Scanning Fuji Superia 400

[Lazza]

As per the title, I bought a big batch of the stuff a couple of years ago from 7dayshop as the price was too good to turn down and used it on several trips to Barcelona, France etc and got some really great images.

Now I've had awful trouble scanning this stuff and gave up when using a Plustek 7200i as the results whether using Silverfast or VueScan were never acceptable and the resulting scans looked like I'd pushed the film to 3200 the grain was that bad. Speaking to a few guys in Calumet and they told me that the reason for this was that Gen 2 film using 4 layers like Superia 400 was terrible to scan due to the extra layers hence my results, guy said he had an Epson v700 and found his scans were a lot better with that with the higher DMAX.

Anyway, I wanted to upgrade my film scanner so treated myself to a new Epson V700 but yet no matter what I try, what software I use the results are not really any better than using my old Plustek especially concerning the high grain in the resulting scans.

Now when I scan Flickr and checkout tags for Superia 400 there are some really good scans up there, and using really old film scanners too with poorer specs than either of the scanners that I have tried/used. So anybody who knows the secret on scanning this film settings wise please, please tell all as it is driving me insane right now.

Any thoughts from other forum members who have scanned this film?

[LargeFormat]

I used to have a Canoscan FS4000US which was by no means cheap but found the scans sort of gritty rather than grainy. I now have a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 which is excellent and I gave away the Canon. I also have an Epson Perfection 4990 Photo which I use mostly for medium and large format. This was the predecessor to the V700/750. Scanning 35mm is very nearly as good as the Nikon so I would think you should be able to get good results.

[Malcolm_Stewart]

...
Anyway, I wanted to upgrade my film scanner so treated myself to a new Epson V700 but yet no matter what I try, what software I use the results are not really any better than using my old Plustek especially concerning the high grain in the resulting scans. ...

Just a thought...
Assuming that your Epson Software is like that on my Epson 4870 scanner, are you using the "Professional" mode (with all the options on offer), rather than the Home or Full Auto mode?

[FujiSigmaNolta]

Hi,

I have a Plustek (and an Epson 4490) just like yours and I have scanned Superia 1600 with no problems at all. In fact one of my scans was from a fresh 1600 (I had bought it in 2003 had expiry that of 2008 if I am not mistaken), the reason I remember was that the resulting scan was so flawless that most can't tell at what ISO it was taken, saying either ISO400 or 800 tops. One of my friends asked me what was the date on the film and I checked and I confirmed bought the film the year it was made. That's why it stuck to me.
Obviously some credit must also go maybe to the processing lab, but it was flawless, very little grain and well saturated.

In fact, I am inclined to say that it may have been that the film you bought was maybe a bit off? It may be that the price of the film was down because the film was old or approaching expiry. Given that you are having pretty much the same results with different scanners it may be something to look at. Maybe the film wasn't properly stored in the shop, even...

I will look for the picture mentioned above, but I have some examples on my flickr page of medium to high ISO film scanned with the Plustek with very good results.

Another tip is check if you Digital ICE feature is on and if the noise filters are on or off.

Ultimately, you may want to use higher quality processing labs like Peak Imaging or start doing your own processing at home (it's what I do now and no more scratched negs or trannies and over grainy stuff).

Hope that helps

[Lazza]

Yes, the more I consider the matter and look at other's results using Superia the more I think you might be spot on Luis. (Still be interested in viewing that scan Luis if/when you have the time to post it.)

No problems scanning E6 or BW on either scanners so that's why I was thinking it must be a Superia problem, I also have used 3 different labs to process the film too and they all scan the same from that batch. (Btw the film was in date when I bought it & used most of it and the rest refrigerated since purchase of course) Oh and ICE on + Noise filters off too on V500 as you advised so not that, even without ICE the same too.

I don't normally shoot colour positive film myself but should have a few rolls of fresh Superia 200 & Kodak 200 to scan in the next week that my wife shot whilst on holiday so hopefully I shall see a big difference then. Me, I usually stick to Velvia, Tri-X and started using a bit of XP2 on occasion and no real problems on any scanner with that stuff so will stick to it.

Many thanks for all the responses, really appreciate your time.

** Edit

Thinking about it I do remember shooting a roll of Superia 1600 myself a few years back (Long forgotten about that. doh!), I'll have to look it up. Don't remember it being in my negative folders so it must be some place else, I'll try and find them in the next few day's and have a go at scanning that.

[Lazza]

Btw to all who scan film there's an excellent new audio podcast on basics & advanced film scanning just posted by hybrid artist Steven Schaub at his Figital Revolution site here, it's 27 mins long and you can either listen online or d/l it:- http://figitalrevolution.com/2009/05...technique-101/

Some very interesting views overall I thought.

[FujiSigmaNolta]

It also just occurred to me, that the Plustek comes with film profiles. Maybe you may have to assign a different profile to it, I do that lots of times when I am not happy with a given film's native profile and I do get varying results in terms of grain, contrast, etc. Try that!
I will post that pic as soon as I find it.

[Lazza]

It also just occurred to me, that the Plustek comes with film profiles. Maybe you may have to assign a different profile to it, I do that lots of times when I am not happy with a given film's native profile and I do get varying results in terms of grain, contrast, etc. Try that!
I will post that pic as soon as I find it.

You mean the Negafix part of Silverfast AI? Yeah tried all those, in the earlier versions (Going back to v6.04 IIRC) there wasn't a correct profile for Gen 2 Superia 400 but there is these day's and tried that but alas no difference. I also have the same Negafix prog within the "cut down" Silverfast SE software that came with my Epson v700 too and no difference with that either, I'll be honest and say the best scans I've had with the Epson so far have been when using the basic Epson Scan software though I've only had the new scanner set up for a few day's so far and don't have VueScan set up properly yet for it which is my preferred weapon of choice.

In fact the best success, but still poor, that I've had was playing around with scanned .tiff images of these files last night and then using the film profiles in DXO Labs excellent Film Pack 2 ( http://www.dxo.com/uk/photo/filmpack ) - Now this software isn't intended for this purpose, it's really intended for giving digital shots that individual film type look and it really is good (I use it for giving my D200 shots a "1 click" Velvia 100 or Tri-X look and overall it's spot on!), but the colour does look a lot better when I gave it a Kodachrome 200 profile, still the grain problem remains though but then that's just down to how badly the film scanned. LOL

I mean going by the Steven Schaub podcast I posted above I was already pretty much doing everything he recommended in my scans already apart from maybe my scan file size- I scanned to sRGB profile (Apart from also trying the Negafix film profiles) and also try usually for 40mb ish per .tiff file where he recommends trying for around 70-75mb but that isn't really the deciding factor in grain/noise and doesn't affect my scans from E6/BW at all.