Having trouble scanning color negatives with new scanner

[mom2cj]

I just got a Epson Perfection 4490 and began to scan negatives. I am finding the quality of the scan is not what I expected. I have played around with the settings (auto mode, home mode and professional mode). I have tried adjusting the resolution to 2400 and 3200.

It seems like the pictures are grainy. When I did a scan from the picture instead of the negative, it came out better...but the picture looked clearer. I had understood that the negative was the best, but it seems the other way around.

I don't think the quality of the negatives (photos) are anything spectacular. We had a cheap camera at the time. But I expected the scan to look as good as the hard copy.

I haven't printed anything, just viewed in PSE4, I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it? The scanner was bought used, but it looks to be in mint ccondition, I'm wondering if that has anything it do with it. Or maybe it's the quality of the negatives, or maybe I'm missing something. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[Careoline]

There was a guest on The Lab with Leo Laporte TV show that explained it very well within the last month. You could try his blog's website and check the links. The guest is a regular that speaks on colour. He spoke about the banding effect that results from how technologies record and depict colour to fool our mind's eye. Also, there was an explanation that the computer takes the scan and can eliminate pixels that lie against one another so that ink-jet printer doesn't clump together the ink together side by side. Instead the graduated effect with smooth the colour out. Banding is a common term for you to look up. Also noted was that cheaper 1 pass scanners work better than 3 pass scanners in most cases. I'm new to this so I'd look at the website for the expert's explanation.