Scanning Kodachrome in Silverfast with Epson 11000XL

[HartmanPrints]

Hey all,

I know scanning Kodachrome is a huge pain, and I've been getting decent results as far as color or dust/dirt. My issue is with the clarity and sharpness. I'm using Silverfast and an epson 11000XL with the transparency adapter and slide trays provided with the scanner.

I scan them at 2400dpi (300dpi with the slider moved to 2,400... I mention this because I know it makes a difference) and I have to smart sharpen them in photoshop to get them to look sharp. The original scans are a somewhat blurry. When I use a loop on the slides, I can (for example) read the text ".99cents" on a box in the photo, but the in scan I cannot see that it says ".99cents", even when I sharpen it.

Do I need to configure the auto focus somehow? The slide tray that comes with the 11000xl raises the slide off the glass by maybe 1/8 inch... is that causing the issue? How do I get the scanner or silverfast to properly focus? All my frames in silverfast are set for the slide tray, and all have a focus point. Autofocus is on in silverfast.

Any help would be super appreciated, I'm losing hope that this is possible to get any different results with my setup.
-Justin

[degrub]

In my experience, the slide film always had some curvature in the cardboard mounts. Unless the dof of the scanner optics is deep enough you will always have areas not in focus.

Are there height adjustments for the holders with that scanner ? Or can the scanner optics adjust focus ?
You could try some thin shims if it needs extra height.

Demounting the slides is a pain. But either wet mounting or using anti-newton glass in a holder to get the film flat is about the only way i know to do it.

The Nikon 5000 that i used for slide scanning would autofocus. Even then, there would be enough curvature in the slide that parts would be slightly out of focus.

Others have had good results using a dslr, a flat field lens- usually a macro, and a diffuse light source to scan slides. There are several posts here as well as an article or two on the site about how to do this.