important: The use of the FH-869G 120/220 Strip Film Holder with glas (or the other one with the rotating bed), and calibrating the scanner before each scan session.

On the other hand Nikon scanners are know for their harsh direct light which sometimes **can** cause problems with grain.

Grain in negative films is considerably larger than in slide films, so you might try a Provia 100F or Astia from Fuji (sorry, I don't have any experience with Kodak materials). Don't be misled by the grain on your monitor - it won't show in the final print if you keep it at a max of 60x70 centimeters.

@Lenny:

The Imacon features a 'virtual' drum, so 50% of the users say it's a drum scanner, the other 50% say it is not. I don't want to start a war of believes here, but for me the image in the Imacon is bent in a perfect curve shape under the lens and CCD.

dslater · Nov 13, 2007

I suspect you are running into a grain aliasing problem. I have noticed the same problem with scans from my Nikon Coolscan V. Here's a thread on this at shutterbug:

http://forum.shutterbug.com/forum/s...kmanufacturers&Number=12608&fpart=&PHPSESSID=

EFX over there thinks you need 6400 or higher DPI to avoid grain aliasing.

Dan

ctscanner · Nov 13, 2007

This will probably sound very basic after all the good advice you have had here, but there is one thing you could do that might help. That is that in the sharpening process it's possible to emphasize the film grain, if you use too large a radius. I generally will use the smallest radius that I can get away with.

Just a thought.

Mark Burley · Nov 16, 2007

I use both a Nikon and an Epson scanner without sharpening at scanning stage. I find I am happy with the results on both Reala and FP4.

I much prefer post sharpening generally. Have tried Silverfast, Vuescan and Nikon versions. I am mostly happy - but occasionally the odd neg/transparency throws my system a wobble.

I have seen some superb results with the new Epson scanner with oil etc. No more Newtons does help some...

Having said that - I am happy with what I have. Sharpness is not a problem so far.

Mark

m_liddell · Nov 23, 2007

An update on this.

I sent some film out to be scanned on an Imacon which was recommened to me for neg film over 9000 and drum scanner due to the light source. The results were much improved. The grain is much finer and sharper than the nikon and is handlelled more easily with neatimage.

Inkjet prints from the scans can still not go anywhere near as big as traditional silver prints without grain becoming a problem. I think I will stick to traditional silver printing for my b&w unless I shoot slide and convert it.

Ted Harris · Nov 24, 2007

Without seeing your originals I can't make anything in the way of an intelligent comment on your specific situation but I can tell you that I scan both color and black and white negative film every day on a Kodak-Creo IQsmart 3 and Screen Cezanne and have no issues with grain on film that has been properly exposed and processed. In all cases the scans produced will enable you to print much larger than you otherwise could have printed using traditional methods. I do wonder if you have an improper processing issue that is causing larger grain. This could happen if the developer concentration is off or the water temperature is too high.

frugal · Nov 27, 2007

Ted Harris said:
Without seeing your originals I can't make anything in the way of an intelligent comment on your specific situation but I can tell you that I scan both color and black and white negative film every day on a Kodak-Creo IQsmart 3 and Screen Cezanne and have no issues with grain on film that has been properly exposed and processed. In all cases the scans produced will enable you to print much larger than you otherwise could have printed using traditional methods. I do wonder if you have an improper processing issue that is causing larger grain. This could happen if the developer concentration is off or the water temperature is too high.

I know I mentioned "grain aliasing" earlier in this thread which can magnify grain. I forget if it was mentioned earlier or not, but the other thing that can happen is if you're looking at the images at 100% on screen, which will be lower resolution that when printed, which will make the grain look horribly large, but printed will be much less noticeable.

timbo10ca · Nov 27, 2007

sanking said:
Are you printing in color or B&W? If in B&W I would recommend that you scan in RGB and drop the red and blue layers. The green layer is almost always the one with the least noise. I have made a number of prints from ASA 160 color negative fmedium format film this way and grain has not be been an issue in prints up to 11X14 in size.

I would also recommend Bruce Fraser's Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2. He recommends specific steps for noise reduction prior to other image manipulations.

Sandy King

I think I recall reading this advice to use the green channel in Photography Monthly recently, but at butzi.net, he's showing the opposite. The green channel has the most noise and least sharpness, while the blue channel is the best one to use. What's a person to do?????

Paul_C · Nov 27, 2007

Look at them for yourself and pick the most appealing.

timbo10ca · Nov 27, 2007

Paul_C said:
Look at them for yourself and pick the most appealing.

That's fine and dandy, but these recommendations are being made by people who are considered "in the know" with some sort of basis behind them. I'm wondering how they can be completely opposite.

Tim

Paul_C · Nov 27, 2007

Maybe they're looking for themselves and picking the most appealing?

It's not so hard to imagine that different photos will have different characteristics in different channels.

Ted Harris · Nov 28, 2007

I've looked at literally hundreds and almost always choose the green channel, on few ocassions the blue .... I can't ever remember choosing the red channel. That on several different consumer and high-end scanners.

Scanning negatives - grain problems

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