Jump to content

scratch removal for 35mm b+w scans


stump4545

Recommended Posts

Scratches cant be removed in B&W negatives (if you are planning to scan them) Dust spots and other eh.. thing can be removed in software - but not scratches along the hole negative. The choise of scanner might be important.

On my Canon Canoscan US4000US I get far better results than using my (now sold) Nikon coolscan 5000ED. The Coolscan is a bit sharper, but also shows much more scratches. Digital ICE and such does not work in B&W.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Theory has it that the Minolta 5400 and the Nikon 9000 has more diffuse light which helps with scratch and dust. I've used both and that's somewhat true. It helps but I'm not sure it's all that big of a difference.

I've tried wet mount but the extra time and hassle wasn't worth it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

just got my entire b+w negatives scanned and archived but they are loaded with scratches and dust.

 

What does 'entire' mean? A roll, ten rolls, hundreds of rolls?

 

In any event, if it is just a roll or two you can have them cleaned and wet scannned to minimize scratches. Or clean them the best you can of dust before-hand.

Link to post
Share on other sites

As to a plug-in for correcting dust/scratches after the fact:

 

- the problem is that it takes human intelligence to tell whether a given white spot is dust or a scratch - or a tiny white highlight or detail that is SUPPOSED to be a white speck or line (or film grain). The Universe is not big enough (nor Time long enough) for code that could accurately and consistently determine which is which.

 

Frankly, there are times when I can't tell for sure if a given white speck is dust - or a speck of mica reflecting a pinpoint of light from a road, or a distant sequin on a dress. (The same was sometimes true for manually spotting chemical prints, for that matter.)

 

PhotoShop has a "dust and scratches" filter that works OK in areas of smooth tone - most of the time - if one knows how to supervise its decisions, and use the "Undo" command liberally. ;) Depending on the picture, it can sometimes handle 20 or 50 or 80% of the artifacts on an image. Really getting control of it has a learning curve of a couple of years.

 

For the record - Digital ICE works by scanning the film using infrared light. Color film dyes (or the dyes in chromogenic B&W films like Ilford XP2) are mostly transparent to infrared, so the IR scan shows a mostly blank image - except for dust or light-refracting scratches. Thus the software can subtract the IR-revealed dust specks from the RGB scan.

 

Silver metal film grains are NOT transparent to IR light, so the ICE software sees every silver particle as a dust spot, with psychotic results. it deletes large part so fthe imahe (especially in dense highlights).

 

Kodachrome dyes are not as transparent to IR as are E6 and C-41 dyes - so Kodachrome also has problems with Digital ICE. I scanned a (very dusty ancient) Kodachrome slide of a silhouetted fisherman for a colleague, and the ICE "ate" the black fishing line - it vanished entirely. I ended up having to paste a straight scan of the fishing line into an "ICE'd" version of the other 95% of the image.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The healing brush in Photoshop is pretty good, but you got to do it yourself.

 

If you saved the IR channel from the scanner (as an RGBA channel), you can cook up a photoshop action that processes that and uses the result as a mask for the Dust and Scratches filter in Photoshop. While I've never tried that with traditional B&W film, I use it all the time with Kodachrome and it works. I'll have to look and see exactly how bad the IR channel on a B&W scan looks. You might be able to tweak the thresholds to separate the scratches/dust from the silver...

 

But I'm guessing you don't have IR channel data. So, try the healing brush. Or maybe Dust and Scratches, but that will invariably soften your photo. At the very least, create a mask from the highlights in the images for use in dust repair (scratches and dust should always be white, right?).

Link to post
Share on other sites

Try Polaroid Dust and Scratch Removal software. It's free and works pretty well.

 

I tried it years and found that it softened the image to an unacceptable degree. Take a look at the before and after shots in this link...

 

Free Dust and Scratch Removal software saves your scans | Alphatracks

 

There's also a link to the software itself at the bottom of the page - I have a feeling that it won't work with the later 64 bit versions of Photoshop.

Link to post
Share on other sites

thanks for the advice but i am using aperture3.

 

any tips for aperture 3?

 

thanks a lot.

 

Nope. Personally I don't find Lightroom, Aperture, and other programs aimed at digital cameras all that useful working with scans, for the reason you are running into - they don't provide the tools you need. Sure, they are great if you have a scan that has already been dust busted and color corrected to neutral...

Link to post
Share on other sites

Nope. Personally I don't find Lightroom, Aperture, and other programs aimed at digital cameras all that useful working with scans, for the reason you are running into - they don't provide the tools you need. Sure, they are great if you have a scan that has already been dust busted and color corrected to neutral...

 

You can colour correct and remove dust in Lightroom. No idea about Aperture as I don't use it, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You can colour correct and remove dust in Lightroom. No idea about Aperture as I don't use it, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't.

 

You can't color correct all the things that you sometimes need to, unless they've finally put in a full curves adjustment. As far as dust - yes, but scratches I would think are more difficult. Aren't the dust removal tools all based on single circles?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...