I'm working with a friend who shoots a Fuji 6X9 wide and has made terrific C prints up to 20X30 with negatives of Agfa Optima. He's beginning to scan the negs with an Epson 4990 and, from the start, they are very "grainy" (cloudy) and, even at 4800 dpi, don't hold up well even at 11X14". Last night we ran some tests: 4800 dpi, no filtration in the scanner (grain reduction, scratch removal, ICE etc) and target size, original. The results, when sized to, say, 300 dpi are quite "grainy" and fully hideous at 100% view. All he wants is to produce a 15X30" print on a 4800. Our sense is that these scans are barely 15% the quality of his C prints. I know that people here would suggest a better scanner but, shouldn't there be some fairly useable quality from a 4990?
Not sure if this is the right forum for this content.
Bill