Problem with scanning Nikon FE photographs

trican

Hi all,

I hoping someone might be able to help me. Not so long ago I purchase a lovely Nikon FE film SLR and I'm really happy with all the developed photos, including the strong vibrant colours. However when I then scan these photos, the results are poor at best. For example, sky's lack detail and its clear they were placed on scanner (hard to describe, looks kinda like film grain or if the scanner glass is dirty, which its not). Here are some examples:








Though sometimes the results can be ok, i.e.




Its a Dell scanner, about 3 years old and I'm using the dell scanning software set to "colour photo scan". I suspect increased bits per pixel would help (16-bit tiff), however the software gives minimal custom controls

Any thoughts?

DaireQuinlan

Its probably more the scanner software than the actual scanner itself that's giving you problems. Try vuescan out for size, it'll give you much more control over the process. Any reasonably modern scanner should have no problem scanning prints. Probably little point in scanning them at more than 600 DPI though, as they were probably printed at 300 DPI.

Really you ought to be scanning the negatives for the best results, even a cheap flat bed would probably give you better results that scanning the prints will give you. Presuming there's no way of actually doing it on your existing scanner, you can buy a canonscan 8800 for about €150 or thereabouts. Read the thread below on "Brownie 2a film question", there are a couple of links there.

trican

Thanks Daire, I kind of suspected it was software related, but the scanner is part of an all-in-one dell printer, so it mightn't be the greatest.

I saw the Brownie 2a thread, but since I've only started dabbling in film, I'd like to hold off a little while more before spending more money on a film scanner. But loving film and the Nikon FE so far.