Strong graininess on Minolta 5400II scans

[mr_bo]

Hello there.

I've recently bought a Minolta 5400II to acquire all my films.
I'm not yet an expert in film scanning, but not a beginner in digital retouching.

On the first film i'm scanning, I encounter some "problems"...

It's a Kodak Gold 200, and I got a very present grain that doesn't appear on the photographic paper version!!!

I'm only using digital ICE when scanning.

Here is a picture I scanned and a 100% crop. ICE enabled, colors and levels corrected with photoshop:





So, is it the film grain (if yes, it seems very strong! ), or do I miss the knowledge for scanning correctly? If it's the second (and even if it not) do somebody know a complete tutorial about film scanners?

Well, I would be glad to hear you about that!

Thank you all[/img]

[thazooo]

Yes it's film grain, I use the SDlV and run into the same situation. You can do a couple of things to reduce the grain. Scan at a lower resolution, the appearance of grain will be less. Use a 'noise' reduction software such as Neat Image or Noise Ninja. Both work very well removing grain from film scanning.
Scan tips web site is a good place to study different methods of scanning.
I have found that if I do not sharpen in the scanner software that the appearance of grain is reduced.
I have also found that the grain disolver in the Minolta software doesn't work as good as Neat Image or Noise Ninja.
Both Neat Image and Noise Ninja have trial versions, download the trials and give them a run on your scans. I think you'll be pleased with the results.

Dana

[mr_bo]

Thank you for your opinion, it will help me to understand my scanner!
I'm very curious to try the noise reducers, I didn't thought they could help in those case.
I'm also curious about silverscan. Did you tried it?

Well, thank you very much for your reply Dana

Vince

[thazooo]

I've tried Silverfast and Vuescan, I purchased vuescan for scanning my 120mm negs. Silverfast le (the cheap version) didn't do as well for me.
Couldn't justify the price of the other version. I found that Vuescan gave me more detail without artifacts over the SF le. I use it on an Epson 3170. I've tried it on the Minolta SD lV and I preffer the Minolta software package.
Both have try b4 you buy downloads. Give them a test.

Dana

[mr_bo]

Thank you thank you!