tips for scanning images with smooth gradients

[Richard_Irwin]

What is the best way to get smoother gradients when scanning B&W negatives into Silverfast AI from scenes shot under conditions where bright clear skies & a red filter on the lens have created a very wide tone gradient.
I seems to be getting speckling across the tone gradient, which doesn't look like film grain. The film was 35mm Ilford Delta 400, and scanner is Epson f3200. I have attempted various settings including 16bit Grey, 48bit colour, and 16-8 grey and 48-24 colour Tiffs, but the results haven't changed much. I don't use any of the Sharpening filters in Silverfast, but I did try GAIN on one of the scans, set at medium, which had some effect, but there were still jumps across the gradient, which now looked more like banding. Using Neat Image or remove Noise in Photoshop gave worse banding. All scans were at 2800dpi. I have seen some posts which say that scanning as HDR might be better. Is this the way to go, or am I missing out something in setting up the scan? Any tips really apreciated as I really want these gradient sky details to look smooth?

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear Richard,

In SilverFast Ai and Ai Studio it is possible to directly adjust the NegaFix profiles.
Maybe this can help you achieve your intended results.
The Ai is also available as a demo if you want to test this feature.

kind regards
Arne Ketelhohn