Scanning slides - weird results, need help

I have a slide scanner and I am less than impressed with the results I have obtained so far. But maybe it's the software I'm using for the output? Seems I'm better at finding good railfan spots and framing a shot than I am at digitizing my results. If somebody can take a look at my strangely colored pics at http://community.webshots.com/user/rdgandrew and tell me what I might be doing wrong, I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

A couple of questions:
1) What kind of scanner?
2) What softwear are you using with it?
3) What film media? print?, slide? or digtal?

It appears you are scanning at too low a dpi for starters.

Without knowing more about your scanner, photo program and film media, I can't take a crack of what may be happenning here.

About the only way I can get a result like that on my scanner is to run the brightness, contrast, and color balance way off toward the end of the scale manually.

You did not mention whether this is a slides-only scanner or a flatbed with a transparency adapter. If it is a flatbed, some types of scanning software (particularly the more recent stuff) require you to select "scan a transparency" from the start menu, otherwise you get wierd results. It is not like the old days of the HP 4P and 6100c, when you just turned on the switch on the transparency adapter to tell the unit you were going to scan a slide.

On some software, after you do a magnified scan and select your cropping area, you need to hit a button on the settings window to reset the brightness and contrast specifically for the area you have selected. Then you may need to adjust the brightness and contrast manually a little more in order to get the best results. I find that my scanner usually requires a couple points more brightness and contrast than what the software selects to give the best quality scan.

I have a Epson flatbed scanner that uses a adtapter for scanning slides, For softwear, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements. Most of the time, I use the "automatic" mode which allows the scanner to pre-scan the slides and determine the best settings. Overall, I get very good results.
After the slides are scanned, I can adjust brightness, crop, change size,resolution,etc.

Recheck your softwear and see if your settings are off. You would want to start with the "default" settings that the softwear has and go from there.

I have a Epson flatbed scanner that uses a adtapter for scanning slides, For softwear, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements. Most of the time, I use the "automatic" mode which allows the scanner to pre-scan the slides and determine the best settings. Overall, I get very good results.
After the slides are scanned, I can adjust brightness, crop, change size,resolution,etc.

Recheck your softwear and see if your settings are off. You would want to start with the "default" settings that the softwear has and go from there.
See the sample I have post on Webshots.


http://community.webshots.com/user/johnmech420

As Alcoman asked, what kind of scanner, software and film are you using?

If your software has a "curves" feature that can be set manually, I would guess you've inadvertently set it incorrectly, which can produce the posterized/solarized effects in your pictures.

It's a Mikrotek ScanMaker 5900, and I have several software options. Maybe I will try something different with the software. Two of the photos on webshots were actually prints that I scanned selecting "color photo" in the setup phase of scanning and two (NS and B&LE) were Kodak slides. Anyway, thanks for the help - I'll continue to noodle around with it.

OK, I'm back, hoping someone can help me out here. I have a shot of the Bessemer & Lake Erie from last summer that I scanned in on my Microtek ScanMaker 5900. Saved it as a JPEG. Looked at it on my machine at work this afternoon - it's a little dark but otherwise all the colors are correct and the sharpness is fine. Uploaded it this evening to http://community.webshots.com/photo/317 ... 1261YbxZCC and suddenly it looks like a bad 2-tone print from the '70's. What's going on? Is it my computer? I scanned it using the transparency/color positive film setting, and I've been playing around with other slides since then, and everything's been laserized or pixellated no matter what setting I try. I'd be very glad to hear any advice on what I might be doing wrong, particularly because I'm not aware that I changed anything since the time when I got decent results!

If the image looks fine on your computer before uploading to Webshots but shows the strange posterization on Webshots, we can deduce that it's a Webshots problem. My guess is that your JPEG's are being saved in a nonstandard color space or with some other nonstandard formatting and Webshots can't handle it. What software are you using to edit and save your JPEG's?

I think the problem is solved. I think my old computer was doing something strange to the photos, because I used the same image that I scanned in previously on my new laptop and uploaded it to Webshots and everything looks like I want it to look - true colors, fine-grain detail. Check it out - it's the Bessemer & Lake Erie shot.

http://community.webshots.com/user/rdgandrew

Thanks to everyone for your troubleshooting advice.

It's a little dark, but the color seems correct. Glad to see your problem is solved.