Photo scanning and manipulation

[Maikäfer]

A few weeks ago I PM'ed the talented Akira Takiguchi since I was curious what techniques he uses to show us these crisp and high-definition photo and negative scans of his. He gave me a detailed account of his technique, on his request I also post it on the forum since it is no doubt also of interest to other members. It's important that we translate media of 60 years ago to the standards of today so that it becomes "visible" again. Information contained in a photo is easily obscured when the scanning process is not so good.

]Clarity of the original image is always important, no magic here. Here's what I do anyway:

1. Scan image at 1200-2400dpi without using scanner's sharpness control / color restoration by ICE (www.asf.com - comes free with EPSON scanners) if color
2. Remove the dust & scratches by Photoshop tools (I spend a lot of time doing this for color slides) - I don't rely on ICE about this
3. Adjust tones if necessary
4. Shrink to 1280pixel width (or smaller)
5. Give some sharpness (30%-100%)
6. Add texts - as much available information as possible, and also for contacting me.
7. Make it a high-quality JPEG
8. Digimarc (digitally embed the invisible copyright information) the file - I don't like it because it loses a bit of sharpness, but copy-protection is a must for me. http://www.digimarc.com/

I however have some questions for Akira:

1. I'm a Paint Shop Pro user: how do I remove dust and scratches from the original? I tried the "remove noise" filters but the result was very dissapointing.

2. How to use Digimarc-software? I assume this also is a paying service?

[Akira Takiguchi]

Hi Maikäfer, always good to go public rather than private!

I don't use Paint Shop Pro, and I don't know how the Photoshop buttons are named in English version, so I am not of much help here.

I use Photoshop "restoration brush", "color replacement brush" etc. It takes hell a lot of time to remove dust and scratches, but at this time this is the only reliable and satisfactory way. I used to use stamp tool, but Photoshop CS brought us the restoration brush, which is a MUCH stronger tool.

You have to pay every year to continue using Digimarc software. Not a service for everyone...