Scanning Issues - White Noise

[Sean Chilibeck]

Hi,

I'm just trying to do some scans of some old prints, and I am getting a rather large amount of white "noise" in the background of the black and white scans. I've attached one of the scans (with a 100% crop), as well as a screen capture of the settings. I'm using a V550, with epson scan. This is a scan of a print not a negative.

Thanks for any help,
Sean

[polyglot]

Is it maybe specular reflections off texture in the paper?

[djdister]

Is it maybe specular reflections off texture in the paper?

Yes, that would seem to be so, because you see the white highlights even in lighter textures. My suggestions: turn off unsharp masking (which emphasizes any texture), turn off color restoration (what color?), scan in 16 bit grayscale. If it needs any sharpening, do that after the capture in Photoshop.