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Author Topic: Scanning film is out of focus. Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-18-2011 01:26 AM                     I'm trying to scan a whole bunch of old 35mm slides onto the computer. There are 150 of them. Kodachrome & Ektacrhome in pasteboard mounts. Two days ago I scanned the first batch of 25 without problem. Got the capturing done in about an hour. Got decent results. Today, I tried to scan another batch and almost all of the images are out of focus. Tried several things with negative results: *Cleaned the scanner glass. *Cleaned the film holder. *Defaulted the software settings. *Upgraded the scanning software to the latest version. *Reinstalled the scanner driver. *Tinkered with settings. Some pictures come out okay. Some are blurry and out of focus. Tried rearranging slides on the platen. Tried some other things. It boils down to one of two things, I think: 1) The scanner is beat. 2) The film is cupped too much. Using Canoscan 8800F flatbed scanner. I know this is not an ideal scanner for film, by any means, but I have always been able to produce good scans with it before. 1,200 dpi to produce a 1,500 x 1,000 pixel image from a 35mm slide should be well within its capability. I'm scanning slides originally taken in 1974. A mix of Kodachrome and Ektacrhome. I can scan a page of a magazine and resolve down to the rosettes that make up the image. I can scan a frame of B/W 35mm negative and resolve down to the dust specs on the film. I doubt this scanner will resolve film grain even if I turned it up to 9,600 dpi. If I can do these things, the scanner MUST be working all right. I suppose the only thing left is the film. Right now, the outdoor temperature is 45-50ºF and 35% humidity. I can see some cupping in the film. Indoor temperature is about 65ºF. Yesterday, it was colder. I don't know what the humidity was but it was probably a bit higher. It seems weird because the pictures scanned well yesterday but, today, they come out crap. I put the film away for the day. I wrapped it up inside a plastic bag with a damp piece of paper towel inside. I put it on the shelf in a closet. I'm hoping a day of acclimating will improve results. I don't know what else to do. This is supposed to be a paid job. Anybody have ideas?  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-18-2011 10:46 AM                     Unfortunately this problem is pretty common. The primary issue is the film itself curling just a little. It does that in film holders for flatbed scanners as well as holders for individual slides. That throws off the scanner's ability to focus properly. The problem can happen in flatbed scanners and dedicated slide scanners. Wet mounting film strips in a drum scanner will provide the best results. It's not a good solution for casual scanning, but it's great for professional needs (maximum detail, dynamic range, no Newton Rings in the scan, etc.).  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-18-2011 11:41 AM                     If I had a drum scanner or if anybody within an hour's drive from here had one that they'd rent time on I'd be all over it like the stink on a skunk! Unfortunately I can not unmount these slides. They were taken in 1974 in Africa during the Eritrean Civil War. One of a kind. Somewhat historically significant. Once scanned, the slides will be stored safely and only taken out when needed. The scans are so that the images can be used without risking damage to the originals. They don't need to be super-duper high rez. The goal is to get the images scanned and digitally remove the dust so that they can be used in multimedia presentations and things like that. 1,500 px. wide images should be sufficient for that purpose. A 1,200 dpi scan should be more than enough to produce a good image. This should be well within the capability of a good flatbed scanner. I've been scanning 35mm slides, 35mm negatives, 120 negatives and even the occasional 4x5 negatives for two years without a problem. It caught me off guard when this happened but these are old Kodachrome slides. I'm guessing they are more prone to cupping than more modern film. Do you think? Strangely, I've scanned Kodachrome from the 1950s without incident. It must be the weather. I guess it's time to build a humidity chamber. Eh?  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-18-2011 12:32 PM                        Just a consideration and probable expensive but have you thought of having new prints made and do the scans from the prints. Of course, you have to find a photo shop that actually does prints and not just a computer scan and printer print!  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-18-2011 01:02 PM                     It's surprising what temperature and relative humidity can do to screw up a graphics project. It can affect all sorts of materials, such as the ink in a large format printer. If we're printing graphics for a vehicle wrap we try to get everything done at once during the same day. If the print job is spread out over numerous days the differences in weather can create differences in output and make seams in the finished wrap painfully obvious. Climate control is important but there's only so much you can do. quote: Ron Funderburg Just a consideration and probable expensive but have you thought of having new prints made and do the scans from the prints. The downside of this approach is "reflective art" like photo prints, paper, etc. have at best only half the dynamic range of transparent film negatives, slides, chromes, etc. You'll get richer color and superior contrast by scanning transparencies.  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-18-2011 01:06 PM                        For sure it isn't like the days of Norman Rockwell when he would cover a mistake with masking tape and paint over it. Progress! Of course the slide is preferable but if he can't get it and wants them preserved that might be a solution. Just put it there for consideration!  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-18-2011 01:54 PM                     The humidity chamber is working. I put the whole lot of slides inside a large, plastic Tupperware container along with a damp sponge then put it in a warm place. Rearranging the slides on the platen helps. Either arrange them at different spots in the scanning rack or rotate them landscape or portrait for best image. Another little trick is that I took a piece of thin matte board and cut a hole in it with a craft knife that's just a bit bigger than the opening of the slide. If I get a slide that doesn't want to scan, I place the matte board under the slide and raise the film up a few millimeters. That seems to help getting most of the film back into the zone of focus. I got the first 50 slides scanned this morning. Now I have to crop and touch up the dust spots. (No, infrared cleaning doesn't work all the time. You still need to do occasional touch-ups.) By the time I finish this batch the rest of the slides will probably be humidified enough that I will be able to scan them. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back to batch scanning again.  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-18-2011 02:05 PM                        Randy I wish you luck! I wish I had all my old slides and negatives. I have some old family photo's (I mean pre-me old) that I need to scan as well.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-18-2011 05:39 PM                     <---has been known to print from slides though it has been a while.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2011 08:13 PM                     Something's wrong... I scanned a bunch of slides yesterday and they all came out right. Then, today, I go to scan some more and they are all screwed up again. I don't think humidity is the culprit. The slides have all been in a humidity chamber since the day before yesterday. (No, they aren't buckled the other way from too much humidity.) Just out of frustration, I unhooked the scanner and flipped it upside down to look at the bottom. I put it back down and scanned a slide. It was good. I scanned the same slide a second time and it was bad. So, I flipped the scanner over and tried again. Good. If I pick the scanner up, flip it over and set it down again, I'll get one good scan out of it. If I want to do more, I have to flip it over each time. The scanner is beat, I guess... Dammitt!  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 02-20-2011 10:00 AM                        Maybe glass mounts can help??? Louis  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-20-2011 11:28 AM                     Randy, Perhaps there is wear or grit on the scanner rails and that makes the imaging device move differently each time. Since you have inverted the scanner and it works until the mechanism settles back on the rails, can you try to operate it in the inverted position? KEN  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-20-2011 04:35 PM                     If these weren't one of a kind slides I'd be more willing to experiment. I'm not even touching the film with a cleaning brush. Only canned air. The idea was to use infrared cleaning to remove the dust that isn't removed by the air jet. It's been working well until the damned scanner crapped out on me. I have borrowed another scanner but it's the next model older than the one I own. It has a cold cathode lamp instead of LED. I don't have a color target to profile the scanner with either. I borrowed a color target to profile my scanner with and, because it's got an LED light source, it stays pretty stable. I gave the color target back when I was satisfied that I had a decent color profile that worked the way I wanted it to work. (I'm not doing super critical work that requires me to profile the scanner on each job. A couple times a year is more than enough.) Right now, I need to get these slides scanned because I promised to return the originals by Monday. (Tomorrow.) Once I have the slides digitized and stored on computer I can crop and retouch, etc. at my leisure. So I'll get the slides scanned in and I'll just spend a bit more time adjusting the color by hand with Photoshop. So far, the automatic color balance controls of Photoshop have been doing an acceptable job of producing a color balance that looks good to the eye, considering that they are 35 year old film images. Once I get this job done I'll see if I can tinker with my scanner and get it working again. Cross my fingers... Maybe there's a screw that I can adjust or a bushing that I can replace which will fix it up long enough for me to buy a proper film scanner.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-20-2011 09:52 PM                     Though a long way around the mountain...why not project them using a slide projector and then take a digital picture of them. By blowing the slide up in this manner, you are likely to get a higher resolution version anyway. It isn't going to be perfect and you will have the color of slide projector light to deal with but that is likely correctable (take a white reference picture too (no slide...just the white light of the projector). -Steve  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-20-2011 11:31 PM                     I own more than 80 cameras. One of them is digital. It is a 2.1 megapixel Canon Digital Elph, pocket size camera. I also own 5 or 6 slide projectors, too. On the bright side, I just finished scanning the last slide and I have 100 out of 150 edited to JPEG. I use a standalone scanning program and I can Photoshop the pictures while the scanner runs in the background. At least I can return the slides to the owner tomorrow but, if I hustle, I might even be able to deliver the finished product too! That would be cool!  |  IP: Logged

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