Scanning or Editing negative with deep scratch

After waiting a year to process my ECN2 film in bulk, I was disappointed to see a deep scratch on one of my rolls across the entire strip. This is my first time encountering a massive scratch across the many years and numerous rolls of film and would like some advice on removing it

Link to sample scans (not sure why I cant upload 300kb files to photrio..)

I am currently scanning with a Nikon Coolscan 4000 with Vuescan. A very quick edit with the spot healing tool in Photopea (free alternative to photoshop) removed the line but a faint glow from the light reflection in the scratch could still be seen. Alternative, I could manually patch it up with the clone stamp tool but that would be quite tedious. The existing advice I found was mainly for darkroom printing and was wondering if it worked for digital scanning as well. Otherwise, any other tips or techniques to remove the scan line would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

that looks like it probably relates to a scratch on the emulsion side.
Can you confirm that please, and also share a backlit digital photo of the negatives themselves, including the edge markings and the space between frames.
Something like these: https://www.photrio.com/forum/resou...nsparencies-for-troubleshooting-purposes.461/

Cloning tool in Fauxtoshoppe is the best alternative.
Scan the image, then enlarge to 400% on monitor, map ahead the area to be cloned and very carefully move along the line, pausing to consider the next move whenever you encounter a change of colour (and that situation is in many places in the sample image you linked). You will need a very small circle (not a crosshair) and a very steady hand to get this done, and above all, the patience of a Hindu cow, but it most definitely is achievable and is a valuable learning experience.

MattKing said:

that looks like it probably relates to a scratch on the emulsion side.
Can you confirm that please, and also share a backlit digital photo of the negatives themselves, including the edge markings and the space between frames.
Something like these: https://www.photrio.com/forum/resou...nsparencies-for-troubleshooting-purposes.461/

Click to expand...

The scratch is indeed on the emulsion (matte) side. It was a straight line from frame 2 up till the middle of the last frame. I am guessing debris got stuck in the camera and scratched the negative as the other rolls from the same reel and my bulkloader was fine, the same for other rolls that were developed together as well.

I had scanned the emulsion side and might try flipping it around.

Taylor Nankervis said:

Cloning tool in Fauxtoshoppe is the best alternative.
Scan the image, then enlarge to 400% on monitor, map ahead the area to be cloned and very carefully move along the line, pausing to consider the next move whenever you encounter a change of colour (and that situation is in many places in the sample image you linked). You will need a very small circle (not a crosshair) and a very steady hand to get this done, and above all, the patience of a Hindu cow, but it most definitely is achievable and is a valuable learning experience.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I will give this a shot if all else fails.

Lightroom Classic (v.14.5.1) has a new and improved "Remove" tool which did a pretty good job over most of the scene with little or no time or effort. To get these results I had to check the box that says "Use generative AI". Pretty sure one could get the same (or better) results with a recent version of Photoshop, but I happen to prefer working in Lightroom Classic.

On the right and left sides all I had to do was drag the tool over the line, click "Remove" and it was gone. However the middle part where the line passes over the green characters written on the white box did take some time and effort. My first try removed the green characters completely. After I zoomed in and tried several different small diameter tools, I found one that removed most of the line and did not mess up the green characters too much?






EDIT: Looking more closely at the "before" version, I see the generative AI actually modified the original more than I would find acceptable. Yes, the "after" version looks natural enough, but some details - like the expression on the face of the man in the foreground are significantly different.

Before:



After Lightroom remove tool:


... so, it might take a little more time and effort than my previous post suggested...

I think the key is to use software (in my case Photoshop) to take care of the "easy" parts in an automatic fashion and then you zoom in to fix the more difficult areas, either automated or manually.



Photoshop doesn't have difficulty recognizing the scratch and fixing it when there is a blank wall to fill in as in the image above, so I had it solve that first using the content aware fill tool. I did not ask it to analyze the two heads circled in red, which I know it would have had difficulty with.





After the wall was fixed I used the content aware fill tool again, but limited to one head at a time (or portion of a head) which is more manageable for the software. If the scene had a hundred people in it you'd be in for hours of work instead of the five minutes I invested.

Blimeyo said:

The existing advice I found was mainly for darkroom printing

Click to expand...

But it won't fix anything like this, sorry.

You've received the best advice above, esp. the bit about using modern AI-assisted tools for healing. There's no way to actually recover lost information, but it can be patched up satisfactorily for most purposes.
I assume you have signaled this problem to the lab you've used so that they can inspect and repair their equipment.