Soft scanned slides

[alaskadude]

I had 700 Digital images go  through Alamy QC; No problems at all. Now I am practicing with my Nikon VED scanner. I am only practicing with my sharpest ASA 100 Fujichromes (Tripod, Mirror lock up, etc. good technique). I scan at 4000dpi. They come out 50+MB. No ICE, No sharpening, adobe RGB 1998. I scan at 14 Bit TIFF, but when I open them in PS Elements, it converts them to 8 bit TIFF before it is able to do any editing.(PSE does this automatically)..Then I clean up with the healing tool and set the levels. I will convert to JPG before I send my selects.

But the thing is the slide scans are noticably softer than a Digital camera using similar technique. When I convert to JPGs, I can change all the names to "SlideScan.001.JPG, or something like that, so that Alamy will know they are scans. Does Alamy recognise that scans are a little softer and allow for that, take it into consideration? Will it help to put them on the 'pictures only' section of the forum to have them critiqued by other forum members? Can forum members see the image well enough to see the quality?

 

[Phil Robinson]

I think Alamy know a scan when they see one. I really don't know whether they view scans differently during QC, but from my own experience, I would say that film scans respond much more favourably to sharpening than digital originals. I'm not suggesting that you sharpen them before submitting, but PERHAPS they are given more leeway during QC in the knowledge that they can be sharpened by the client.

 

I think only Alamy can really answer that question. 

[Tina Manley]

You can do a Capture Sharpen with the Pixel Genius sharpeners (possibly others, too, but that's the one I like) that takes into account the fact that you are working with film.  It's not Output Sharpening and only compensates for the capture method.  Works for me.

 

Tina

[DickJ]

A large portion of my images on Alamy are scans of slides done on a Coolscan 9000 at 4000 ppi.  Old Kodachromes, especially 25 asa, are quite sharp.  Moving up the years to when I quit using film, the newer versions of Kodachrome, and expecially the higher asa Ektachromes, are much softer.  If it is the scan and not the photographer's fault, I find that DavidK's technique of reducing the size of the image to the minimun allowed help sharpen them up a bit.  If they look acceptable at that size, I will submit them.

[John Mitchell]

I scanned at least 1500 slides -- some over 20 years old -- with a Nikon Coolscan 4000 for Alamy in 2008-2009. They all passed QC. I had used a variety of films (100-400 ASA) and "consumer" lenses. Digital ICE was set on "normal" when scanning.

 

So as long as QC is still using the same standards for scans, there shouldn't be a problem.