LaserSoft Imaging

Using SF 6.2, Epson 1640XL, Windows XP. After loading this latest version of SF, & calibrating, I noticed areas of little detail in the highlights were "dithering" (correct term?); i.e., instead of a smooth gradation from lighter area to lightest/ white, the lighter area breaks up & gets speckled. It doesn't look like this on the original. I've put a sample here:
http://home.indy.net/~bison/id3.html
If you "Save as" & view it in PS, you should be able to see what I'm talking about. I didn't have this problem with SF 5. I've gone back & checked the settings against what we had SF 5 set at, & everything's identical. I also used the same calibration print & profiles on both. My monitor's set to its highest color depth--32 bit. We also scan the full range from 0 to 256 in the Histogram, to make sure we don't lose any detail; we go back & correct it in PS Levels. Any suggestions? tia much.
david

Dear David

I suppose the effect is caused by different settings you have in SF 6 and SF 5(.5), as there are no substanteously differences in the versions that would distort the scanned image in such a way.

To me the posterized look on the published example at the crucial highlight areas is a typical compression artefact of JPEG with sharpened images.

As I don't have much information about the settings you are using, I suppose that standard settings are activated in the scan control window.
Thus probably the auto-sharpen USM feature is activated.

Please call up the sharpening dialogue and change the threshold to 10%K.
This should effectively reduce the posterization.

However, if the problem persists, please don't hesitate to contact LaserSoft Imaging support staff: http://www.silverfast.com/problemreport/en.html
I would appreciate if you could paste a fresh copy of the SF_Logfile in the problem report.
Thanks in advance for your co-operation.