OLD damaged BW negs

K
Posted By
KatWoman
Oct 19, 2005
Views
664
Replies
22
Status
Closed
My dad turned 80 and his friend gave him some great condition 35mm BW negs (1956 & 1959). Except for major dust.
I did not want to manually clean with chemicals, didn’t want to risk any damage.
I have a Canonscan FS 4000.
All my previous experience with it is from color slides, I got it with digital Ice, it’s a prog that auto removes dust and scratches at the scan phase.(big improvement over my old Minolta)
It does not work on BW negs! It says the operation failed and after further research I find it isn’t designed to work on BW negs.
So now I have a bunch of really dusted up and sometimes scratched scans. I manually spotted one image and it took like 2 hours for just dust. I tried Gaussian/ dust scratches and overlay, hue, color, none of that looked right.

anyone have a good faster way I can fix them?

the scanning is super slow already and I need to do 4 rolls of 24

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R
Roberto
Oct 20, 2005
"KatWoman" wrote in message

anyone have a good faster way I can fix them?

No magic for good outcomes. Welcome to the world of old film.
C
Caitlin
Oct 20, 2005
"KatWoman" wrote in message
My dad turned 80 and his friend gave him some great condition 35mm BW negs (1956 & 1959). Except for major dust.
I did not want to manually clean with chemicals, didn’t want to risk any damage.
I have a Canonscan FS 4000.
All my previous experience with it is from color slides, I got it with digital Ice, it’s a prog that auto removes dust and scratches at the scan phase.(big improvement over my old Minolta)
It does not work on BW negs! It says the operation failed and after further research I find it isn’t designed to work on BW negs. So now I have a bunch of really dusted up and sometimes scratched scans. I manually spotted one image and it took like 2 hours for just dust. I tried Gaussian/ dust scratches and overlay, hue, color, none of that looked right.

anyone have a good faster way I can fix them?

the scanning is super slow already and I need to do 4 rolls of 24

Clean the negs. PEC-12 is designed for this, and is quite affordable. If you are concerned, just test one out in a corner first. It’s crazy not to remove the dirt first before scanning. http://www.photosol.com/pec-12product.htm BTW – I have the supplier details for Australia for anyone searching for it down this way.
R
Roberto
Oct 20, 2005
Clean the negs. PEC-12 is designed for this, and is quite affordable.

Gosh, if it’s negs, use Pledge(tm) "grab it dry" cloths. No kidding. They are lint-free and truly suck up the dust. If they had been invented during the era of the darkroom, they would be a huge hit – and real spendy. But they are cheap now. The "dry" ones, not the ones with polish.

I use ’em on negs in the darkroom. Outstanding.
N
noone
Oct 20, 2005
In article <29z5f.37408$>,
says…
My dad turned 80 and his friend gave him some great condition 35mm BW negs (1956 & 1959). Except for major dust.
I did not want to manually clean with chemicals, didn’t want to risk any damage.
I have a Canonscan FS 4000.
All my previous experience with it is from color slides, I got it with digital Ice, it’s a prog that auto removes dust and scratches at the scan phase.(big improvement over my old Minolta)
It does not work on BW negs! It says the operation failed and after further research I find it isn’t designed to work on BW negs.
So now I have a bunch of really dusted up and sometimes scratched scans. I manually spotted one image and it took like 2 hours for just dust. I tried Gaussian/ dust scratches and overlay, hue, color, none of that looked right.

anyone have a good faster way I can fix them?

the scanning is super slow already and I need to do 4 rolls of 24

Many years ago, I had ~ 100,000 B/W negs and 35mm slides "lost" in a flood. Called in interns from Tulane U. who were studying film/photography. We set up a cleaning line, with ionized water wash, re-fix, and several more regular wash baths, the last with Photoflo. I was amazed at how well this project turned out. My negs and slides had tons of slime and muck on them, and I ended up with about 90% success rate. The handling was extremely careful, but some of the guck couldn’t be removed without taking emulsion with it. I imagine that shooters, back in New Orleans are doing much the same, right now.

What I would do is get the ultimate scan that is possible now, as others have said, experiment on one part of a neg, and plan on washing, re-fixing, re- washing, and drying. I hope that these are still in strips, and not individual.

Caitlin recommended a cleaning agent/process, that I have not knowledge of, but it sounds well worth a try.

Good luck,

Hunt
N
noone
Oct 20, 2005
In article , says…
Clean the negs. PEC-12 is designed for this, and is quite affordable.

Gosh, if it’s negs, use Pledge(tm) "grab it dry" cloths. No kidding. They are lint-free and truly suck up the dust. If they had been invented during the era of the darkroom, they would be a huge hit – and real spendy. But they are cheap now. The "dry" ones, not the ones with polish.
I use ’em on negs in the darkroom. Outstanding.

Pledge cloths, hm-m-m. I used several treated cloth products (seems at least one came from Ilford), and the biggest drawback was how quickly they became matted with the detritis on the negs. Back then, these guys were not cheap, so it was a real drag, and I was always making one pass, then making sure that THAT surface never touched a neg again. If these "grab it dry" are inexpensive and soft enough, sounds like a great idea.

Hunt
C
Caitlin
Oct 20, 2005
"Hunt" wrote in message
In article , says…
Clean the negs. PEC-12 is designed for this, and is quite affordable.

Gosh, if it’s negs, use Pledge(tm) "grab it dry" cloths. No kidding. They are lint-free and truly suck up the dust. If they had been invented during the era of the darkroom, they would be a huge hit – and real spendy. But they are cheap now. The "dry" ones, not the ones with polish.
I use ’em on negs in the darkroom. Outstanding.

Pledge cloths, hm-m-m. I used several treated cloth products (seems at least
one came from Ilford), and the biggest drawback was how quickly they became
matted with the detritis on the negs. Back then, these guys were not cheap, so
it was a real drag, and I was always making one pass, then making sure that
THAT surface never touched a neg again. If these "grab it dry" are inexpensive
and soft enough, sounds like a great idea.

Hunt

Honestly I don’t work for them – but PEC pads are disposable and lint free http://www.photosol.com/pecpadproduct.htm I bought a pack of 100, and still have about 90 left, buy using them for a few photos each.
N
noone
Oct 20, 2005
In article <4357144d$0$1368$>,
says…
"Hunt" wrote in message
In article , says…
Clean the negs. PEC-12 is designed for this, and is quite affordable.

Gosh, if it’s negs, use Pledge(tm) "grab it dry" cloths. No kidding. They are lint-free and truly suck up the dust. If they had been invented during the era of the darkroom, they would be a huge hit – and real spendy. But they are cheap now. The "dry" ones, not the ones with polish.
I use ’em on negs in the darkroom. Outstanding.

Pledge cloths, hm-m-m. I used several treated cloth products (seems at least
one came from Ilford), and the biggest drawback was how quickly they became
matted with the detritis on the negs. Back then, these guys were not cheap, so
it was a real drag, and I was always making one pass, then making sure that
THAT surface never touched a neg again. If these "grab it dry" are inexpensive
and soft enough, sounds like a great idea.

Hunt

Honestly I don’t work for them – but PEC pads are disposable and lint free http://www.photosol.com/pecpadproduct.htm I bought a pack of 100, and still have about 90 left, buy using them for a few photos each.

Glad to hear of them. I still have the un-save flooded negs in a box, and will try these, as they might bring my save rate up to 95% – thanks for the rec.

Hunt
R
Roberto
Oct 20, 2005
"Caitlin" wrote

Honestly I don’t work for them – but PEC pads are disposable and lint free http://www.photosol.com/pecpadproduct.htm I bought a pack of 100, and still have about 90 left, buy using them for a few photos each.

Thanks for the second nudge. I didn’t realize they were disposable. Will get some ASAP.
C
Caitlin
Oct 20, 2005
"Lorem Ipsum" wrote in message
"Caitlin" wrote

Honestly I don’t work for them – but PEC pads are disposable and lint free http://www.photosol.com/pecpadproduct.htm I bought a pack of 100, and still have about 90 left, buy using them for a few photos each.

Thanks for the second nudge. I didn’t realize they were disposable. Will get some ASAP.

Just to clarify – the PEC-12 solution, and PEC pads are different products – just marketed by the same company. The PEC pads don’t have any cleaner solution on them, but can be used as is as lint free wipes, or combined with the cleaning solution. Also – I have found one batch of slides that were not solvent proof! (And made the mistake of not testing first) These slides were so damaged just rubbing them probably would have taken the emulsion off though…..
T
Tacit
Oct 20, 2005
In article <29z5f.37408$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

My dad turned 80 and his friend gave him some great condition 35mm BW negs (1956 & 1959). Except for major dust.
I did not want to manually clean with chemicals, didn’t want to risk any damage.

Cleaning the negatives properly will not damage them, and will in fact help preserve them–environmental pollutants and ionized particles such as cigarette smoke can actually attack the emulsion.

If you do not feel comfortable cleaning the negs yourself, look in your phone book for a "custom photofinishing house" and ask them what they’d recommend. Custom photofinishers are the places that cater specifically to professional photographers, and they really understand the importance of treating valuable photographic materials with respect.

No matter how you slice it, you’ll get better results if you clean the negs–no way around it.


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
K
KatWoman
Oct 20, 2005
"Tacit" wrote in message
In article <29z5f.37408$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

My dad turned 80 and his friend gave him some great condition 35mm BW negs
(1956 & 1959). Except for major dust.
I did not want to manually clean with chemicals, didn’t want to risk any damage.

Cleaning the negatives properly will not damage them, and will in fact help preserve them–environmental pollutants and ionized particles such as cigarette smoke can actually attack the emulsion.

If you do not feel comfortable cleaning the negs yourself, look in your phone book for a "custom photofinishing house" and ask them what they’d recommend. Custom photofinishers are the places that cater specifically to professional photographers, and they really understand the importance of treating valuable photographic materials with respect.
No matter how you slice it, you’ll get better results if you clean the negs–no way around it.


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
I will try cleaning the actual negatives (yes they are still in strips) I did not want to send them to a commercial lab so as to take no risks on losing them.
I know how to clean them and what to use, we used to have a BW real darkroom here, just haven’t used it in ages.
We used to use "nose grease" on scratches! not Vaseline

so no one has an in Photoshop solution?
wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.
TN
Tom Nelson
Oct 20, 2005
Kat, I haven’t tried this but it’s worth a shot:

1. Copy the background layer
2. Select the dust. That might be everything from 250 to 255 brightness, for instance. I’d do it by duplicating the gray channel and increasing contrast.
3. Blur the layer enough to eliminate the dust.
4. Layer mask, show selection
Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography

In article <29z5f.37408$>, KatWoman
wrote:

My dad turned 80 and his friend gave him some great condition 35mm BW negs (1956 & 1959). Except for major dust.
I did not want to manually clean with chemicals, didn’t want to risk any damage.
I have a Canonscan FS 4000.
All my previous experience with it is from color slides, I got it with digital Ice, it’s a prog that auto removes dust and scratches at the scan phase.(big improvement over my old Minolta)
It does not work on BW negs! It says the operation failed and after further research I find it isn’t designed to work on BW negs.
So now I have a bunch of really dusted up and sometimes scratched scans. I manually spotted one image and it took like 2 hours for just dust. I tried Gaussian/ dust scratches and overlay, hue, color, none of that looked right.

anyone have a good faster way I can fix them?

the scanning is super slow already and I need to do 4 rolls of 24
T
Tacit
Oct 21, 2005
In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

On the Mac, the cursor color does change when it goes over a neutral gray image.

It does not change on the PC because of a technical limitation in Microsoft Windows. Chris Cox has discussed this issue in comp.graphics.apps.photoshop, I believe about a year ago.


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
K
KatWoman
Oct 21, 2005
"tacit" wrote in message
In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

On the Mac, the cursor color does change when it goes over a neutral gray image.

It does not change on the PC because of a technical limitation in Microsoft Windows. Chris Cox has discussed this issue in comp.graphics.apps.photoshop, I believe about a year ago.

Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

ahh a disadvantage for PC users
it must be controlled by Windows system
K
KatWoman
Oct 21, 2005
"Lorem Ipsum" wrote in message
Clean the negs. PEC-12 is designed for this, and is quite affordable.

Gosh, if it’s negs, use Pledge(tm) "grab it dry" cloths. No kidding. They are lint-free and truly suck up the dust. If they had been invented during the era of the darkroom, they would be a huge hit – and real spendy. But they are cheap now. The "dry" ones, not the ones with polish.
I use ’em on negs in the darkroom. Outstanding.
bought the Grab Its at the grocery store yesterday while loading up for possible hit by Wilma, damn hurricanes.
Will try and see if they help.
Also going to try Tom Nelson’s idea in PS.
This is going to be a real labor of love, no money cause it’s family history.
There are some photos of my mom when she was young and still here on the planet, my Dad as a young man and my sister and I being natural at home. The photographer is a pro so they are quite interpreting and wonderful "slice of life" pictures.
Worse comes to worse I’ll just print them small with all the spots.
N
noone
Oct 21, 2005
In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
says…
[SNIP]
so no one has an in Photoshop solution?
wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

As Tacit correctly points out, the cursor color is set in MS Win, though I still always add a req for this feature in every version of PS, just in case something ever changes. There was a time that PC did not offer dual-monitor support.

One thing you might want to think about, however, is hitting the Ctrl key, to change the cursor to the "arrow." I do not recall who suggested this, during one of the "cursor color/Win" discussions, but it does help to "find" it. Not as good as having a neon blue, or international orange, or whatever contrasting color works for that image, or image area, but about as good as it seems it’ll get for a bit, with PCs.

Hunt
DL
Donald Leman
Oct 21, 2005
I too have been looking at different techniques to get rid of dust and scratches in scanned B&W negatives. Here is something that I’ve been experimenting with recently.

1. Duplicate the background layer
2. Apply the Dust & Scratch filter to this layer as follows
3. In the filter adjust the level to get rid of the worst marks
4. Then increase the threshold to match the original grain. you may need to play with this a bit
5. Apply the filter and change the blending mode of that layer to darken

This will usually result in too much softening of the original image. What I have been playing with are the "blend if" options in the layer properties.

1. On the underlying layer section bring the left slider up until some of the dust and scratch marks just begin to appear again then back off a bit.
2. On current layer play with both ends until you get the proper levels.

I usually take a snap shot at this point and compare it with the original to judge the degree of softening. If there are still some areas that loose too much sharpness you could add a layer mask and reduce the changes in that area only.

As a side line Poloroid have a free program that works on dust and scratches. You can find it by googling "dust scratches poloroid". It is no longer supported and does soften a bit but worth checking out.

Don

"KatWoman" wrote in message

anyone have a good faster way I can fix them?

the scanning is super slow already and I need to do 4 rolls of 24
B
Brian
Oct 27, 2005
KatWoman wrote:
"tacit" wrote in message

In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

On the Mac, the cursor color does change when it goes over a neutral gray image.

It does not change on the PC because of a technical limitation in Microsoft Windows. Chris Cox has discussed this issue in comp.graphics.apps.photoshop, I believe about a year ago.

Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

ahh a disadvantage for PC users
it must be controlled by Windows system
I am at a loss as to why you are having that problem on your PC Katwoman. There is no such disadvantage on my PC at all. The cursor is black on a light image and light on a dark image. On neutral grey my cursor becomes a light grey and is clearly visible on the neutral grey background. The same applies for all of the tools including clone tool, etc.

Maybe there was some problem on lder versions of Windows, I have no idea, but there is no such problem on Windows XP.
B
Brian
Oct 27, 2005
Hunt wrote:
In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
says…

[SNIP]

so no one has an in Photoshop solution?
wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

As Tacit correctly points out, the cursor color is set in MS Win, though I still always add a req for this feature in every version of PS, just in case something ever changes. There was a time that PC did not offer dual-monitor support.

One thing you might want to think about, however, is hitting the Ctrl key, to change the cursor to the "arrow." I do not recall who suggested this, during one of the "cursor color/Win" discussions, but it does help to "find" it. Not as good as having a neon blue, or international orange, or whatever contrasting color works for that image, or image area, but about as good as it seems it’ll get for a bit, with PCs.

Hunt

Hi there Hunt,

I just responded to Katwoman/Tacit on this issue and now I see you comment on the same point. I am curious if there is some setting I have ticked and you don’t, because I have a cursor that changes in accordance with the background on my Windows PC. The interesting thing is that it works perfectly in Photoshop. In Corel Photopaint, however, the cursor becomes lighter if the background is darker than mid-grey, and darker if the background is lighter than mid-grey, and totally disappears if the background is mid-grey (cursor becomes mid-grey!). So you are having the problem in Photoshop that I have in Photopaint, but I have no such problem in PS.

Strange.

Brian.
RL
Rainer Latka
Oct 27, 2005
KatWoman schrieb am Donnerstag, 20. Oktober 2005 19:50:

[…]
I know how to clean them and what to use, we used to have a BW real darkroom here, just haven’t used it in ages.
We used to use "nose grease" on scratches! not Vaseline

might be interesting to find these negs in your archive and study the longterm effects of nose grease on film 😉

[…]
K
KatWoman
Oct 27, 2005
"Brian" wrote in message
KatWoman wrote:
"tacit" wrote in message

In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

On the Mac, the cursor color does change when it goes over a neutral gray image.

It does not change on the PC because of a technical limitation in Microsoft Windows. Chris Cox has discussed this issue in comp.graphics.apps.photoshop, I believe about a year ago.

Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

ahh a disadvantage for PC users
it must be controlled by Windows system
I am at a loss as to why you are having that problem on your PC Katwoman. There is no such disadvantage on my PC at all. The cursor is black on a light image and light on a dark image. On neutral grey my cursor becomes a light grey and is clearly visible on the neutral grey background. The same applies for all of the tools including clone tool, etc.

Maybe there was some problem on lder versions of Windows, I have no idea, but there is no such problem on Windows XP.

I have windows XP pro sp2, had it on old box and this box, same cursor issue.
MY cursor does not change colors, maybe it is the settings Do you have it set to Windows default? I do
Are you using brush size as the preference in PS?
B
Brian
Oct 28, 2005
KatWoman wrote:
"Brian" wrote in message

KatWoman wrote:

"tacit" wrote in message

In article <dLQ5f.38986$>,
"KatWoman" wrote:

wonder why they make it so you can’t change the cursor color, it blends perfectly with neutral gray, quite annoying,
makes the tool disappear on large areas of every BW image and the entire background on studio shots.

On the Mac, the cursor color does change when it goes over a neutral gray image.

It does not change on the PC because of a technical limitation in Microsoft Windows. Chris Cox has discussed this issue in comp.graphics.apps.photoshop, I believe about a year ago.

Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

ahh a disadvantage for PC users
it must be controlled by Windows system

I am at a loss as to why you are having that problem on your PC Katwoman. There is no such disadvantage on my PC at all. The cursor is black on a light image and light on a dark image. On neutral grey my cursor becomes a light grey and is clearly visible on the neutral grey background. The same applies for all of the tools including clone tool, etc.

Maybe there was some problem on lder versions of Windows, I have no idea, but there is no such problem on Windows XP.

I have windows XP pro sp2, had it on old box and this box, same cursor issue.
MY cursor does not change colors, maybe it is the settings Do you have it set to Windows default? I do
Are you using brush size as the preference in PS?
Hi again Katwoman,

ok, I am using the default windows cursor. In PS my preferences are as follows:
In Display & Cursors, I have "normal brush tip" under Painting Cursors heading, and "Standard" under the Other Cursors heading.

I just ran the Spot Healing Brush over an image with a girl in a light purple suit, with a white van and a pale blue wall in the background. As the cursor passes over the suit, it turns white, over the white van it turns black and over the wall it turns pink. At all times the cursor is clearly visible. I filled a square with an RGB colour of 128,128,128 and the cursor became white.

I can’t seem to find any settings specifically related to cursors dynamically changing colour, but it works fine on my computer. Sorry I am not offering much help, all the best,

Brian.

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