Question about noise

[LLMc]

I was wondering what noise is. I am new to digital. I still use a film camera (CanonEOS5) and scan with a Perfection 1660 Photo. I posted a picture in my gallery and someone commented on the noise. I'm not sure what it looks like in the image let alone what causes it. Another question is how can I avoid it, especially when scanning. I try to scan negatives, but some of my old stuff I use the prints. I don't have enough time to search for the negs. For my digital "darkroom" I have PSP 8.10. Another question about scanning is this: when I scan negatives they seem fuzzier than prints. Is it because the neg holder keeps them up from the glass a little? I was thinking of putting my neg on the glass and putting the holder on top to align it and keep it flat. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Lou

[jerrymeola]

Let's try your questions one at a time.

Noise is used to mean a lot of things to different people. The most often used definition is a comparison to grain in a film print. Grain was the dot image pattern of silver clumps greating the image on film.

Digital is made up of pixels that are often compared to grain. Grain is more random in size and shape while pixels are uniform.

Noise in digital is also used to mean the unrelated miscolored pixels that can result in shooting scanning or printing iterplation. This is more actuate when discribing an undesirable result.

Grain type noise is not bad in inself. Many great photographers used grain in B&W to achieve excellant results. The comments you got probably mean grain type noise, that is a visible pattern of dots (actually square pixels) making up the image.

SCANNING
A big topic in itself. Scanning with a flatbed scanner will always give unsatisfatory results with film. Some of the newer very expensive scanners can do a decent job but generally you need a dedicated film scanner. The flat bed adapters for scanning film are usually poor quality.

Scanning film because of the bright scanning light will record the grain image of the film as well as the pixel pattern of the scanner. Scanning negatives is more difficult than scanning slides. But in either case a good film scan should always be better than a print scan, so you are probably right in that you do not have the image in focus. I think you would have to put the negatives on the glass rather than in a holder.

Quality scans of film are a much better image than current digital cameras, but expensive and very time consuming.

How much grain(noise) is acceptable is easy. If you like the picture it is good enough. There are software packages like Neat image that will blur the noise to make it less objectionable.

Just in case it may help you or someone else a great program to get rid of noise dose detter than PhotoShop is Neat Image I think at http:\\neatimage.com. I use it and it really works wonders!

[setiprime]

LLMc -

Jerry hit it right on the head with his explanations.

I scan quite a few 35mm negs for friends (and relatives). I use the Minolta Dimage lll for this purpose. The tecnology and equipment are for negatives only. You can scan up to very high resolution (with big file sizes too). IF the negs are clean and clear, you can acheive excellent results. It just takes time and patience. The Scanner cost me about $250.00 a year or so ago.

Bottom line - move on over to digital and double your fun at half the OVERALL cost - with no loss of quality.

Just my opinion - Regards (setiprime)