Slide Scanning: Part 4—Epson Scan Remaining Settings
After doing numerous test scans I decided to disable all of the remaining scanner settings.
Each of the following settings is set as unticked:
Unsharp mask
Grain Reduciton
Color Restoration
Backlight Correction
Dust Removal/Digital ICE Technology
My approach here is that if sharpening/unsharpening is required then I will do is as part of my post processing rather than have the Epson scanning software do it.
Ditto for Grain Reduction, Color Restoration, Backlight Correction (i.e., exposure), and Dust Removal.
By taking this approach, the scan done by the scanner will be RAW-ish. By this I mean that no changes or adjustments will be made to the scan by the scanning software. There will be no softening introduced by the ‘Grain Reduction’, no over-sharpening by the Unsharp Mask, and no slight blur introduced in patches by the Dust Removal where the software attempts to remove ‘dust’—when in some cases it might not actually be dust.
I will just get and save the best possible unadjusted scan, and from there, should it be required, I will do my own touching up and exposure or colour adjustments in my post-processing.
Something to watch here is the Unsharpen Mask setting. For whatever reason the Epson scanning software keeps wanting to turn this back on. So you need to keep turning it off (i.e., unchecking it).