A few nice minolta images I found:

Caos Naranja || Orange Chaos


Image by Alberto Fernández
KONICA MINOLTA DYNAX 7D
Minolta AF 50mm f2.8 Macro
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Longitud focal | Focal length: 50mm
Abertura | Aperture: F/5.6
Exposición | Exposure time: 1/200seg
ISO: 100

Skyline Combined Lighter


Image by Doha Sam
Nikon F4 with Konica Minolta Centuria 100 negative film. Scanned (at last) on my Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED scanner.

I’m still bothered by the noise on this image so this scan is something of an experiment. I scanned this in a glass holder to see if it would help the sharpness (it doesn’t seem to have). I also scanned it overexposed as well as normally exposed. The overexposed image would have a better exposure for the dark parts of the image. Not being a fan of the "HDR look" I was looking for ways to combine the exposures that wouldn’t look too unnatural but wouldn’t be too manual. Finally, in Photoline (my "Photoshop-like shareware app" I use for ColorPerfect) I hit upon layering the overexposed image on the normally exposed one with 50% opacity and the "lighter colour" combine mode. This seemed to allow the overexposed image to show through most strongly in the darkest parts of the image. I then rebalanced it for a natural rendering.

The end result doesn’t look very different from the "straight" Coolscan scan but does address the image noise in the darker parts of the image. I could have simply dialed up the noise reduction sliders in Lightroom but then the image would have been sapped of all texture and fine detail.

If you are comparing with the previous "straight" version look at the more realistic rendering of the parts of the scene that are darker. The shadows on the buildings and the less lit buildings, the palm trees and the island with the tree in the foreground. Also note the reduction in "grittiness" of the image. You will probably see this best viewing a larger size.

I’m disappointed not to have made a more dramatic improvement but I’m ever grateful once more that this shot is on film. I expect it will appear again each time I come up with a new technique for better rendering my images.

Original:
www.flickr.com/photos/samagnew/4436416072/

Second version:
www.flickr.com/photos/samagnew/4494313698/

Third version:
www.flickr.com/photos/samagnew/4905026715/