Dust Hell

[Snapper]

I'm new to film scanning, having recently bought an Epson v750 for mostly scanning b&w 35mm and 120 negs with a view to inkjet printing sometime in the future.

From the start, I was so shocked by the amount of dust shown up in the scans, it sent me running off screaming back to the darkroom.

I used a lens brush/blower for cleaning, but this only seems to get rid of the big stuff, and then not all of it.

I'm using Siverfast Ai6, and have used SRD to remove dust spot through software, but this is horrible as it gets rid of fine detail in the neg too.

I've considered upgrading to Silverfast HDR to use iSRD, as, according to Silverfast website, it enables the v750 to use its infrared channel to identify 'real' dust. Does anyone have any experience with using this - is it effective?

If software is not effective, then what physical methods do people find effective for removing dust? I've seen a few things with a Google search, but have no idea if they really work.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I will add a few tips that help us.

film should be stored in clean sleeves in a box type holder that does not allow the elements, micro dust to migrate to the emulsion and embed.
Humidify the room you are scanning in.
Clean the negatives, trans , slides before scanning.** very old originals should be scanned first without cleaning then try a cleaning, this takes more time but worth the backup**
We use canned air and antistatic brushes as well as antistatic cloth.

A lot of post scanning methods of dust removal is basically blur which will help in skys and non critical detail areas but not so good for overall dust removal.

For those I use the clone and healing brush and try to match the sharpness of the brush to the film grain at 100%.


There are lots of other anti static compressor kits available but I personally do not use them.
Others will chime in with other methods.

hope this helps

 

[pellicle]

Bob

ICE on my Nikon LS-4000 works nicely, as it does also on my now sold LS-40 ED ... I have the Epson 4870 and 4990 which I believe to be similar to your Epson. I can not report similar success there.

I never used to think of dust as such a nightmare, then I moved to Finland. Man this place has so much static and so much dust, it must be down to the cold outside air / sealed rooms / poor ventilation compared to my home in South East Queensland.

I'm now using a basic tablet and pen to drive my cloning as this makes the whole thing less tedious. The pen is pressure sensitive, so starts with a small tip and builds to the max size you've set in photoshop for that brush (should you not be using a pen already).

I'm really tempted to go down the anti static pathway but only experimentally and dipping my toe in. Might be handy to try one of the zerostat products they use on LP's as a test for instance.

others report positive results with wet mounting

 

[Worker 11811]

I use canned air on almost everything before I scan. That includes the scanner glass. It's a bit silly to be hypervigilant about keeping your negatives clean then put them into a dirty scanner.

That's something that's important when you work in a movie theater. People spend all kinds of time and money keeping film clean then they'll thread it through a dirty projector. (Your average feature film contains more than a mile of film!) When you do that you basically set up a "dirt conveyor belt" which causes dirt and dust to migrate through the whole film.

BTW: The healing brush works but I prefer to use the history brush to spot negatives:

1) Use the "Dust and Scratches" filter under the "Filter > Noise" menu. Use the filter globally on the whole image but set it to use only enough blur to hide the dust spots.

2) Open your "History" panel ("Window > History") click on the little box at the left end of the last step in your history which should be "Dust and Scratches Filter."

3) In your "History" panel select the last step previous to using the "Dust and Scratches" filter. This is analogous to using "CMD-Z" or "Undo."

4) Switch to your History Brush from your tools palate.
(That's the symbol of the paint brush with the little arrow around it.)

5) In your top toolbar, switch the Mode setting from "Normal" to either "Lighten"or "Darken." If your spot is white, use "Darken." If your spot is black, use "Lighten."

6) Use your history brush to simply paint out the spot(s).

The reason this works is because of your mode setting. Assuming you have set the mode to "Darken" to remove a white spot, the computer will ONLY paint over pixels which are DARKER than what's already on screen. It will leave the other pixels untouched.

I often scan my negatives at double the size/resolution I plan to use them at then do all my spotting, adjusting and retouching before sizing down to the final picture. I can spot an entire picture 4,000 pixels wide which has dozens and dozens of little white hairs and dust spots in just a few minutes.

I got this technique from Martin Evening's book "Photoshop for Photographers." It's a good book! Check it out!

 

[Bob Carnie]

Pellicle
I am interested in how Ice works and is it a program that can be adapted to various scanners?? I am using Imocan and in the near future want to purchase an Aztek or ICG drum scanner.
I use the epson only for flat art or gang low rez scans.
In Canada from about Nov 16 to about May 24 the humidity is really low and a big pain in the ass for dust , therefore a humidifier is mandatory.
I would imagine the Seasons affect you the same.

Dust and Scratches is good but in my experience it tends to blur the image no matter what setting you use. Going to high magnification shows in the prints in a subtle manner.
I am not sure of any method other than cloning out individual spots that does not induce some kind of blurring to the image.

On a background layer I will use it globally, then make a black mask and pick up a brush and paint in the non critical areas only with the D& S.
After I will then go and clone out the rest of the critical areas using a setting that matches the film grain if it is from scan. This is a suitable arrangement that works for me but is a ongoing problem as I see a lot of historical film from the 60's forward which unfortunately in bad shape.

worker 11811 I would be interested in your steps when using Blending modes to retouch, sounds interesting.
Clean scanner and workspace is good advice as well.

 

[pellicle]

Bob

Pellicle
I am interested in how Ice works and is it a program that can be adapted to various scanners?? I am using Imocan and in the near future want to

ICE is a combination of hardware and software. Your hardware needs a 4th channel which is an IR channel. It works based on the fact that dust blocks IR and dyes do not. As far as I know only Nikon have ever had a version of ICE which works well. The other line CCD scanners seem to lack the IR or place it differently. The Epson in particular creates awful artifacts on the image with ICE. Minolta Elite 5400 does not seem as good as Nikon, but then the Nikon really exacerbates the dust so in some ways really needs it.

I don't know if any drum scanner has the 4th channel to do it.

sorry about that, but as far as I know it does not look good.

 

[pellicle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ICE

 

[Bob Carnie]

Thanks for that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ICE

 

[Marco B]

I use canned air on almost everything before I scan. That includes the scanner glass. It's a bit silly to be hypervigilant about keeping your negatives clean then put them into a dirty scanner.

Amen to that!

I use canned air, and before that also my vacuum cleaner, to clean the glass thoroughly before doing any scanning. Just keeping your negs clean isn't enough...

In my experience with the Canon Canoscan 9950F flatbed scanner, which also has a 4th infrared channel for detecting dust (Canon calls it FARE instead of ICE though), that works very well. It doesn't do any of the stupid blurring I have seen reported for some other scanners and scanner software. I just cleans and retouches the dust specks, only very occasionally leaving a slightly visible artefact.

 

[Worker 11811]

I have the 8800F from Canon. It has "FARE" infrared cleaning to. To be honest, I don't use it very much. I have seen it produce artifacts, especially when scanned above 4800 dpi.

To be honest, I would much rather scan at twice the DPI that I think I'll need, do my retouching manually then scale down to the size I intend to output with.

I always scan my images in RAW and import them into Photoshop as DNG. During the import process, the RAW dialog lets me make adjustments to the image and crop it BEFORE it gets imported to Photoshop. Therefore, much of my dust spots will be cut out of the picture anyway. I'll only have to touch up what's left.

With the History Brush method I can spot even the dirtiest negative in under 15 minutes. I was going to create a tutorial page on the method but I just did a quick Google search and found a page that already has the information:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2007/10/speedy-spotting.html

I first came across this technique in the book "Phososhop CS4 for Photographers" by Martin Evening.

If you don't have this book you should get it. Practically required reading, I say!

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