[filmscanners] Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED and sharpness/focus

["Gary Richardson" <grichardson@watercove.com>]

Hi all,

I've been checking out the mailing list for a little more than a month now
and thought I'd throw out a question.

I've got the Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED. When I'm scanning a slide I'm
finding that it's somewhat out of focus (or better stated, not sharp), and I
have to sharpen it up in Photoshop. I suppose that's not a big deal but I
figured a high end scanner like this could do better. I was getting sharper
scans out of my old HP Photosmart scanner.

I figure I must be doing something wrong in NikonScan. However, I'm not sure
what, and the manual has been less than helpful. Anyone know the trick to
getting nice sharp (i.e. focused) scans on the 4000? I've played around with
the focus point, as well, as the option in NikonScan to set the focus area,
I just don't know what the number in that option corresponds to.

Also, I'm finding that when I scan in a 35mm color negative, the resulting
scan is VERY grainy. I believe I can use... Digital Roc (is that the one?)
to get rid of it. The thing is, do I NEED to use that on every photo, or
again am I doing something wrong?  BTW, my 35mm color negative scans suffer
from the same lack of sharpness/out of focus that the slides suffer from.

I guess I went from a "point and shoot" kind of scanner like the HP
Photosmart, and have graduated to the scanner the big boys use, but I'm slow
with the learning curve of the software.

Thanks for any help/advice.

-Gary

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