Slides looking a little mushy

[Cybertrash]

Whenever I use my Epson V600 to scan positives (usually 6x6 Provia) the images I get out of it seem a lot more unsharp then when I scan negative film (both bw and colour), it looks like someone used a soft-focus filter or smeared vaseline somewhere where it shouldn't be, whereas when I'm using the same setup but with negative film I feel that the results are much sharper. Any ideas as to what could cause this? I realize that flatbeds are by nature a little unsharp, but I can't for the life of me understand why negatives would be sharper than positives?

 

[hsandler]

Same film holder for both negatives and positives? Is one type of film more curled than the other? If there is any height difference between the slide film and the negative film, that might explain it.

Are the slides known to be sharp as shot by the camera (e.g. by looking with a loupe)?

The only other thing I can think of is maybe you had the scanning software set for in-scanner unsharp masking for negatives but not for slides. I know Epson Scan curiously tends to default to turning USM on or off depending on other settings or when resetting the scan size for autodetect of film edges.

 

[John_M_King]

Are you scanning slides in thier mounts or plain film? If they are in mounts, these can be quite thick and could (I don't say it will) put them out of the range of focus.