Seeking advice on retrofit old photo images

[satimis]

Hi all,

I have old photo images scanned on Epson Photo Flatbed scanner >10 years ago. I need to enhance/retrofit their quality and to be used for creating Digital slideshow. I have both Darktable and GIMP running on Ubuntu 24.04 PC here. Please advise which of them shall I use? I'm searching for an easy and not too complicated solution. Thanks

Regards

 

[koraks]

In what way do the images need to be improved/enhanced?

If this is about increasing detail rendering, there's not a lot you can do. There currently are tools to up-res images using AI technology, but these also cannot make up detail that wasn't captured in the first place. Neither Darktable nor GIMP offer such a feature.

If these were old film images (e.g. slides) when you scanned them, I'd consider just leaving them as they are. You could optionally adjust the colors a bit to come closer to what the original scene might have looked like.

 

[satimis]

In what way do the images need to be improved/enhanced?

If this is about increasing detail rendering, there's not a lot you can do. There currently are tools to up-res images using AI technology, but these also cannot make up detail that wasn't captured in the first place. Neither Darktable nor GIMP offer such a feature.

If these were old film images (e.g. slides) when you scanned them, I'd consider just leaving them as they are. You could optionally adjust the colors a bit to come closer to what the original scene might have looked like.

Hi koraks,

Lot of thanks for your advice.

Actually I have done it quite sometimes (to retrofit old digital photos/images) using the camera built-in functions of my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Smart Phone. It works for me seamlessly.

Built-in features of Smart Phone Camera:-
Filters
Light balance
Brightness
Exposure
Contrast
Highlights
Shadows
Saturation
Tint
Temperature
Sharpness
Definition

The only disadvantage is to upload the old digital photos to the Smart Phone. After finish download the edited digital photos back to my desktop PC. Besides I can increase the resolution of the digital photos, if needed..

I use remote-access to connect the smart phone to my desktop PC. All works are done on the keyboard of the desktop PC.
(please refer to upload photos)

Just for curiosity I start this thread. I have both Darktable and GIMP running on my Desk PC

Regards

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Adobe Premiere Elements movie editor program has adjustments you can make to individual photos first as you make the video itself with sound, music, titles, and credits added as desired. See sample below I dumped on YouTUbe of a slide show. But I would use another program like their companion Adobe Photoshop Elements for photo editing first. Both together are around $150 or $100 for just one.

IrfanView is a free basic photo editor for cropping, size change, and basic editing of photos.

Windows has a movie editor.

I use the aforementioned Premiere Elements for final movie at 3840x2160 pixels for fit smart TV, monitors, phones, and other 16:9 frames.

 

[loccdor]

The skin tones and colors look more natural in the original image. In my opinion your enhancement has gone too far, I think you need a much smaller increase in contrast.

I used the rotation and curves tools in Gimp to edit this to the point I think looks best. I adjusted the R, G, B channels individually to reduce color cast. Both changing their white and black points and the midpoints of their curve. Your original image does not have enough blue in the highlights, so the overcast sky looked orange. The shadows I darkened only slightly as to not lose detail.

 

[runswithsizzers]

I have old photo images scanned on Epson Photo Flatbed scanner

Were these photo images scanned from slides or negatives or prints?

If these were 35mm slides, it is difficult to get good, sharp, high resolution scans from a flatbed scanner. As mentioned by @koraks, if the scans lack resolution or sharpness, there is not much that can be done about that.

What are the pixel dimensions of your scans?

I need to enhance/retrofit their quality and to be used for creating Digital slideshow

How do you expect this slideshow to be viewed? If the scans do not have much pixel resolution, then the slideshow may look OK on a small phone screen, but maybe not so good on a big screen TV or a computer monitor, especially if viewed from a close distance.

The word "retrofit" does not really work here. The word "enhance" makes more sense to me.

I have both Darktable and GIMP running on Ubuntu 24.04 PC here. Please advise which of them shall I use? I'm searching for an easy and not too complicated solution.

If all you want to do is adjust the contrast and the colors, any editing software should be capable of doing what you want. But you will have to learn how to work the software. Be sure to MAKE COPIES and do not attempt to adjust your originals, While you are learning, it is easy to ruin a photo, and you want to be able to start over with another copy of the original.

So pick one, and learn how to use it. You can search for online tutorials, or you can learn by trial and error. It takes a while to learn, so have patience. For me, adjusting scans of slides did not start to get "easy" until after I had spent many hours learning the process.