Anyone use GIMP or other Linux photo programs? If so, tips?

RLangham · Jul 10, 2021

So I'm a hybrid guy for the most part. I own an enlarger but I haven't mastered using it. Most of my photos are color 35mm and I don't have a color head for my enlarger, so it's probably going to stay that way for a while.

I use an old Epson scanner, which I have a very old Windows laptop running at the moment, which is not fast enough to run photoshop or any other full-featured photo software on, just the Epson scanner software (and it really labors to do that). Aside from that, I have no windows or mac machines--my desktop machine is an older Lenovo I3 running Arch Linux, and my laptop is a fast, high-spec Fujitsu I5 running the same thing, with a Wacom touchscreen and passive multi-button pen.

I use GIMP quite comfortably for basic photo editing, but in more difficult cases I struggle. As I develop, dry and scan my negatives in a small apartment, it is incredibly hard to keep them dust free. The only place other than the combined kitchen/living room I can hang my negatives is the bathroom, and there is not another bathroom in the immediate area I can use, so I end up kicking up dust by going in there too.

I very gently dust the film side with a lens-cleaning cloth, but I do not touch the emulsion side for fear of scratching it (and remember that, to avoid too much dust buildup, I scan the negatives as soon as they're dry, so the emulsion may not have fully hardened). I end up with dust motes, and some hair scratches resulting from dust motes coming between the emulsion side and the gate of the scanner film carrier. I can improve this situation by dusting my house but I don't think I can do away with it entirely while I'm living in this apartment.

Does anyone have any good tricks for quickly/automatically reducing dust motes and hairlines in GIMP or any other Linux program? Preferably one that's in the Arch repo or the AUR I can do it by hand but it's up to ten minutes of work a frame, and I'm not always happy with the result.

MattKing · Jul 10, 2021

Do you have a shower door or shower curtain?
Is so, dry the negatives behind that, and leave them there until they are fully dry.
Be sure to run the shower briefly before you hang the negatives to dry, as that clans out a lot of dust from the air.
Corel's Aftershot Pro is available for Linux, and it does have a Heal, Clone and blemish removal module.
To the best of my knowledge though, there are no "automatic" dust and hair removal tools out there.
Aftershot Pro 3 (the current version) is a 64 bit program.

gone · Jul 10, 2021

I've used the clone tool w/ PS7 in the past for that. It's tedious, fussy work if you have a lot to clone. Unfortunately, scanners enlarge everything, including some things on the neg that don't show up on wet prints. I'd look on my developing side to try and figure out why the film is scratched in the first place. Just using a micro cloth shouldn't scratch it.

Here in the desert, dust is always an issue, but a bathroom that has had a shower run in it for a while should be dust free (whatever dust is in the room will settle on the wet shower curtain and bathroom walls).

RLangham · Jul 11, 2021

momus said:
I'd look on my developing side to try and figure out why the film is scratched in the first place. Just using a micro cloth shouldn't scratch it.

Here in the desert, dust is always an issue, but a bathroom that has had a shower run in it for a while should be dust free (whatever dust is in the room will settle on the wet shower curtain and bathroom walls).

The scratches will be from several sources. For one, some of my cameras are very old and rather well-used. Second, I have a pronounced tendency to be rather careless in my changing bag when I'm loading my Patterson tank. Third, it's hard to load my scanner's film carriers without the shiny side rubbing against the "gate" of the carrier, and if there are any large dust motes in the gate, so much the worse.

(Think of the old days in Hollywood when the focus puller would have to check the camera for dust and sand after every single shot to make sure they hadn't ruined it with "hairs in the gate." There's the anecdote about how not a single shot was ruined that way when shooting in the desert for "Casablanca." That's a truly insane amount of diligence.)

On better rolls, it's not that much work with the clone tool. It's just sometimes it's worse than others. Now that I'm getting back into the swing of things I'll be able to figure out some solutions.

MattKing said:
Do you have a shower door or shower curtain?
Is so, dry the negatives behind that, and leave them there until they are fully dry.
Be sure to run the shower briefly before you hang the negatives to dry, as that clans out a lot of dust from the air.
Corel's Aftershot Pro is available for Linux, and it does have a Heal, Clone and blemish removal module.
To the best of my knowledge though, there are no "automatic" dust and hair removal tools out there.
Aftershot Pro 3 (the current version) is a 64 bit program.

I'll look into it, though I wonder if it'll be that much different from GIMP. I know Corel, they did a commercial Linux back in the 90's or 2000's. Decent company, as I recall.

I'm looking for a magic bullet that doesn't exist, I guess. I need to just put in the work. What did Hopkins say about sheer plod?

DMJ · Jul 11, 2021

I use an old Epson scanner too and the driver has a dust removal option. I'm not sure the Xsane scanner application for Linux comes with something like it but there is a plugin somewhere for both Xsane and Gimp. I have been using Unix and Linux for many years, back in the 90s in the company I worked for, the graphic designers used Corel software on Apple computers, I didn't know it still exists : )

https://docs.gimp.org/2.10/en/plug-in-despeckle.html

RLangham · Jul 11, 2021

DMJ said:
I use an old Epson scanner too and the driver has a dust removal option. I'm not sure the Xsane scanner application for Linux comes with something like it but there is a plugin somewhere for both Xsane and Gimp. I have been using Unix and Linux for many years, back in the 90s in the company I worked for, the graphic designers used Corel software on Apple computers, I didn't know it still exists : )

https://docs.gimp.org/2.10/en/plug-in-despeckle.html

I don't use Xsane (tried it today, but I have no idea how to install a driver for it, so whatever)... I have the OEM Epson driver running on old Windows XP hardware. (Old enough to drink!) And on this particular model (perfection 3170 photo), the dust removal feature... doesn't? I've never seen it do anything when I have it on, and it slows the process down so that I normally have it turned off. I may try a side by side on one frame from my current roll.

DMJ · Jul 11, 2021

RLangham said:
I don't use Xsane (tried it today, but I have no idea how to install a driver for it, so whatever)... I have the OEM Epson driver running on old Windows XP hardware. (Old enough to drink!) And on this particular model (perfection 3170 photo), the dust removal feature... doesn't? I've never seen it do anything when I have it on, and it slows the process down so that I normally have it turned off. I may try a side by side on one frame from my current roll.

I have the Perfection 2480 but never really use the dust removal tool. I will do some testing though. There is also the Digital ICE Technology and Digital ICE Lite Technology option that removes dust more effectively and is hardware based. According to Epson it's slower than the regular dust removal tool : (
I only adjust the histogram and leave all the boxes unchecked. No problems with speed but I'm running Windows 10.

grat · Jul 12, 2021

While I don't use it for dust/scratch removal, darktable has some very nice functionality. In theory, the retouch tool, in wavelet mode, should do a very nice job of removing dust/scratch, but I confess, the tool and I have yet to form a working relationship.

Kodachromeguy · Jul 12, 2021

grat said:
While I don't use it for dust/scratch removal, darktable has some very nice functionality. In theory, the retouch tool, in wavelet mode, should do a very nice job of removing dust/scratch, but I confess, the tool and I have yet to form a working relationship.

Is Darktabe's dust/scratch tool manual, meaning you click each blob or blemish? Or is it supposed to be automated?

grat · Jul 12, 2021

Well, it's manual. But the "wavelet" mode, which allows you to dial into a specific level of detail, should allow you to find the scratches / dust easily. But it hasn't been written to do that in an automated fashion yet.

Regardless, it does some nifty things, and the program in general, once you get used to it, has some amazing functionality-- it's non destructive, and is more "Lightroom" than Photoshop (whereas Gimp is more like photoshop). It's also very easy to copy your settings from one image to another (or a set of images).

Also has a pretty nice inversion module for color negatives.

grain elevator · Jul 12, 2021

Do you use an anti-static wetting agent for the final wash? If not, do that!

RLangham · Jul 13, 2021

grain elevator said:
Do you use an anti-static wetting agent for the final wash? If not, do that!

Is that what's in the final rinse of a Cinestill c41 kit? If so I may go back to using it. Usually I rinse with a little dish soap, because that's what I was told to do years ago.

MattKing · Jul 13, 2021

RLangham said:
Is that what's in the final rinse of a Cinestill c41 kit? If so I may go back to using it. Usually I rinse with a little dish soap, because that's what I was told to do years ago.

Dish soap - I don't know who told you that, but they did you a grave disservice. Dish soap is full of fragrances and other things that you don't need or want on your film.
You need to use a relatively pure surfactant for black and white film, and a relatively pure surfactant plus an anti-bacterial agent for most colour films.
For older colour films, you also need formaldehyde.
In terms of Kodak products, for black and white films, use properly diluted photoflo.
For colour negative films, use Kodak final rinse.

RLangham · Jul 13, 2021

MattKing said:
Dish soap - I don't know who told you that, but they did you a grave disservice. Dish soap is full of fragrances and other things that you don't need or want on your film.
You need to use a relatively pure surfactant for black and white film, and a relatively pure surfactant plus an anti-bacterial agent for most colour films.
For older colour films, you also need formaldehyde.
In terms of Kodak products, for black and white films, use properly diluted photoflo.
For colour negative films, use Kodak final rinse.

I don't keep my color film after scanning it... I just don't have the archival materials to store it. So I toss it. I'll mix up some of the cinestill final rinse if you think it will improve the results I get when I scan the film though.

MattKing · Jul 13, 2021

RLangham said:
I don't keep my color film after scanning it... I just don't have the archival materials to store it. So I toss it. I'll mix up some of the cinestill final rinse if you think it will improve the results I get when I scan the film though.

After using final rinse, put your colour negatives in half decent quality envelopes and store them somewhere that doesn't get overly hot or humid - room temperature is fine.
They will last for years/decades.
They will last a bit longer if the storage materials are archival.

RLangham · Jul 13, 2021

MattKing said:
After using final rinse, put your colour negatives in half decent quality envelopes and store them somewhere that doesn't get overly hot or humid - room temperature is fine.
They will last for years/decades.
They will last a bit longer if the storage materials are archival.

I mean, I guess so... but to be sure I prefer to archive my photos by having prints made (and making prints myself when I'm in the mood for frustration and hours in the darkroom). To me saving color negatives is a little superfluous.

MattKing · Jul 14, 2021

RLangham said:
To me saving color negatives is a little superfluous.

Come back in 15 years and tell us if your opinion on this has changed

RLangham · Jul 14, 2021

MattKing said:
Come back in 15 years and tell us if your opinion on this has changed

It may well do, but why specifically?

MattKing · Jul 14, 2021

RLangham said:
It may well do, but why specifically?

Well, 15 years is a bit arbitrary, but otherwise it has always seemed to me that colour negatives store the maximum amount of information in a minimal amount of space, and if reasonably well stored last much longer and retain much more inherent quality than even the most archival of prints.
And who knows how much better scans may be 15 years from now - particularly when you consider the improvements in technology we have seen in the last 15 years.
On another thread I just posted a scan from a ~ 70 year old Kodachrome slide. If my Dad had had a print made from that slide at any time near when that slide was developed, that print would most likely have deteriorated much more than that faded slide. Modern colour negatives probably wont reliably last 70 years, but even 40 year old negatives can be wonderful to work from.

RLangham · Jul 14, 2021

MattKing said:
Well, 15 years is a bit arbitrary, but otherwise it has always seemed to me that colour negatives store the maximum amount of information in a minimal amount of space, and if reasonably well stored last much longer and retain much more inherent quality than even the most archival of prints.
And who knows how much better scans may be 15 years from now - particularly when you consider the improvements in technology we have seen in the last 15 years.
On another thread I just posted a scan from a ~ 70 year old Kodachrome slide. If my Dad had had a print made from that slide at any time near when that slide was developed, that print would most likely have deteriorated much more than that faded slide. Modern colour negatives probably wont reliably last 70 years, but even 40 year old negatives can be wonderful to work from.

I dunno man, I feel like two things are true though: one, prints are very stable these days, or are said to be, and two, very little of what I'm doing will be of value to me thirty years from now, and by the time I'm doing my best work, film may be dead.

But the more practical concern is that you can look at a print and see what it is, so when it comes time to thin down my massive backlog, I'm not going through with a loupe trying to imagine what these little pictures would look like with the colors flipped the right way around. I can just toss what I don't like.

Hey, I think we both recognize that hard copy is preferable to trusting the 'cloud' as most people do these days, and the rest is all details. I hear what you're saying, I really do.

reddesert · Jul 14, 2021

RLangham said:
For one, some of my cameras are very old and rather well-used. Second, I have a pronounced tendency to be rather careless in my changing bag when I'm loading my Patterson tank.

RLangham said:
Usually I rinse with a little dish soap, because that's what I was told to do years ago.

RLangham said:
I don't keep my color film after scanning it... I just don't have the archival materials to store it. So I toss it. I'll mix up some of the cinestill final rinse if you think it will improve the results I get when I scan the film though.

Excuse the multi-quotes, because I'm not trying to pick on you, but there is a pattern. You may be spending a lot of time on a pastime but there are simple places where it matters, that you may be cutting corners that undermine your practice, and a little extra care would pay off far down the road.

Even old cameras shouldn't put many scratches on film but if they do it should be pretty apparent, like a line down the entire film. Smooth it down. Possibly another culprit is dust in the film chamber/bellows. Wipe the inside down with a damp cloth.

Always keep a clean dark bag and handle the film carefully (this comes from someone who too often kinked roll film and got those tell tale crescent marks). There was some poster last year who had a lot of mysterious scratches and it turned out his changing bag was full of old film leaders and spools, etc.

The rinse is the last thing to touch your film. Use the real thing, like Photo-flo. A little bottle lasts forever. I have hard tap water and the rinse is one of the only places I bother using distilled water.

Save the negatives! Somebody (probably Ansel, that wit) said that the print is the performance, but the negative is the score. You don't need to go crazy with the archival stuff. That's an example of what I think of as the archival bluster that stops people from doing what is 95% good enough. You can just put them in plain envelopes and store them in a file folder if you want. Sure archival sleeves would be better, but only a little. I have color pictures I took back to my teenage years in the paper envelopes that came back from the Kodak lab. The prints are discolored from age, but not from the envelopes. The negatives have color shifts but can be fixed after scanning. Similarly, I put my B&W negatives in Printfile sleeves, but I never bothered buying archival binders, and the negatives are just fine. Occasionally it really is worthwhile scanning a 30 year old negative, especially if it is of a person from your past.

Richard Searle · Jul 14, 2021

Regarding the dust issue I use Isopropyl alcohol wipes, the sort that nail bars use, or the nurse uses before she jabs you. Two together wraps around a 35mm film. There are other larger ones if you are using 120. The film dries quickly so less chance of dust sticky to the film. They are available on eBay,

grain elevator · Jul 14, 2021

I've never seen a bottle of Kodak Photo-flo, but the Tetenal Mirasol bottle claims it's anti-static and I feel it must be true. Static charge is the enemy w/r to dust.

Anyone use GIMP or other Linux photo programs? If so, tips?

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