Getting sharp scans with the Epson V550

[quarachti]

Hello there,
I'm pretty much a newbie in the scanning community, and I have a question for you guys.
I used to have a cheap HP printer/scanner a few years ago, and I scanned a couple hundred old pictures.
Recently, I ditched it and bought an Epson v550.
I was hoping to get sharper and more detailed scans, but so far, I've been really disappointed with the results.
Basically, I'm scanning pictures at 1200dpi directly on the glass, and my scans are blurrier with the Epson V550. I've tried scanning at 2400dpi and 4800dpi, but the sharpness doesn't improve at all.

Take a look by yourselves :
cheap HP scan


Epson v550 scan with the Epson Scan software


Epson v550 scan with the VueScan software


Is there an easy solution to get sharper/more detailed scans ?
Do I need to use a software in particular ?
Do I need to use specific settings in Epson Scan or VueScan ?

Thanks a lot in advance for your feedback. I just spent 200 bucks on the Epson V550, and right now, it feels like a big waste of money.

[Jon Shiu]

try turning on sharpening in the Epson Scan advanced controls

Jon

[quarachti]

Hello Jon, and thanks for your quick answer.
I actually turned that option on both in Epson Scan and VueScan, and you can see the results on the pictures I posted above.

[Jon Shiu]

For various reasons, 600dpi or 800dpi is about the limit for scanning old photos. And many people scan at 300dpi. So perhaps you are expecting too much? A good site is scantips.com.

Jon

[Doug Fisher]

John is right about not needing to scan above 300 - 600 ppi for photo prints. The other factor with the HP is that its software could very well be doing more sharpening by default/behind the scenes. You never know but that would mean you are not really seeing an apples to apples comparison. When you scan film, the Epson 550 should out resolve the HP IF everything is optimized in the setup (and you get an in-specification unit).

Doug


Doug

[quarachti]

@Jon :
Thanks for the link.
I don't know if I'm expecting too much, but I managed to get decent results with a cheap scanner, so i thought I'd get great results with a good Epson scanner.
Here is a photo scan from a 1990 picture (see, it's not too old). It was scanned at 1200dpi, and the part I've highlighted is 2 centimeters wide.

Old and cheap HP scanner


New Epson scanner


Now you can understand what I meant when I said the brand new scanner was blurrier than the old one...

@Doug : I like to watch my scanned pictures on phones and tablets, and I like to zoom in, hence the 1200 dpi resolution
You may be right about the default sharpening... Who knows ?
I don't plan to scan film by the way, I just bought this scanner to scan photos.

Also, I use Paint Shop Pro, and I wondered what was the best tool to sharpen the photos ? Do you guys recommend "High Pass Sharpen" or "Unsharp Mask" ? High Pass Sharpen" seems to be doing wonders...

[Nathan Potter]

I assume you are scanning a print. By the above result ( a 20 mm wide frame shown from the original), your resolution of the print is terrible for both machines. I don't think that is the result from the scanners though - you're limited by the quality of the print.

I you scale one of the dark horizontal lines on the column above you'll find that its width is vaguely around 2 mm. Since your image is about 10X of the original, the actual width on the original is about 0.2 mm. (200 µm). 200 µm is 8 mils which corresponds to 125 dpi referenced to the print. That then, is the quality of the print, which is far below what your new Epson can achieve.

You've identified a crappy print rather than a crappy scanner.

Cheers, Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[quarachti]

Thanks for the feedback Nathan.
English is not my native language, so I'm not sure what you are meaning by "print".
Basically, I am scanning old photographs that belonged to my grand parents.
I didn't print any of them myself.
Here is another one that is 54x54 mm wide. The original picture is looking pretty good, considering it's from the mid 50's (there is not a single scratch on it, and the whole picture looks pretty sharp).
I scanned it at 1200dpi. I didn't use any sharpness tool or anything else.
What do you think about the quality of the scan ?
http://imgur.com/download/CGgszz0

[Jim Andrada]

"Print" refers to your original photo - it was photographically printed from a negative so we call it a "print"

[gevalia]

I believe Ken Lee had a good write-up on how to scan with the 750. I am just getting back into things but I believe I scanned at 2400 and used the green channel for B&W. Mind you that was for negatives and I was also using the carrier - with height correctly adjusted.