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Work in progress

This page will one day (hopefully) give details of how to scan in old negatives. Currently it's a partial copy of a diary entry for 23 July 2017.

Settings

For the Epson “Perfection” 4990 Photo and black-and-white film:

Directories:

Processing

Convert all images, also the useless ones, so that it's easier to count.

Sequencing: imageorder orig/*.jpg

Background

As I go through my 1964 diary, I'm re-scanning the photos I took at the time. I had already scanned them with the ill-fated Canon 9900F scanner, but I can do better now.

Or can I? After letting the Epson “Perfection” 4990 Photo spend hours scanning the negatives, I ended up with:


https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/big/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore-backlight-correct-ICE.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore backlight correct ICE          Dimensions:          3407 x 2040, 854 kB
Make a single page with this image Hide this image
Make this image a thumbnail Make thumbnails of all images on this page
Make this image small again Display small version of all images on this page
All images taken on Friday, 4 September 1964, thumbnails          All images taken on Friday, 4 September 1964, small
Diary entry for Friday, 4 September 1964 Complete exposure details

 

What the hell went wrong there? One of the scanner parameters? But which one? The settings in the scanner program are:

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20170723/small/Scan-parameters.png
Image title: Scan parameters
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 528 x 512, 81 kB
Dimensions of original: 369 x 358, 10 kB
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thumbnails    this size
Show for Sunday, 23 July 2017:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

Which are useful? I've established that “Backlight Correction” improves the shadows, and for colour photos “Color Resotration” really does help a lot. And the others? Grain is always a problem in old films (here Kodak Plus-X Pan), so I do that too. And the dust is everywhere, so how about “Dust Removal”? Ah, that's an old, worn-out magic word (so why is it there?). The new one is “DIGITAL ICE Technology”.

Is one of these causing my problems? Went through most combinations, and found that colour restore didn't do much, though it did slightly darken the image:

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 27 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 553 kB
Display this image:
thumbnail    hidden   alone on page
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thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry
 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 27 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 572 kB
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thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

In the images above, as well as many below, run the cursor over an image to compare it with its neighbour. As expected, backlight correction improved things:

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 27 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 572 kB
Display this image:
thumbnail    hidden   alone on page
Display all images on this page as:
thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry
 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore-backlight-correct.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore backlight correct
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 32 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 733 kB
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Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

And then “Digital ICE”:

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore-backlight-correct-ICE.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore backlight correct ICE
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 33 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 854 kB
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Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

So that was the culprit! What about dust removal?

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore-backlight-correct.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore backlight correct
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 32 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 733 kB
Display this image:
thumbnail    hidden   alone on page
Display all images on this page as:
thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry
 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore-backlight-correct-dust-remove.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore backlight correct dust remove
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 30 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 679 kB
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Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

Some dust removed, but not much. OK, what about removing the “colour restore”? The difference is subtle.

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-backlight-correct-dust-remove.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce backlight correct dust remove
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 29 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 660 kB
Display this image:
thumbnail    hidden   alone on page
Display all images on this page as:
thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry
 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-colour-restore-backlight-correct.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce colour restore backlight correct
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 32 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 733 kB
Display this image:
thumbnail    hidden   alone on page
Display all images on this page as:
thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

But there are other issues. Not all of the dust appears to be dust, and there are artefacts that appear at random, here visible on the shutters in front of Ananda's face. They're present in both images, but in different places:

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-backlight-correct-dust-remove.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce backlight correct dust remove
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 29 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 660 kB
Display this image:
thumbnail    hidden   alone on page
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thumbnails    this size
Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry
 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-backlight-correct-dust-remove-foo.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce backlight correct dust remove foo
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 672 x 402, 29 kB
Dimensions of original: 3407 x 2040, 658 kB
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Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-backlight-correct-dust-remove-detail.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce backlight correct dust remove detail
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 637 x 424, 71 kB
Dimensions of original: 1160 x 772, 138 kB
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Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry
 
https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/19640904/small/Ananda-grain-reduce-backlight-correct-dust-remove-foo-detail.jpeg
Image title: Ananda grain reduce backlight correct dust remove foo detail
Complete exposure details
Dimensions: 637 x 424, 74 kB
Dimensions of original: 1160 x 772, 137 kB
Display this image:
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Show for Friday, 4 September 1964:
thumbnails    small images    diary entry

That looks like an issue with the scanner or the software, possibly related to the dust removal. Given the quality of the originals, I can live with that.


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