and you thought this thread had died.. <G> Well, someone asked if the AN coatings of Glass Slides would show in a scan and I can say that with Quickpoint slides of the type I have at least, it most certainly DOES. You get a sort of grassy looking star pattern that is terrible especially in skys or continuous tone areas. Huge yuk!
Basically I've decided I either use Glass slides and mount them reversed away from the AN coatings, or if I get Newton rings then stuff them in the FH-3 or in a std Slide mount (urgh). I am really wondering whether or not I should have got a Polaroid. Especially since I've found how easy it is to correct dust problems etc in PS6 not being a digital type before. This sharpness issue is a real pain IMO. Some scans I just can't get sharp, even with some of my best chromes (tack sharp under a loupe and shot on Leica glass, tripod mounted yadda yadda) and PS sharpening using various methods, actions etc just introduce too much noise when I want to blow them up to say Super A3. Have to live with it now I guess... Hmph. I've basically settled on the above mounting procedures with manual focus point selection in NS3.1, 14bit scanning, 16x sampling, ICE/GEM etc off, Color management off and color editing the file in 16bit mode in PS. Scanner pumps out 130mb files - ok on a grunt box PC like mine but a MPITA for a lot of others out there I bet having lived with a 433 Celeron laptop for ages. I do sharpening in 8bit, LAB mode using various PS actions. Any other suggestions for improving sharpness gratefully received! :) I really would love to see a crop from Polaroid scan of the same chrome side by side with one from a LS4000. Would be interesting.. 'ave a good one, Neil
