My lab partner at the camera shop in Tucson said my scans looked like a copy of a copy, and now I can't unsee it

Elizabeth Williams · 2026-09-30T20:05:05.533138+00:00

I was at this little camera shop on 4th Ave in Tucson last Saturday dropping off a roll of Portra 400, and the guy behind the counter, Marcus, has been developing film for like 22 years. He pulled up one of my scans on his screen and just said, 'This looks like a copy of a copy of a copy.' At first I got kinda defensive because I thought my Epson V600 flatbed was doing fine, but then he showed me the same frame scanned on his Noritsu and the difference in shadow detail was honestly night and day. I've been scanning at 2400 dpi with auto settings this whole time and apparently that's crushing a ton of the grain texture and lifting the blacks in a way that makes everything look flat and muddy. He told me to try scanning at 3200 dpi, turning off all the auto correction stuff, and doing my own curves in post instead of letting the software guess. I went home and rescanned 5 frames from that same roll and yeah, he was right, the shadows have way more depth now. Has anyone else dealt with this where you thought your scanning was solid until someone else's setup humbled you? And if so what resolution and settings are you running on a flatbed vs sending it out?

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My lab partner at the camera shop in Tucson said my scans looked like a copy of a copy, and now I can't unsee it | Analog Camera Club - Topic Shares