Problem with new Canon 9950f - VERY noisy slide scan

M

matthew.bouchard

Hi,

I just bought the canon 9950f scanner with the hopes of scanning 900
35mm slides (Ektachrome and fuji velvia). I have little experience
scanning.

Here's what my first scan resulted in:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/matthew_t_bouchard/detail?.dir=2211&.dnm=97bb.jpg&.src=ph

you should be able to DL a 6MB 4K scan of my ektachrome slide that has
USM on.

this is horribly bad. Is this what i should expect from a 4k flatbed
scanner? Or could i have set something wrong? The noise is not JPEG
artifacts - look at the different channels.

Any idea? did i get a broken one? Any help appreciated.

matt bouchard
 
A

Alan Smithee

Hi,

I just bought the canon 9950f scanner with the hopes of scanning 900
35mm slides (Ektachrome and fuji velvia). I have little experience
scanning.

Here's what my first scan resulted in:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/matthew_t_bouchard/detail?.dir=2211&.dnm=97bb.jpg&.src=ph

you should be able to DL a 6MB 4K scan of my ektachrome slide that has
USM on.

this is horribly bad. Is this what i should expect from a 4k flatbed
scanner? Or could i have set something wrong? The noise is not JPEG
artifacts - look at the different channels.

Any idea? did i get a broken one? Any help appreciated.

matt bouchard
Click to expand...

OK you've scanned a guy on a white background. If the scanner is set to
"Auto" exposure it going to look at the scene in preview and cut way way
back on how much light it pumps through the slide. Try turning off auto
exposure for starters.
 
A

Alan Smithee

You could also download Vuescan and try it out. It has a function (Lock RGB
exposure) which allows you to vary the amount of light each pixel in the CCD
sensor receives from the light source -- sort of the way you can let the
enlarger pump more or less light through a neg. In your case try locking it
in at 1.0
 
R

rafe bustin

Hi,

I just bought the canon 9950f scanner with the hopes of scanning 900
35mm slides (Ektachrome and fuji velvia). I have little experience
scanning.

Here's what my first scan resulted in:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/matthew_t_bouchard/detail?.dir=2211&.dnm=97bb.jpg&.src=ph

you should be able to DL a 6MB 4K scan of my ektachrome slide that has
USM on.

this is horribly bad. Is this what i should expect from a 4k flatbed
scanner? Or could i have set something wrong? The noise is not JPEG
artifacts - look at the different channels.

Any idea? did i get a broken one? Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...


You're right, these are horrifically bad.

In the baltazar image, though I also see
what looks like camera shake in the long
axis.

You're getting some awful posterization
here -- it could be that the scanner is
getting the exposure all wrong and
trying to fix up that problem with post-
processing.

Thanks for sharing these, though. I've
been considering the 9950f as sort of
an alternative to the Epson 4870/4900,
but I think that may have been optimistic.



rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com
 
W

Wilfred

rafe said:
You're right, these are horrifically bad.

In the baltazar image, though I also see
what looks like camera shake in the long
axis.

You're getting some awful posterization
here -- it could be that the scanner is
getting the exposure all wrong and
trying to fix up that problem with post-
processing.

Thanks for sharing these, though. I've
been considering the 9950f as sort of
an alternative to the Epson 4870/4900,
but I think that may have been optimistic.
Click to expand...

These images are atypical for the 9950F. I own one, too, and it is
capable of much better scans. I did find that with certain settings the
Canon software produces posterized images. I'm suspecting the USM
setting in this case, and you may also have instructed the software to
convert to a color space. I'm suspecting that the Canon software is
doing a poor job at color conversions. VueScan does a much better job here.
 
R

rafe bustin

These images are atypical for the 9950F. I own one, too, and it is
capable of much better scans. I did find that with certain settings the
Canon software produces posterized images. I'm suspecting the USM
setting in this case, and you may also have instructed the software to
convert to a color space. I'm suspecting that the Canon software is
doing a poor job at color conversions. VueScan does a much better job here.
Click to expand...


Would you be willing to post or share some scan snippets
at max optical resolution?

In your opinion, how does the 9950 compare against the
Epson 4870/4990?


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com
 
D

Don

You could also download Vuescan and try it out. It has a function (Lock RGB
exposure) which allows you to vary the amount of light each pixel in the CCD
sensor receives from the light source
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't! It affects *all* pixels simultaneously.

"Lock RGB exposure" simply turns off AutoExposure. That's all! Can be
done with virtually any scanner software.

Of course, VueScan is also very buggy and unreliable, but if the OP is
after a quick-and-dirty job, he may not care or notice it.

Don.
 
M

matthew.bouchard

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

I ended up downloading Vuescan and was able to get some good scans. I
then used canon's software again and turned off USM, grain reduction,
etc and got some decent raw 4K scans:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/matthew_t_bouchard/album?.dir=/mail&urlhint=actn,del:s,4:f,0

The images are soft, but I think with USM they will be fairly sharp -
its possible too that the slides were out of focus.

I believe the auto-brightness was causing some problems and the USM was
posterizing the already bad scan. I have noticed it will occasionally
scan very very dark scans then auto-level it up to correct, and the
noise comes with it. So I always watch the initial scan to make sure
the exposure is decent. Im not sure what circumstance causes this, but
it maybe be I need to calibrate every scan.

So, overall, Im pretty confident that this scanner will provide good
scans and the ability to scan 12 at a time is wonderful (which only the
canon software seems able to do).

Again note the images on the photo.yahoo site are raw with no USM or
level adjustment and are q=90 Jpegs. And these scans were part of a 12
slide batch which took only 5mins (HQ mode OFF - all filters OFF).

any additional tips welcome, but problem seeminly solved and thank you.

matt
 
A

Alan Smithee

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

I ended up downloading Vuescan and was able to get some good scans. I
then used canon's software again and turned off USM, grain reduction,
etc and got some decent raw 4K scans:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/matthew_t_bouchard/album?.dir=/mail&urlhint=actn,del:s,4:f,0

The images are soft, but I think with USM they will be fairly sharp -
its possible too that the slides were out of focus.

I believe the auto-brightness was causing some problems and the USM
was posterizing the already bad scan. I have noticed it will
occasionally scan very very dark scans then auto-level it up to
correct, and the noise comes with it. So I always watch the initial
scan to make sure the exposure is decent. Im not sure what
circumstance causes this, but it maybe be I need to calibrate every
scan.

So, overall, Im pretty confident that this scanner will provide good
scans and the ability to scan 12 at a time is wonderful (which only
the canon software seems able to do).

Again note the images on the photo.yahoo site are raw with no USM or
level adjustment and are q=90 Jpegs. And these scans were part of a 12
slide batch which took only 5mins (HQ mode OFF - all filters OFF).

any additional tips welcome, but problem seeminly solved and thank
you.

matt
Click to expand...

Check out Vuescan's "Batch" scan function. It allows you to scan all frames
at one go and edit in Photoshop on the fly -- without having to close the
twain screen -- or wait until all 12 are done. BTW the link to you new scan
is broken.
 
A

Alan Smithee

OK these don't look too bad. I applied a 200 % unsharp mask with a radius of
1.2 and a threshold value of 2 and they look a lot better. Auto exposure can
fool a scanner just like a strong back light can trick a camera's internal
meter. Sometimes you may want to "trick" the scanner by selecting an average
area in the scene to use as the exposure value. Vuescan can do this maybe
some other softwares do as well.
 

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