scanning problem

What is this?

D
What is this?

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  • 9
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On the edge of town.

A
On the edge of town.

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Peaceful

D
Peaceful

  • 2
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  • 348
Cycling with wife #2

D
Cycling with wife #2

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  • 130

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lft

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Joined
Jan 12, 2009
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35mm
so now that i am developing my own negs, i've been scanning them as well. as of late, my scanner hasnt been producing the sharpest images (or maybe its the developing?). my pictures are sort of out of focus, soft, and have little speckles around them.

example:

Dead Link Removed

any solution for this?
 

MikeSeb

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Joined
Jun 12, 2005
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Hard to say much from this image. It appears to be underexposed, if this scan is at all representative of what's on the negative.

I suspect what happened is that your meter was unduly influenced by the bright areas of sky and upper parts of buildings into giving an exposure value that resulted in underexposure of areas that should have had shadow detail. It may also be overdeveloped a bit, though I'm not sure; this image would be a challenge for any film/developer combination, given the vast brightness range between the hot highlights and dark shadows.

If OTOH the negative is properly exposed and developed, then you need to adjust your level controls, probably during the scanning capture process, to make sure you have not cut off important shadow and highlight areas. Then, in your image editing software, adjust levels/curves so that you bring up the lower and middle tones (the street and shadowed areas along the sidewalks) so that you can make out whatever's there.

If what I'm saying is Greek to you, then time for some basics. Ansel Adams' "the Negative" will explain the Zone System very well; even if you don't actually use the ZS to expose (harder to do unless you're shooting sheet film and can individually tailor the exp/dev of each sheet) and develop, understanding the principles will help you a lot.

Especially with scanning, you really need a good negative to start with. Negatives destined for scanning need to have less highlight density (the dark areas of the NEGATIVE) than those destined for optical enlargement, if any detail is to be retained in those areas. This means adequate exposure but probably shorter development times to retard highlight density somewhat.

It is too much to ask of any scanner to salvage a badly exposed / developed negative, if indeed this is what you've got here.

Hope this helps.
 
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