epson perfection 4180 for film scans?

[Gregory Guthrie]

I am using an Epson Perfection 4180 to scan a lot of old 35mm film strips.

I really like the batch scan, but seem to get pretty poor quality.

I found that scanning at 2400 and 1200 dpi gave the same general quality,
one was 4x bigger,and had more grainy dots, but no real information.

I used their options for reduce graininess, color correction,and scratch &
dust removal.

Should I expect more?
would I get a significantly better scan using a better scanner?

Thanks for guidance!

Bregory

 

[bmoag]

I have one of these in addition to an old Canon 4000 dedicated film scanner.
The 4180 is very good as a 35mm film scanner when used properly, although
not as good as a dedicated film scanner. For most people's uses it is more
than adequate.
You should always scan at 2400 dpi or greater for an image that you have any
plans to work on or print at size up to 8.5x11 or even bigger. 1200 dpi
generates an extremely low fidelity image that is just unsuitable for
printing or image processing with a 35mm original. You can always downsize
an image file for a particular purpose but upsizing generally leads to
severe loss of quality.
As you learn more about how to process images you will be glad that your
original scans are in a higher DPI resolution.
Save your original scan in a lossless format like TIF. Opening, processing
and resaving jpeg images rapidly degrades image quality.
With higher dpi scans film grain will often be more prominent, particularly
when looking at a magnified part of the image on a computer monitor. That
apparent graininess may or may not be visible in a print and may be inherent
to the old film stock on which the image was created. There are many options
for dealing with it but for the most part it is an aesthetic issue only.
The film cleaning built into any scanner cannot clean dirty, scratched film.
Make sure your materials are as dust free as possible before scanning. Most
people have not stored their slides/negatives optimally so scans will
require much touchup work no matter how they are scanned.
Batch scanning, if I interpret you correctly, can be a problem if the images
on the film strip are less than ideally exposed and require a bit of
manipulation to get a decent scan. With experience you can learn to judge
when you scan all the images on a strip with identical parameters or have to
make individualized adjustments.
At this point in my life I rarely use film and only shoot in dSLR raw mode.
Apart from the scanning part the time spent manipulating images in Photoshop
is no different than with film.

It sounds like you are somewhat new to film scanning and image processing
and need to read and experiment a bit. Scanning the image is just part of
the equation. To get the image to look the way you want to you need to learn
how to use a program like Elements/Photoshop and how to use color
management. It is worth the effort if you want to produce quality images.

 

[CSM1]

I am using an Epson Perfection 4180 to scan a lot of old 35mm film strips.

I really like the batch scan, but seem to get pretty poor quality.

I found that scanning at 2400 and 1200 dpi gave the same general quality,
one was 4x bigger,and had more grainy dots, but no real information.

I used their options for reduce graininess, color correction,and scratch &
dust removal.

Should I expect more?
would I get a significantly better scan using a better scanner?

That is about what you get from a flatbed scanner.

For better quality, you have to go to a dedicated Film Scanner.

 

[-]

I used their options for reduce graininess...and scratch & dust removal.

Should I expect more?<<

These will degrade your image, especially the software based dust and
scratch removal since it is a software-only based method.

Every scanner's scans will need some amount of unsharp masking to bring the
snap back. The correct application of unsharp masking is almost and art in
itself. There are lots of methods discussed on the internet.

Doug