Sharp on the light table but blurry on the scan?

Certain Exposures · Wednesday at 8:42 PM

I have two frames of two different road signs. Both look tack sharp under a 5x loupe on the light table. The text in one image is tack sharp in the scan at 33%. The other image's text shows noticeable blur/'doubling' at 33%. I'm baffled. I rescanned both images multiple times.

Have you ever seen the same?

The flawed scan’s negative is (as) flat as the other. The images are not on the same strip of film. I am using a Plustek 8300ai.

koraks · Thursday at 2:37 AM

Let's see a scan then.

250swb · Thursday at 3:18 AM

File size and sharpening? More sharpening (which shouldn't be done in the scanner software anyway) is needed for a larger file than a small file to achieve a similar look. In fact if anything like sharpening or dust and scratch removal is switched on, switch it off and try again.

Taylor Nankervis · Thursday at 3:42 AM

Post a sample scan, plus a screenshot of the dialogue boxes so that your settings can be examined.

Sharpening isn't normally required, and some settings e.g. ICE, deblur, etc., can give a false impression that either the preview or the actual scan is blurry.

Ivo Stunga · Thursday at 5:35 AM

Using Plustek 7600i I turn every automation and sharpening off and do multiscan that helps to lift shadow detail.
Auto dust removal via IR is off too as that 1) works just on dye-based/color images and 2) introduces softness.
This way my scanner basically just provides a "raw" tiff for me to edit in my post app of my choice.

Haven't had sharpness issues at all. If anything, this hyperfocal scanner picks up too much dust and defects, exaggerating them.

Saganich · Thursday at 9:41 AM

I've come to understand that differences that are not noticeable under 5x mag on a negative are noticeable on a full size scan or print. Usually I go back to the loop and see if there really is no difference, which given two images taken at different times on different film...there are many differences.

Certain Exposures · Thursday at 12:29 PM

koraks said:
Let's see a scan then.

Okay, I will follow up over the weekend. I'm going to rescan and take a few sample shots on the light table. I have several rolls to scan with more examples.

250swb said:
File size and sharpening? More sharpening (which shouldn't be done in the scanner software anyway) is needed for a larger file than a small file to achieve a similar look. In fact if anything like sharpening or dust and scratch removal is switched on, switch it off and try again.

I turned off sharpening and scratch removal in SilverFast 9. I'm scanning at 3200 DPI.

Taylor Nankervis said:
Post a sample scan, plus a screenshot of the dialogue boxes so that your settings can be examined.

Sharpening isn't normally required, and some settings e.g. ICE, deblur, etc., can give a false impression that either the preview or the actual scan is blurry.

I will - see my first reply above.

Ivo Stunga said:
Using Plustek 7600i I turn every automation and sharpening off and do multiscan that helps to lift shadow detail.
Auto dust removal via IR is off too as that 1) works just on dye-based/color images and 2) introduces softness.
This way my scanner basically just provides a "raw" tiff for me to edit in my post app of my choice.

Haven't had sharpness issues at all. If anything, this hyperfocal scanner picks up too much dust and defects, exaggerating them.

Are you also using SilverFast 9? I turned off sharpening and scratch removal. I just use multi-exposure for black and white.

Saganich said:
I've come to understand that differences that are not noticeable under 5x mag on a negative are noticeable on a full size scan or print. Usually I go back to the loop and see if there really is no difference, which given two images taken at different times on different film...there are many differences.

That's unfortunate. Several shots look ok on the light table but poor in the scans. I'm hoping I just need more practice with this kit.

grain elevator · 2025-05-30T04:41:42-0400

Can you see grain or some semblance of it? Is dust resolved sharply? If not it is probably an issue with scanner focus.

Sharp on the light table but blurry on the scan?

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