Questions on scanning photos

[bailout]

I bought a scanner recently to scan in old family photos. They are a mix of prints and some slides and my budget was limited so I bought an Epson v300. Only played around with it a bit so far but for the price I am very happy with it. I think it is obviously limited for slides and negatives but the quality for scanning prints is superb. However, I am a bit puzzled on the best method to use so am looking for some advice before I put too much time into working through the collection.

Firstly is it best to do some basic adjustments with the scanner software when scanning or to leave this and adjust in software afterwards? I have had a bit of a google but can't find anything to indicate whether the scanning software changes how the scan is done or whether it just uses software to adjust the scanner output. If it doesn't change the way the hardware runs the scan then I suppose that it will be best to use software after the scan in the same way that it is best to avoid in camera adjustments.

Secondly, what format to use to save the scans. I suppose tiff would be the best for quality but is obviously larger. I don't hear much about png but isn't it also lossless but smaller than tiff?

Also what resolutions are best for prints and slides/negs? I was using 300 or 600 dpi for the prints. The scanner will theoretically go much higher but I thought the extra real detail is probably minimal.

Many of the prints are in poor condition as they date from 1920/30s and some even earlier. Does anyone know of any tutorials or guides to restoring very old photos in pp? This is an example of the sort of thing I mean and an attempt I had.

Any other tips anyone can think of gratefully received.

thanks

 

[Knikki]

Hello

here are a couple of links that may help

http://www.scantips.com/

http://www.retouchpro.com/

I use dedicated film scanner and usually scan at the maximum res the machine will do. It makes for huge files (like 500Mb on one) but I keep these as originals then resize and work on a smaller version.
I tend to keep my images as tiff files as I believe that these retain all the information, unlike jpeg that is a lossy format. Not sure about png...

I scan and make all nesseccary adjustments in PS, unless I need to use the Digital ICE features, but that does not work on black and white negs.

 

[dikwag]

You over correct and you have lost the appearance of an old photo. Leave in some sepia colour and a few blemishes and you have it.
The examples you show look like you are getting it, but I would not have converted to greyscale.
BTW most any good digicamera will work in place of a scanner. I've got 50 years in the trade and I have scanned a few hundred pix and used the digital camera on a stand to do 1000's. of my old prints.
Also use ACDC to auto-correct some shots since I don't have the luxury of time to use PShop for everything.
Cheers, and have fun.

 

[joxby]

I dunno how good the v300 is at scanning negs, but its likely to be a much more useful file than a scan of a print.
The bigger the file the more you have to work with in edit, so save as a tif at the highest resolution you are comfortable with, I wouldn't scan a 35mm neg at anything less than 1200dpi, preferably double that.
To save time, use the scan software to correct colour and exposure using the histogram/curves tool and channel mixer, look to only have to tweak a little in photoshop.
I don't have any advice for scanning prints.

 

[Gandhi]

^^agree^^

Turn sharpening and all the other options off. Try sharpening at approx 200/1.5 and threshold 1 to start. I've had good results scanning at double the res (4800dpi) shaperning at 300%,0.5px,0th and then reducing the image size by 50% using Bicubic (not softer or sharper) It seems to work well enough and doesn't hit the grain too hard.


Make sure you set the target gamma to 2.2 (hidden in some sub menu somewhere)

Make sure you use 'film with film holder option' NOT the film area guide one and play with the height adjusters on the holder to find the sweet spot for the focus. There are 3 settings +,- and no feet!

 

[bailout]

thanks for the replies.

Knikki, thanks for the links. I will feel a bit of a fraud joining a forum called retouchPRO though

dikwag, I don't know much about editing photos tbh and that was just a first try at an old one and experimenting. I agree with your colour comment. I think it will be difficult to decide what adjustments to make and how far to go with corrections. I had thought of using a camera but decided it would be easier with the scanner for me. The difficulty was holding the photos/slides/negs and lighting. I imagine that if you have the knowledge and kit to sort that side out then using the camera must be much quicker. There used to be duplicating attachments for coping slides with film slrs but there doesn't seem to be similar gadgets for digital cameras, which surprises me.

joxby, It is mostly academic as almost all the prints I have to copy have no negatives The v300 is the bottom of the range and so far I have been much more impressed with its scans of prints than of film/slides. Ideally I would use a proper film scanner for the negs/slides but with a limited budget I decided to go with the flatbad to be able to both.

Gandhi, Interesting tips re the focus. I am not sure whether the v300 software has those options. I am in linux at the moment but I will boot into windows and check. I haven't been that impressed by the few quick tests I have done scanning film/slides and they didn't look as if the focus was quite right.