sharpness problem

[JM Remacle]

Hello,
I have a flatbed epson scanner 2400 photo.
i made trials with epsonscan and vuescan.
The latter is very pleasant to use and versatile.
But there is a sharpness problem (at least for me !)
Scans from colour negatives made with epsonscan are much sharper than
the scans made with vuescan.
I printed (13X18 cm) from the neg, from epsonscan and from vuescan (same
resolution)
From epsonscan and the neg there is practically no difference and the
photo from vuescan is far less sharp (although colour rendition perfect).
I tried with the sharpen option but it just makes the scan darker.
This happens under linux and under windows for vuescan.

It really bothers me because i like working with vuescan.
This is mostly visible on scans with 'text' on the picture.

Have you a solution to this problem or is it impossible to correct ?

Thank you for the tips.

JM

 

[David J. Littleboy]

Hello,
I have a flatbed epson scanner 2400 photo.
i made trials with epsonscan and vuescan.
The latter is very pleasant to use and versatile.
But there is a sharpness problem (at least for me !)
Scans from colour negatives made with epsonscan are much sharper than the
scans made with vuescan.
I printed (13X18 cm) from the neg, from epsonscan and from vuescan (same
resolution)
From epsonscan and the neg there is practically no difference and the
photo from vuescan is far less sharp (although colour rendition perfect).
I tried with the sharpen option but it just makes the scan darker.
This happens under linux and under windows for vuescan.

It really bothers me because i like working with vuescan.
This is mostly visible on scans with 'text' on the picture.

Have you a solution to this problem or is it impossible to correct ?

Epson's software applies fairly aggressive sharpening to the scan.

What you should try is applying light noise reduction (Neat Image or Noise
Ninja) to the Vuescan scan and then sharpen (aggressively) in Photoshop.
Sharpening aggravates noise, so noise reduce first and then bump up the
threshold value when sharpening.

You should be able to get better prints that way than with Epson scan, since
you can control it for each image.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[JM Remacle]

David J. Littleboy a écrit :

Epson's software applies fairly aggressive sharpening to the scan.

May be but scanned as it is with epson scan the result is fairly
identical to the print from the negative as far as sharpness is concerned.

What you should try is applying light noise reduction (Neat Image or Noise
Ninja) to the Vuescan scan and then sharpen (aggressively) in Photoshop.
Sharpening aggravates noise, so noise reduce first and then bump up the
threshold value when sharpening.

You should be able to get better prints that way than with Epson scan, since
you can control it for each image.

I suppose you mean Vuescan; the problem is that i should do it for each
vuescan scan wheras i get the good result directly with epson scan.
It is why i ask whether there is no way to correct that problem at the
scan time with vuescan.

Thank you for your tips.

JM

 

[David J. Littleboy]

I suppose you mean Vuescan;

I was trying to say "You should be able to get better scans with Vuescan
than Epson scan if you do the work".

the problem is that i should do it for each vuescan scan wheras i get the
good result directly with epson scan.
It is why i ask whether there is no way to correct that problem at the
scan time with vuescan.

It's not a "problem", it's a feature. Epson scan gives you processing that
works reasonably well most of the time, and Vuescan gives you the control to
get it right every time at the cost of actually having to do the work. When
I was using an Epson 2450, I found the Epson software really obnoxious,
since I couldn't control it. But if it gives results you like, there's no
reason not to use it. Inversely, you should only be trying Vuescan if you
are dissatisfied with your results from the Epson software.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan