We’re in the memories business - we scan photos that mean a lot to people, and in the case of 35mm slide scanning images our clients may not have seen for years. In most cases our clients are very happy with the results.
I wouldn’t say the call was from an unhappy client but it was unusual because the client had a working slide projector alongside a new digital projector so he could see the original 35mm slide and the scan we’d done last week. In the scanned image he could see grain (in the sky areas) whereas in the true projected 35mm image he could see no grain (just an unbroken spread of blue). Why?
A long conversation followed, one I won’t try to summarise. It is an odd fact of high quality digital imagery that scanned 35mm originals often show more grain than appears from a projected image or from a print. It’s hard to get your head around but grain can be more visible in a 4000 dpi scan than in a 2000 dpi scanned photo.
In this case the solution was to run the original scan through a great piece of software I often use for my own images, it is Neat Image. Versions are available for Mac and Windows. It does a great job of smoothing out grain in large areas such as expanses of sky. I emailed the corrected slide over and in a few minutes our client was as happy as we want you all to be. I’ve tried the built-in filters in Photoshop but I think Neat Image is better, producing a less “waxy” effect in skin tones, and well worth the modest cost of the package.
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