white speckles

[Phil]

Hello to the group. I am having an occasional problem in Vuescan,
getting white speckles in broad areas of sky, clouds, beach, or
similar light expanses. Doing a search for "speckles" only seems to
turn up people who are having problems getting speckles in the
shadows. Is anyone getting speckles in lighter areas? So far, when
this occurs I just scan with Nikon Scan instead, and there is no
problem. By the way I am scanning slides, media type is set to Image.
I turned up IR Clean to Heavy but that made no difference. WP and BP
are 0, exposure clipping is .1%.
Phil Scalia

 

[Phil]

I changed the exposure clipping to .01% but the problem persists. My
best guess is dust in the scanner (Super Coolscan 4000), except I
don't know why this wouldn't show up using the Nikon Scan software.
Still stymied,
Phil

 

[Brent J. Larsen]

Phil
We are seeing the same problem here in our shop. It started in
versions 76. and subs. It seems to be much more prevalent with Fuji
slides but we have seen this problem on other E6 film types. We have
several Nikon 4000 and 5000 scanners and the problem is present on all
scanners, however it varies in intensity from scanner to scanner. We
have only been able to eliminate the problem by dropping back to an
earlier 75.xx version of Vuescan. We could use NikonScan software,
which doesn't exhibit this problem, but we really dislike the software
for other reasons. In email discussions with Ed Hamrick, he has
suggested that we try to use manual focusing and slightly "de-focus"
the scanner to eliminate the problem. We haven't completed our
scanning testing with this solution yet. I would be interested in
knowing if you see the problem disappear if you turn IR clean off.

Brent Larsen
Larsen Digital Services
www.slidescanning.com

 

[Phil]

Brent,
Thanks for the tips. Yes I am using primarily Fuji film. Unfortunately
slightly de-focusing didn't really work. Further de-focussing perhaps
worked but gave me an out-of-focus scan. Turning off the IR cleaning
resulted in black speckles, tons of them. Plus huge times involved in
cleaning up the scan. How do I get 7.5.xx versions? I started with
7.6.79. I hope Ed can fix this soon, because frankly right now this
software is useless for many slides.
Phil

 

[Ed Hamrick]

Thanks for the tips. Yes I am using primarily Fuji film. Unfortunately
slightly de-focusing didn't really work. Further de-focussing perhaps
worked but gave me an out-of-focus scan. Turning off the IR cleaning
resulted in black speckles, tons of them. Plus huge times involved in
cleaning up the scan. How do I get 7.5.xx versions? I started with
7.6.79. I hope Ed can fix this soon, because frankly right now this
software is useless for many slides.

It's really hard for me to believe that the black speckles appear
in the raw scan file from 7.6.x and not from 7.5.x. It would be
really, really useful if someone could scan the _exact_ same
piece of film with both versions and verify this.

My suspicion is that the speckles are in the film itself, but I'm
open to the possibility that it's somehow in VueScan.

In diagnosing this, it's important to minimize the complexity of
the test. For instance, looking only at the raw scan file from
both versions would help isolate the problem.

If there are black speckles in the actual scan, from silver
particles that haven't been washed out, then I can believe
that infrared cleaning in VueScan either produces a white spot
or isn't able to remove the speckles.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Phil]

Ed,
Scanned a Velvia slide. The white speckles become noticeable at 200%,
whereas with the RDP they are evident at 100%. Which I would guess is
because of RVP's finer grain. Could be a problem if I want to make big
prints.
Whether or not it was bad washing by the lab I don't know, it is a
Q-Lab in N.H.
Best/Phil

 

[Brent J. Larsen]

Phil
Please take a look at the small image I have posted at
http://www.slidescanning.com/hamrick/fuji_slide_7.6.72/ and see if it
looks similar to the results you are getting.

 

[Dan]

I am getting the same white specks and did a comparison between
Vuescan and Nikon scan. Seems that when cleaning up the black specks
(dust or fungus) on slides, Vuescan leaves a lightened spot in its
place. I made side by side comparisons and posted them on my site, w/
version numbers:

http://www.danmurano.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm

Everthing else about the software is awesome and I'm glad I finally
purchased it. Hopefully the issue will be worked out soon. Until then,
I will have to keep using Nikon Scan for slides.

Dan

I

 

[Dan]

The white speckles only seem to show on some images. The slides I
cited as examples in my last post were Fujichrome 100 from about 1989.
I've scanned other E-6 slides where it didn't show up at all. I'll
keep experimenting. Thanks for all the helpful posts -- at least I
know it's not just my new scanner and that I can keep using Vuescan.
Dan

 

[Brent J. Larsen]

Dan
Thanks for posting your examples. We are definitely seeing the exact
same problem here. I agree with your assessment that it's related to
Vuescan's IR cleaning. We saw some of this in the 75.x versions but
much much less pronounced in those earlier versions of Vuescan. We
are able to get good scans with NikonScan 4 but the workflow with that
product is inferior to Vuescan's. Hopefully Ed will find a solution
to this problem soon. For now, we have had to drop back to the 75..x
version on our Coolscan 4000 scanners but that version won't support
the new 5000 series so we are stuck with NikonScan 4 on our new
scanners.

Brent J. Larsen
Larsen Digital Services
www.slidescanning.com

 

[Phil]

Dan,
Thanks for posting. Looks just like my problem. Seems to be limited to
Fuji film. I also tested Velvia processed by a second lab, within the
past year. Same speckles.
Phil

 

[Brent J. Larsen]

Dan
Thanks for posting your examples. We are definitely seeing the exact
same problem here. I agree with your assessment that it's related to
Vuescan's IR cleaning. We saw some of this in the 75.x versions but
much much less pronounced in those earlier versions of Vuescan. We
are able to get good scans with NikonScan 4 but the workflow with that
product is inferior to Vuescan's. Hopefully Ed will find a solution
to this problem soon. For now, we have had to drop back to the 75..x
version on our Coolscan 4000 scanners but that version won't support
the new 5000 series so we are stuck with NikonScan 4 on our new
scanners.

Brent J. Larsen
Larsen Digital Services
www.slidescanning.com

 

[-]

Thanks for posting. Looks just like my problem. Seems to be limited to

Fuji film.

FWIW, the latest 7.6.81 update of Vuescan "Fixed problem infrared cleaning
some Fuji films"

Doug

 

[Brent J. Larsen]

That update hasn't fixed this problem in the tests we have run.

Brent J. Larsen
Larsen Digital Services
www.slidescanning.com

 

[steffenk]

I just want to add, that I get the exact same effect (white speckles,
even in a sunset sky) using the Nikon V ED with slides comparing
Vuescan and Nikon Scan 4. I really preferred Vuescan so far with my
old scanner using my own icc scanner profiles. The ICE4 used in Nikon
Scan seems to do a much better job than Vuescan (there are other
threads about similar problems - this time with black dots

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007qTs

I really hope, Ed can fix these issues to be able to use vuescan
effectively with the new Nikon 5000/V soon - like Dan, I am now stuck
with Nikon Scan 4 and do my profiling later.

 

[Phil]

Yeah I hope Ed can solve too. He's had a raw file scan from me for
almost two weeks. Like you I'm stuck with Nikon Scan right now.
Phil

 

[Ed Hamrick]

Yeah I hope Ed can solve too. He's had a raw file scan from me for
almost two weeks. Like you I'm stuck with Nikon Scan right now.

I have a Macintosh test version at:

http://www.hamrick.com/files/testinfr.dmg

It would be useful if anyone having the speckles problem
with infrared cleaning could check to see if this solves the
problem.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Dan]

Ed,

I have a windows system, otherwise I would be happy to check it out
with the same slide.

Dan

 

[Phil]

Ed and everyone,
This new version appears to have fixed the speckles. Thanks Ed, you've
just made a number of people happy!
Phil