As I have many scanned photos, Actually scanned b/w and colour films as well as slides. I’ve been looking for ways to improve the quality of the scans. I’ve been using the free (but very old... 2002 I believe?) Polaroid Dust and Scratch remover first, then imported the pictures in Photoshop Elements (just upgraded to the 2020 version). I usually remove some additional scratches in the embedded Dust and scratch remover, adjust colours, contrast, etc. Then I remove some noise with the free (yes, I like free stuf...) Dfine 2. However, when I try to sharpen the image, the noise get bad, undoing the noise removal from the previous step. I downloaded the trial versions of Topaz Denoise AI and Sharpen AI, but I am quite disappointed (they seem to do a better job with digital picture though) with the results. Any suggestion for finding the right balance between sharpens and noise removal?
Retouching scanned photos
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Harlequin565
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Is there a radius control on your sharpening?
The problem with super-fine sharpening is that it sharpens the grain. If you increase the radius that can sometimes be enough to bring out the edges and not the grain in-between.
Also, can you mask the sharpness? On my software (Lightroom), I have a mask slider. Holding alt and adjusting the slider allows me to mask the majority of the image off and just apply sharpening to the edges. Things like grainy skies can then get left untouched by the sharpening.
It's always a balance between noise reduction and sharpening. One final thing to say is don't evaluate your image at 100%. Zoom back out, or (if you can) do a print to see how it looks in reality. Viewing the image in its final state (Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Print, Canvas) might actually be much better than you think.
The problem with super-fine sharpening is that it sharpens the grain. If you increase the radius that can sometimes be enough to bring out the edges and not the grain in-between.
Also, can you mask the sharpness? On my software (Lightroom), I have a mask slider. Holding alt and adjusting the slider allows me to mask the majority of the image off and just apply sharpening to the edges. Things like grainy skies can then get left untouched by the sharpening.
It's always a balance between noise reduction and sharpening. One final thing to say is don't evaluate your image at 100%. Zoom back out, or (if you can) do a print to see how it looks in reality. Viewing the image in its final state (Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Print, Canvas) might actually be much better than you think.
TheBigYin
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As Ian says, quite a few of the sharpening algorithms really don't seem to get on well with film, especially black and white film grain. One of my favoured ways for sharpening scanned B&W negs is to use high pass filter sharpening layers in photoshop. I'm not well up on photoshop elements, or recent photoshop versions for that matter as I bought v5 and have found no need to upgrade. The good bit of using a high pass layer for sharpening is that you can also use a layer mask and selectively decide how strong or weak you want the effect to be - so, reducing the effect on the skies while keeping detail in other parts... If the facility is there in photoshop elements, you may already have the tools you need without having to source plugins or additional programs.
As I say, I'm not well up on current software, but a quick google on "high pass sharpening photoshop elements 2020" seems to bring up lots of links, so I'm guessing you should be fine.
The main thing about the high-pass method though is it does seem to be less liable to produce "grain the size of hailstones" in 400iso film devved in rodinal...
Of course, another issue if you're working from scanned negs is to make sure that the actual scan is as optimal as possible - if the neg is "a bit thick" and you've had to crank up the scanner to get any detail at all out of the scanning program (i.e. you've turned up the gain on the light receptors in the scanner) then they're going to be a source of noise in themselves. Scanning really is a bit of a black art in itself, and going into the details of how to optimise your scans is way, way, way outside the scope of an answer in this thread - there are whole threads dedicated to scanning over in the film and conventional section of this forum, and I'd really strongly suggest that you look into them to get the best possible scanned source matter before getting too hung up on ways of sharpening stuff.
Also - another thing that jumped out at me is this... what size of film are we talking about, because it kind of reads like 35mm slides and neg's. Now, it's going to take a pretty damned good scanner and scanning technique to get any kind of scan from these images that's really going to be rivalling modern full frame digital cameras in the sharpness stakes - not to mention, the cameras and lenses themselves... my apologies if you're shooting your B&W stuff on a 10x8 camera, or a Hasselblad, or even a Leica and a lens worth the same as a family hatchback, but if you're shots are on a Canon AE1 and the "kit lens" of it's time, you're probably going to be pushing it to get the same sharpness and resolving power as modern stuff... For film, it really is a case of "if you want clean pictures, use big film sizes" - remember 35mm (modern "full frame") was considered very much a subminiature format, and only really for press/newspaper photography for professional usage BITD - entry level pro quality was 6x6 on 120, and anything I ever shot in the studio for magazine repro was on a minimum of 5x4 tranny.... Why? because film grain remains largely the same size whatever the film stock size - so what looks grainy blown up to 10x8 from 24x36mm negative has pretty much imperceptible grain if it's a contact print from a 10x8" sheet of the same film stock.
As I say, I'm not well up on current software, but a quick google on "high pass sharpening photoshop elements 2020" seems to bring up lots of links, so I'm guessing you should be fine.
The main thing about the high-pass method though is it does seem to be less liable to produce "grain the size of hailstones" in 400iso film devved in rodinal...
Of course, another issue if you're working from scanned negs is to make sure that the actual scan is as optimal as possible - if the neg is "a bit thick" and you've had to crank up the scanner to get any detail at all out of the scanning program (i.e. you've turned up the gain on the light receptors in the scanner) then they're going to be a source of noise in themselves. Scanning really is a bit of a black art in itself, and going into the details of how to optimise your scans is way, way, way outside the scope of an answer in this thread - there are whole threads dedicated to scanning over in the film and conventional section of this forum, and I'd really strongly suggest that you look into them to get the best possible scanned source matter before getting too hung up on ways of sharpening stuff.
Also - another thing that jumped out at me is this... what size of film are we talking about, because it kind of reads like 35mm slides and neg's. Now, it's going to take a pretty damned good scanner and scanning technique to get any kind of scan from these images that's really going to be rivalling modern full frame digital cameras in the sharpness stakes - not to mention, the cameras and lenses themselves... my apologies if you're shooting your B&W stuff on a 10x8 camera, or a Hasselblad, or even a Leica and a lens worth the same as a family hatchback, but if you're shots are on a Canon AE1 and the "kit lens" of it's time, you're probably going to be pushing it to get the same sharpness and resolving power as modern stuff... For film, it really is a case of "if you want clean pictures, use big film sizes" - remember 35mm (modern "full frame") was considered very much a subminiature format, and only really for press/newspaper photography for professional usage BITD - entry level pro quality was 6x6 on 120, and anything I ever shot in the studio for magazine repro was on a minimum of 5x4 tranny.... Why? because film grain remains largely the same size whatever the film stock size - so what looks grainy blown up to 10x8 from 24x36mm negative has pretty much imperceptible grain if it's a contact print from a 10x8" sheet of the same film stock.
TheBigYin
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Really, you're problem isn't a "post processing" problem per se - it's more of a "film processing workflow issue" which needs to be addressed before jumping in with digitall tools to try and fix the end result.
As the PP forum is quite "slow moving" and you won't get many responses - if any - considering your earlier almost exactly the same post in here that was studiously ignored by everyone, I'm actually going to move this thread over into the film and conventional section and let the chaps in there give their advice...
As the PP forum is quite "slow moving" and you won't get many responses - if any - considering your earlier almost exactly the same post in here that was studiously ignored by everyone, I'm actually going to move this thread over into the film and conventional section and let the chaps in there give their advice...
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Great advice above and I've not a lot to add except to throw in the random thought that Affinity Photo is half price at the moment - around £25 - which I think is an absolute bargin. I don't know if it will help much with sharpening (there is no magic) but it will give you a good set of modern tools in a single application and a quick google turns up several examples of using Affinity Photo for high pass sharpening.
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Hi @DR M are you only concerned about existing scans, or interested in future scans? In either case, it would be useful to know what scanning technique and equipment was used (as well as an idea of the original cameras/lenses etc). Some available film scanners can use a separate pass with infrared light to help it automatically retouch dust and scratches; this technique doesn't work well with most black and white or Kodachrome unfortunately, but can give good results with C41 and E6 film stocks (colour negative and all current slide stocks).
In most cases what you see in film scans sin't noise so much as film grain (or similar), ie it's actually in the film frame rather than an artefact of the process. This isn't quite so true as Mark @TheBigYin suggests if you're scanning over-exposed negatives or under-exposed slides (or shadows). Anyway, I found that the couple of anti-noise tools I tried, designed for digital camera images, really didn't do well with scans.
On sharpening, I mostly use a light touch with the Definition slider in Aperture (might be clarity in other software???), and couple that with selectively "brushing in" sharpening where I think the image needs it. I guess the sorts of masking that Mark mentions do the same sort of thing a different way (layers??? They've always confused me!).
I'd second Mark's advice, check your images by printing them rather than viewing at 100%.
In most cases what you see in film scans sin't noise so much as film grain (or similar), ie it's actually in the film frame rather than an artefact of the process. This isn't quite so true as Mark @TheBigYin suggests if you're scanning over-exposed negatives or under-exposed slides (or shadows). Anyway, I found that the couple of anti-noise tools I tried, designed for digital camera images, really didn't do well with scans.
On sharpening, I mostly use a light touch with the Definition slider in Aperture (might be clarity in other software???), and couple that with selectively "brushing in" sharpening where I think the image needs it. I guess the sorts of masking that Mark mentions do the same sort of thing a different way (layers??? They've always confused me!).
I'd second Mark's advice, check your images by printing them rather than viewing at 100%.
Thank you all for the detailed responses. I have scars from my childhood, so they are 40-50 years old films. They are not of good quality due to multiple reasons, so I am trying to get the most of them. The value is sentimental.
Most of the old stuff has already been scanned. I have a Plustek 7200 scanner. I have a few more films to scan but am not willing to spend a few hundred dollars for a better scanner.
Most of the old stuff has already been scanned. I have a Plustek 7200 scanner. I have a few more films to scan but am not willing to spend a few hundred dollars for a better scanner.
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Well Chris it could be the program you are using OR what's on the neg i.e. some negs are better than others. I found with this blowup it made the shot look digital:-
either Reala or Fuji superia 200, Hexanon 28mm
