White marks on E6 scans - what is causing it ?

[Samuelg]

So i got a three rolls of elitechrome back from my new lab (had to move there my old place didnt do slide) they are considered the premier place in my area to go so i wasnt at all apprehensive about paying £45 to develop and scan 4 rolls of film because i thought they would be fantastic, however looking at the scans it appears there is a lot of noise mostly white specks on some of the slightly darker frames. I put the negs into my enlarger and from what i can tell there is nothing actually on the actual negatives themselves which points to the scanner.

Basically is it dust, which im hoping it is and is there anyway to remove it efficiently in photoshop or is it something to do with the fact i kept the used rolls in my bag for a month or have the lab balls'd it up. Any input would be appreciated as m knowledge of the processing and scanning of E6 is limited.

Please find embedded a sample scan



Kind regards
Samuel

 

[MattKing]

Based on the reference to E6, I'm assuming that these are slides, not negatives.

Are the slides mounted for projection, or unmounted?

If there is no sign of the white specs (dust?) on the slides themselves, then it sounds like the lab was just sloppy with their scanning.

I would tell them about your concerns. It is up to you to decide whether you should take up any offer they might make to fix the problem (re-scan?).

As for dealing with dust in scans, that's a bit outside APUG's restricted, no-digital mandate, but in my experiene, scans and the "clone" tool go hand in hand.

 

[F/1.4]

This isn't dust, it's the scanner trying to compensate for darks and flatten out the tone curve by pushing up the blacks. If you notice, there's no real BLACK in the scan like on the slide? I suggest using a pro lab and mailing the film out. These look close to what a cheap pakon will do, or someone who doesn't know what they're doing in front of a scanner.

 

[Worker 11811]

Yes, it's digital noise. Not a problem from the film.

You could remove much of it with Photoshop but it would be detailed, time consuming work. You'd be better off to rescan.

Even with a cheap scanner you can get better results than that. It's pretty clear that whoever was operating the machine just put the film in, hit the START button and walked away without checking. At a cost of £11 ($17 U.S.) per roll, you should get better results than that. At very minimum, they should do rescans for free.