Slide scanning issues

I wondered what experience, views and problems you guys may have, or have had, in relation to scanning slides.
As I still enjoy my film work with the LX, alongside my new found digital experience with the *istds, I try and scan my best slides so I can share pics online with others.
I use a Minolta Dimage 5400 (recently purchased to replace an old Dimage 3) mainly because it was reasonably cheap and gives a great Dimax of 4.8 to get into shadowy areas and pick up detail that the old one couldn't.
However, no matter how hard I try, how much I read up on settings etc..., I simply can't replicate anywhere near the original slide image. I know of course that a scan will never be up to the quality of the slide, but I am constantly very disappointed, especially with the sharpness, colour rendition and even grain at times that shouldn't be there.
I'm wondering if the choice of slide film makes any difference, as I've recently read that Velvia 50 (that I most used) is notoriously hard to scan accurately, whereas Astia 100F is very good. I've never much bothered with Astia believing it's designed for portraits in essence, something I rarerly do. However, I've bought a few rolls of Astia to give it a go and see if it scans better.
Any views/opinions/advice most welcome.

Philip

Philip,
Have you tried Ed Hamrick's VueScan? I found it much more consistent, especially for slides.
Matt

Hi Phil,

use the ds (IIRC) and a light box. You've got the macro lenses already, so it'll be a snip to get a high res copy of the slide.

http://www.liamsworld.org.uk/galleries/KenyaBB/

these are straight copies, and done just after I got the DL. It's the first time I've looked at them since, and as I now know a hell of a lot more about post-processing now, I'll be able to do something with them, but you get the idea anyway.
Cheers

Liam

.. NB, if Matt and I post at the same time, a little hint; go with Matt's suggestions first every time.

Has anyone used the old zoom slide copiers, with a digital camera, I bought one second hand more than 10 years ago, I'm sure I still have it somewhere, and if I can find it this weekend I might give it a go. I remember copying some slides to film, but I can't remember how good the results were. Must give it a try.

I am very happy with my Minolta 5400

When you say you can't match the quality of the original slide; do you mean on your monitor or printer? Maybe one or both are the problem, if so colour matching profiles can help.

A useful test is sent a scanned slide to peak imaging or similar to see what their print is like

I scan Velvia, Elitechrome and Sensia

For critical pics I sometimes used the facility to autofocus on a selected part of the slide

Post scanning tweeking of the histogram is also imprtant to get most detail from a slide to a digital print

A Pentax (non-full-frame) DSLR will crop a large chunk of the image.

A possible solution is to arrange a nice even light source behind the slide (trying putting it on a white computer screen), and then photograph it with a good macro lens.

G

Thanks guys, lots of good advice there and a few ideas I hadn't considered. I will indeed have a look at VueScan, as it's a new one on me.
Also I never thought of using the *istds to photograph the slide with my macro on my lightbox. Intriguing and well worth a go.ou
Regarding the colour rendition issue, I find that the scanned image is poor on my laptop monitor and although I know it's well worth calibrating it with one of the available (but costly) devices, I am worried about upsetting the exellent results I see on the monitor from my digital *istds images downloaded from my SD card.
I do get very accurate prints on my HP photosmart 7350 of the saved images I can see and prepare from the laptop monitor, but funnilly have not yet tried printing direct from the scanner which may be best with the slides bypassing the PC. I will give that a go.
I must admit that the scans of slides taken on my LX are much more natural & realistic than the scans taken from my Contax G2 rangefinder slides, which in themselves are far too unbalanced and appear oversaturated with strong colour casts. I found this was the case previously with a Leica M6 I used to own.
Lots to consider and work on and I am most grateful for all the advice/ideas.

Philip

LOL @ Liam

Philip - when you scan with Vuescan, set the Media type to "Image" - that will capture what you see in the slide best of all (if you tell it that it's slide film it will try and colour correct for you, trying to get the colour of the actual scene - which is probably not what you want from a slide )

You have to try the color options a bit. Generally I used "Neutral" as this didn't introduce colour shifts when a scene is mostly one colour (e.g. sunflowers).

The nicest thing was that you could auto-scan from insertion (on the Minolta Scan Dual II and the Nikon Coolscan IV). Scanning slides was a doddle - just shove them in and Vuescan does the focus, scan and save. It meant I could do a roll while doing something else - letting the scanning go on in the background.

Judging by the other threads on taking DSLR images off a slide, I reckon you'll get much better results from Vuescan and the scanner. Even with the Scan Dual II the results were fabulous - you could see the film grain.

Give it a whirl - www.hamrick.com
And Ed is always ready to help out with scanning advise and problem solving too. He's recently joined up with www.ephotozine.com - so there's a few of his articles and tips on scanning. Worth a look

Matt

Matt,
Slightly off-topic. What does it mean that Vuescan can write RAW files for digital cameras. What is the purpose of it?
Andy

Andy,
Vuescan can read the RAW files and output to TIFF, JPG, and PDF. You could use it as your camera RAW convertor... but for that Capture One is much better, IMO.
Matt

Many thanks Matt for the info re: Vuescan.
I have today downloaded the trial version and after playing around with it and getting to grips it is indeed very good and easy to use, producing some excellent scans, especially of landscapes.
So, in view of the £'s current strength against the $, I went ahead and purchased the full pro version that I am now testing and having a good look at the additional features.
I have tended to switch on the advanced features giving me full control and they are impressive.
Just done a landscape test print at A4 of my first proper scan and did actually notice the following :

1) Whilst I chose the scan size as A4 (for printing) it gave me a DPI of only around 167, whereas I normally like to print at 300 DPI, so it seems I will need to increase the scan size probably to A3 to get the DPI I want to print at A4? Not a problem and I just need to adapt.

2) I normally automatically set my HP printer colour saturation slider up a little and did this from habit, only to find that whilst the print is bright, clear, contrasty and sharp, it is perhaps too saturated & this indicates the scans are fine without having to saturate more as I did previously with the Dimage software. A good thing & indicating a much better scan output from Vuescan.

All in all very pleased and looking forward to scanning more than usual and loading up some more film in my LX !
LOL.

Philip

Philip,
Glad that it's working out for you

When you scan - select Quality = "Archive", and select the Scan resolution as high as you want (not auto). Then on the "Output" tab, set the Printed size to "Scan size".
You don't really want VueScan doing any rescaling. You want a straight one-to-one output from the scanner. Then resize in Photoshop afterwards

(VueScan makes it easier to scan to a particular target size, or to copy straight to printer.)

Matt

More good advice Matt - cheers.
It does take some time to get used to a new program.
I thought I'd just mention that unlike (it seems) just about everyone else, I don't use Photoshop, having got very used to Paint Shop Pro ( which I prefer. I'm odd like that! LOL.
No probs though as I find I can do all on PSP that I need - and some!

Philip