can't remove scratches,dust from scanned B&W negs

[joe_kelly1]

I can't remove scratches,dust from scanned 35mm B&W negs. I would like to try

printing them on my epson 2200. Even fresh clean b&w negs show dust and minute

scratches on my Canonscan Fs 4000 US. This is not a problem when shooting color

neg (reala 100) The software can be set to automatically remove them. I don't

have the time or skill to retouch these imperfectiond in Photoshop.

 

Does anyone have any ideas? Is there a program somewhere that will do this?

Thanks you

Joe Kelly

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

Joe,

 

This is the price we have to pay for working with hi-res scans of silver halide B&W emulsions. You can try and re-soak the negs in distilled water, however, from experience I dont find much benefit. Developing and drying negs the same way each time I still find a variety of muck on the final negs. If I want to clean a 35mm film neg scanned at 4000 dpi it can take between 10~15 mins for a very clean neg up about 6 hours I think was the worst case - this is working the image at 100% using a Wacom tablet and pen with the cloning tool.

 

Sorry! but there is no software option here...

[didjiman]

The key is to have a good working process to eliminate dust in the first place. Google photo.net and you will see some links. Most of our time, most of my scans do not show (much) dust any more. For web res, a 20 sec clone stamp work do the job most of the time.

[Ed_Ingold]

Welcome to photography 101. Before digital and scanning, you accepted dust or worked on each print with a watercolor brush. At least with digital images, you only do it once.

 

The Healing Tool in Photoshop is much faster to use because it preserves the underlying texture. I only use the Clone Tool for hard cases. I rarely spend more than 5 minutes and often only about 1 minute to clean up an high resolution image.

 

It certainly helps to remove dust and maintain a clean environment. In my experience, that only removes the big chunks. An high-resolution film scanner shows dust and scratches too small to be seen by eye.

[bill_fouche]

Polaroid's free dust & scratch removal plug-in is simply terrific. Link is here:

 

http://www.polaroid.com/global/detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441760086

[upscan]

Joe: No Problem at all. Please the file "01 - Dry and Fluid Scans Compared" in the Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WETMOUNTING/. This file shows the effect of Wetmounting on very old B&W silver negatives and how the scratches and dust totally disappeared. The photos in this file are part of a methodical study undertaken by two gentlemen, before embarking in the job of scanning hundreds of very old family negatives. Needless to say, after these experiments they wetmounted every one of those negatives and in the process saved hundreds of hours and obtained results not otherwise possible. There are other files in the group that explain the optics behind the magic.

 

We have taken it for granted from the beguinning of time that dry scanning, dry enlarging and dry projection is the normal and right thing without being aware of how the optics play on scratches and dust, and the negative effect it has on resolution, exaggerated grain, diminished color saturation and dynamic range.

 

Wetmounting is a simple technique which involves scanning the film sandwiched to a glass plate in between layers of scanning fluid on one side an a special overlay on the other. After the scan the fluid evaporates and returns the film to its original condition.

 

Good luck!

[digitmstr]

WET mounting is great and the main reason I have just ordered an Epson V750 PRO. HOwever, the poster has a Nikon so, can't be done there (that I know of).

 

If the scratches are bad there is some re-processing that can be done. However, that too is time consuming and you will have to decide if you want to re-process the negs, use software to do it or edit in PS later.

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

Julio I get nothing out of that Scanmax site. Tried Googling and there's one empty PDF-mostly horizontal & vertiocal lines. and another that's looks like medical tecnology. Even the email address on your page didn't work.Wuzzup?

[Ed_Ingold]

The Polaroid plugin is free, and you get exactly what you pay for. It is full of glitches, creates artifacts, and seriously degrades sharpness.

 

Wet mounting will alleviate scratches, but won't remove dust. Instead you add bubbles and at least 20 minutes in preparation and cleanup per scan.

 

If you don't have time to learn basic skills in photoshop, perhaps you should take up golf instead of digital photography.

[jtk]

Infared applications such as Ice readily remove flaws from C41 and E6 film, but they don't work on silver film, which requires relatively good photoprocessing technique (not excellent, just decent). Properly processed silver film requires very little cleanup.

[mendel_leisk]

"I don't have the time or skill to retouch these imperfectiond in Photoshop"

 

If you care about these images, take the time to the learn the skills. Check some of my postings on dust and scratch issues.

 

Another tact: just accept them for what they are, with their imperfections, at least for now. Don't mess them up with some freebee software, at least not the original scans.

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

I can scan B&W negs on my V700 as 24 or 48 bit colour, and then apply Digital Ice to them. It takes about 8 min. for a 35mm neg at 2400 dpi, but with old negs it's worth it. As I learned from this forum, Digital Ice won't work in the B&W mode.

[upscan]

Edward, you wrote:

<Wet mounting will alleviate scratches, but won't remove dust. Instead you add bubbles and at least 20 minutes in preparation and cleanup per scan.>

 

Edward, some of what you say used to apply but no longer. Experienced users get the process down to 1-2 minutes. Even if it was 20 as you suggest, that would be far less than it takes to retouch a messy neg in PS. As for cleaning, there is NONE If you use the right fluids. The old technology fluids currently marketed give you the choice of a very messy clean up (your point) or else, smelly, highly flammable and dangerous liquids. With new technology fluids there is no clean up, no hazard and no smell. Furthermore learning how not to get bubbles is no more difficult than using the stamp tool in PS. As for dust, fluid mounting transparentizes most dust. Let us remember that with the utmost professional tool, the drum scanner, no other mounting technique is used.

 

An important point is that some of what wet mounting accomplishes can't be attained by digital fix ups. The fluidifying effect on coarse grain and the greater brilliance of wet mounted images, are what is missing when the drum scanner is replaced by anything else.

 

Digital fix ups, everyone of them, to some degree extract a toll on image quality in exchange for cleaning dust; the trade-off can be worthwhile, as is often the case, the gain exceeds the loss. Without question these are useful tools and I agree with you that learning them is a must. However, with wetmounting there is no need to give up anything, nor even time.

[erik scanhancer]

Joe,

 

I have sucessfully used "HIDE-A-SCRATCH" from Northeast Photo-Tech Corp. on scratched

B&W negs in my film scanner. However, this is messy stuff and you don't want it to drip

into your scanner. It works like wet mounting fluid, but it does not evaporate, so that it

remains effective even if it is not backed by glass on one side (and the film on the other).

You can remove it quite easily with PEC*PAD photo wipes.

 

As another option you could try the Scanhancer that I've developed for use with the Canon

FS400US. (Originally it was for the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro only.) I'll attach a small

section of a grainy and scratched B&W neg that was scanned with the FS4000US without

Scanhancer and one with Scanhancer. Check out the results for yourself and see if you find

the improvement worthwhile. Also see this page:

 

http://www.scanhancer.com/index.php?art=22&men=3<div></div>

[erik scanhancer]

And here is the other one:<div></div>