Re: scratch removal program
2005-03-02 by Historic Photo Archive
It would be impossible, IMHO, for a computer program to distinguish between important details and dust specs on glass negatives. However I would agree there may be a commercial demand for the program; you could make money by creating or selling it. I would hope that there would be a watermark to disclose whether the image is digitally retouched, so that people would not be led to believe they were looking at an actual historic image, but instead at a computer altered image. An analogy is the colorized b&W movies produced by Turner, which have this disclamer/warning at the beginning of each altered film. It would be even better if all historic images were available in user-selectable retouched / raw versions so that the historical value of them would not be destroyed by the retouching for the sake of "pretty picture on the wall." Just a few days ago, I was retouching a 1939 photograph of Mt. Hood, and was about to wipe away some specs on a slope near the top, and a researcher from the Mazamas happened by, he looked at those and was able to tell me the exact date the photograph was taken, he recognized them as the little flags on the slope for skiers, and they were in that precise position for only one day, which was the tryouts for the 1939 olympics. These little flags were probably a half mile away and were no bigger than a dust spec on the 5x7" negative. There were plenty of scratches on this nitrate film. The image, if you want to see it, is here (although the specs are too small to see): http://historicphotoarchive.com/caps5/00468.html -- Thomas Robinson http://www.historicphotoarchive.com
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> Subject: [Digital BW] Digest Number 2904 > > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 08:13:33 -0800 > From: Bart Nadeau <bartsf@...> > Subject: Re: Digest Number 2903 > > I sure would welcome a Photoshop plug in version. I am scanning a very > large collection of old images from 1900 - 1940 on both glass plates > and film, sizes ranging from 120 to 8 x10, condition ranging from > wonderful to terrible. Such a plug on would sure cut down the > retouching. > > Bart > On Mar 1, 2005, at 7:54 AM, > DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com wrote: > >> In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dealy663" >> <dealy663@h...> >> wrote: >>> >>> Hi everyone, I've been a lurker in this group for a while, but haven't >>> posted much. >>> >>> I'm looking for some opinions on a dust and scratch removal program >>> for scanned black and white film. I haven't been able to find anything >>> that was really helpful in this regard, and got to thinking about >>> creating something myself. >>> >>> In some ways what I'm planning on developing would be similar to the >>> Polaroid Dust removal program, but would make use of more >>> sophisticated image analyis techniques. By this I mean, it would take >>> into consideration the amount of film grain present (via the speed of >>> the film and allowing the user to specify a level of "graininess"). >>> The size of of the film grain with respect to the size of the actual >>> image on the negative would also figure into the dust/scratch >>> selection algorithms. >>> >>> This program would not be smart enough for you to set a couple of >>> options and then presto you'd have something as clean as a Digital ICE >>> repaired piece of color film (That seems unlikely for now). But would >>> offer significantly less work than going through your file with the >>> clone-stamp tool or the healing brush at 100% pixel resolution in >>> Photoshop as I've usually done with my B/W scans. This whole process >>> started after I spent about 2 hours cleaning up a scan of a 35mm Tri-X >>> neg with the PS CS healing brush. By manually applying some of these >>> techniques I was able to clean a similarly dirty neg in about 15 >>> minutes. I expect that I can build a PS CS plugin to do this >>> relatively simple stuff without too much trouble. But the really cool >>> benifit will arise if my ideas regarding automated dust and scratch >>> identification pan out. >>> >>> This probably wouldn't be of need to those who only have to clean up 5 >>> or 6 defects per image. I'm talking about really messed up negs with >>> over 100 defects per image! >>> >>> So here are my questions: >>> >>> 1. Would such a program would be of interest to you B/W scanning >>> types? >>> >>> 2. If so would most of you be interested in a standalone application, >>> or a Photoshop plugin that would work with 16-bit files? If I were to >>> build a standalone program I would only code it to work with TIFF >>> files. >>> >>> 3. What percentage of those interested are on Macs vs PCs? >>> >>> Thanks, Derek