Author Topic: Image Editing and Manipulation  (Read 1729 times)

GrumpyPhart

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Image Editing and Manipulation
« on: 13:38:53, 28/12/20 »
Having been experimenting with my newly acquired scanner I could now do with some idiot-proof instruction as to how to use the various functions of the editing software.
Does anyone know of any appropriate books or on line tuition facilities.
Thanks

gunwharfman

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #1 on: 14:03:49, 28/12/20 »
Did your instruction manual come with your scanner? If not, you should be able to get them from the company online as a PDF file.

GrumpyPhart

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #2 on: 19:03:30, 28/12/20 »
This is an example of one of my slides after scanning:



The image through a projector is markedly better. I realise of course that the lamp in a scanner is not going to be the same as in a projector and I'm wondering if the age of the slide makes any difference. This one was taken over thirty years ago. I'm not quite sure where to begin. I'm just hoping that my slides are not now "past it".

GrumpyPhart

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #3 on: 19:08:16, 28/12/20 »
This is another one

post a pic

richardh1905

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #4 on: 19:43:11, 28/12/20 »
You can clearly see some hair and dirt on your slide in the last shot. Make sure that they are clean before you scan them.
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GrumpyPhart

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #5 on: 19:48:17, 28/12/20 »
You can clearly see some hair and dirt on your slide in the last shot. Make sure that they are clean before you scan them.


Good spotting. When I rescan it I will dust it to get rid of the hairs. Sadly some of the"dirt" is something more sinister an I find it can only be removed with the software.

Bigfoot_Mike

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #6 on: 19:50:54, 28/12/20 »
It looks like some of the pictures are underexposed. This may be due to the scanner or the desire not to overexposed slide film, which was a bit tricky. You could improve the scanned pictures by playing around with levels (blacks and whites) and boosting contrast, possibly also boosting shadows. The scans would probably also benefit from some sharpening and noise reduction.

Jac

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #7 on: 12:21:29, 29/12/20 »
Many of my old family slides from childhood holidays have deteriorated and now are mainly red in colour. The Agfa ones are the worst. Sadly quite useless now :-[
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Birdman

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #8 on: 15:44:38, 29/12/20 »
Many of my old family slides from childhood holidays have deteriorated and now are mainly red in colour. The Agfa ones are the worst. Sadly quite useless now :-[


If you digitise them, you can compensate the white-balance using photoshop.

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Birdman

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #9 on: 15:51:18, 29/12/20 »
Slides have a much higher contrast range when you project them (that's why slides look so spectacular and real). When you print them on paper, the blackest black still reflects 5% of the light and the whitest white only reflect 95% of the light. But black on a slide blocks the light almost totally and the whites are almost 100% transparent for light, so the contrast range is much larger.

 
Showing pictures on a computer screen is better, but the sensor of your scanner will also be a bit limited in dynamic range and you lose contrast in the optical system too I guess (not sure how exactly these scanners work).

 
With photoshop or another editing programme you should be able to enhance the pictures a bit, but you can never regain what was really lost.
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Birdman

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #10 on: 16:21:00, 29/12/20 »

It's not great. The colours look "old". Perhaps this is slightly better (but not much).I'm sure others can do this better than me.




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Ray-S

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #11 on: 09:31:44, 31/12/20 »
I bought a scanner 2 weeks ago for slides and negatives and I am having similar trouble getting the colours looking right. On the plus side it does have (Plustec 8200i SE) infra red for removing dust etc from the scan.  Some of the slides are from a school trip to Switzerland in about 1970 so probably some deterioration in the colour anyway.

Bigfoot_Mike

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #12 on: 11:07:04, 31/12/20 »
With a scanner there may be several issues. The first is the quality of what you are scanning. Then there is the quality of the scanner - how well does it focus, what resolution, colour accuracy of scanner? Then there is the software and how it maps to a colour profile. Some of these can be fixed in editing software - some software is better than others. Scanning negatives will be different to scanning slides as different colour conversion is required. The format you use for saving the scanned files is also important. JPEG is a lossy format and discards detail every time you save the file. It is best to select the highest quality JPEG file, or preferably a TIFF format if you want to maximise quality.  Many of the more capable editors cost money and have quite a big learning curve. You also need to have some understanding of the basics of editing and what is likely to fix the issues you have with the picture. One set of tools that might be worth considering is the set of tools from Topaz Labs.  These are all available on a free 30 day trial for the full versions. These tools use AI to fix problems and can fix some automatically. They can be run standalone and as plug ins to other software. Tools that might be worthwhile are: JPEG to Raw; Studio 2; AI Sharpen, Denoise AI and Gigapixel AI (scales up pictures with poor resolution). For most of these what they do is obvious from the name.

GrumpyPhart

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Re: Image Editing and Manipulation
« Reply #13 on: 18:53:41, 01/01/21 »
This is a copy of one I put on earlier, now scanned on VueScan


I shall be doing some tweaking(sharpness etc) in PaintShop Pro

 

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