I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice or possibly point me to some documentation surrounding touching up photos once they have been scanned in from a 35mm slide? I’ve been working on this for quite some time and the pictures don’t look much better from when I first started. The slides are pretty old and I’m trying to do my best with them, but I’m a novice user and just can’t seem to get it right. The slides are of upmost importance and would greatly appreciate any direction. I’m now using Photoshop CS.
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The main problem is they are just old. The majority of the slides look as if they are dusty (for lack of a better word) when they are scanned in. The color and contrast could definately be improved and some of them have scratches.
I will reply with a post once I find out where I can post some samples.
It sounds like you will need to do several steps in PS: dust removal (several ways to do this), colour adjustment (several ways of doing this), contrast adjustment (curves, levels), etc. You will get some suggestions here, but if you are just starting out, you might consider posting on retouchpro or dpreview retouching forums. If you post the photo, several people will give improvement renditions and you can decide what you like.
I’m using an HP ScanJet 5370C to scan the slides. From there I import the image to PhotoShop CS to crop, etc. The scanned image looks relatively close in comparison with the slide. The slides are just old and I’m not sure what steps I need to follow to enhance the image, so it looks like a quality photo.
You won’t get great results from a ScanJet, as it is a flatbed scanner. If these slides are very important, consider taking them to a good camera store to have them scanned in with a film scanner. (If you need to do this on a regular basis, we can recommend not to expensive film scanners).
Any film scanner with ICE (a digital dust and scratch removal, color restoration system) will save you a lot of work in PS. I have a Nikon LS40 and it has worked wonders on my old stuff.
I have years, literally, of already scanned and need to be scanned slides. I would prefer to do it myself because it would be quite costly for someone else to do it. It has taken me forever an a day to scan everything I’ve already accumulated, but would be willing to do it again with better equipment if need be. I would hope the scanning process with new equipment would not only provide better quality, but a faster process to – yes, no? So, what would you recommend?
Diane, everyone is giving you good advice. But before you do anything CLEAN your slides. Go to your local camera store and get film cleaner and a blower brush. Blow off the dust first and then clean the slides with cleaner. Your software can not work to its optimum if it has to read throught dust, grease and dirt. Its time consuming but worth the effort.
Price range, hmm, good question. Well, since the slides are from my childhood its hard to state a price because they are priceless. But, I don’t want to spen a lot of money to scan a few hundred slides, so I guess I’ll go with your recommendations based on this.
My slides only date to the 70’s, but some had been stored in less than archival environments. The corrections were minimal to most of the old slides, although a few required a lot of work.
I will put in a plug here for VueScan, a great 3rd party scanning software package that really works well with my Nikon. Many other scanner brands are supported.
If the slides are for personal use, a pretty-good flatbed scanner is very likely more than enough. 2400 [d|p].p.i. from 35mm is more than enough for snapshot-size prints. A super double-deluxe scanner isn’t going to magically turn faded slides bright again.
Clean the slides–very well, twice if you can, with an anti-static brush if you have one, and have fun.
Diane, I have had a lot of experience scanning very old and new slides and can offer you a few tips. – Make sure that the "dust spots" you see are really dust. They actually could be pin holes in the emulsion, eaten away by the environment or mold or the emilsion just broke down. you can use a magnifying glas to examine the slides. If the spots are transparent, then the emulsion is likely missing. Once you have scanned then in you can use the PS stamp / clone tool to repair or if there are too many, you can try a filter. – I highly recommend NOT using the liquid film cleaners which are mostly high grade Isopropyl alcohol. You risk the chance of doing way more damage especially to aged emulsions. Unless someone has put their fingerprints on the film, you can clean off any dust with a blast of compressed air. If possible do not use those chemical spray cans like Dust Off. Try to borrow a small air compressor like the kind your autoparts store sells to inflate tires. Its cleaner and has higher pressure. – A few years ago HP flooded the market with a small 35MM Negative Film Strip and Slide scanner. It was good quality 2400 x 3600 DPI scanner (which produces a 8X10 300 DPI print). Nikon & Canon have recently introduced very high tech similar devices and the result is that people are selling off the older HP5100C for $50 on Ebay. There were also later HP generations like the S10 and S20 which are almost in the exact same situation. You might want to investigate this and another option. – Ther are some great PS books you can buy that are focused mosly at Photo Restoration. These have solutions to almost every image situation that you encounter. – Finally, as someone posted earlier, if youcan upload a sample image or two on the web space provided to you by your internet service provider, the folks on this forum would be please to give you some suggestions on the best way to correct your precious memories. Regards, MM
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