Best method of scanning old prints (OT). Thank you, answered.
richardandtracy
Posts: 5,670
I have a slight problem in that I have discovered a LOT of old family photos while clearing my dad's house. Can anyone recommend an efficient scanning method that can cope with photos ranging in sixe from 35mm contact prints, up to 10x8" prints?
Most prints are sub 3", though many from the 1920's are postcard sizes. Some date back to the 19-teens and a very limited few are pre-1890. Many are quite faded. Also have a lot of slides (positive photos, same size as a 35mm negative). A few could look good as backgrounds in DS. Some I'd class as quite unusual, like the one taken on the top of Mt Etna on the day it was captured from German forces, 7 Aug 1943. Then there are the screw gun mountain artillery photos in Waziristan in current Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan (1921-1923). There are a few of the Giza Sphinx with a bomb damage reduction support under its chin from 1943.
The numbers of photos to scan are in the high hundreds and is a monumental task with a standard flatbed scanner, so I'm looking for suggestions..
Regards,
Richard
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I use an Epson Perfection v500 to do my dads and my old slides, pictures and negatives and unfortunately I don't know of an easier way unless you send them to a business that will charge megabucks :)
I would recommend Epson scanners. I have a V500.
https://epson.ca/For-Home/Scanners/Photo-Scanners/Epson-Perfection-V600-Photo/p/B11B198022
https://epson.ca/For-Work/Scanners/Photo-and-Graphics/Epson-Perfection-V850-Pro-Photo-Scanner/p/B11B224201
https://epson.ca/For-Home/Scanners/Photo-Scanners/FastFoto-FF-680W-Wireless-High-speed-Photo-Scanning-System/p/B11B237201
or contract a photo scanning service.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=photo+scanning+service&ia=web
Hardware:
Amazon.com: Canon CS9000F MKII CanoScan 9000F MKII Photo, Film and Negative Scanner, Flatbed : Office Products
Amazon.com: Magnasonic Long Tray Slide Film Holder for 35mm Compatible Film Scanners, Holds 4 Slides to Speed up Processing Time, Easy to Use, Gently Flattens and Protects Film Edges - Set of 3 (ST01) : Office Products
Amazon.com : Giottos AA1900 Rocket Air Blaster Large - Black : Camera Cleaning Kits : Electronics
Is what I bought.
Instructions:
There are books on digitally correcting scanned negatives, slides, and photos too.It is tedious, and difficult, and you will be messing with color channels, and other channels.
Amazon.com: Digital Restoration from Start to Finish: How to Repair Old and Damaged Photographs: 9781138940253: Ctein: Books
What I have yet to research is if there is AI driven software that uses RTX 2000/3000/4000 series cards that will quickly do 99% of the digital repair work for you. I have definately seen RTX 2000/3000/4000 video cards & AI used to sharpen, add detail to (pseudo accurately simulated details from appearances, but very realistic), and colorize old B&W baseball photos but when I asked for the SW used or the techniques employed the man doing those were tightlipped. They sell the restored and enhanced photos on Facebook but obviously don't have negatives of the originals as they probably are using Library of Congress archive or other digital sources (perfectly legal). I haven't ordered one to see if the actual photo printed is still as good, and won't, but a professional high quality print would be needed to maintain the digital restoration and enhancement. They probably something astoundingly simply like the latest Photioshop Elements 2024 but I haven't search on that yet and whether it can do such repairs and enhancements.
You'll still want the book above and learn it to judge and adjust the output of any technique you wind up using personally.
If you use a flatbed scanner, you should be able scan a lot of the small images at once.
I also have a V500; it does transparencies (120/220 and 35 mm film), mounted slides (4 at a time) and conventional flatbed dcument scanning. This has apparently been replaced by the V600 at the same general price point.
The cleanup functions were quite good on the 500 - scratch cleanup, color and lighting correction worked quite well scanning my father's slides.
Unmounted 35 mm film is the fastest to scan as it will do two 6-frame strips at once.
I'm afraid you have two choices - do the job yourself, a few images at a time; or pay some services' hourly rate for someone else to do the job a few images at a time.
I've scanned them with a flatbed scanner a while ago, which even had a case for negatives. It is a tedious work though. Scratches have been an issue though.
After scanning some prints, it may make sense to enhance them with Photoshop, as the colors might have changed over the years.
Thank you all.
I shall be doing the job myself, and it honestly sounds as if it's not going to be quick. My FIL bought a photo scanner 12-15 years ago, but knowing his ability to choose expensive, poor performance items, I don't even want to bother with it, so a V600 is what I shall look at seriously. And I shall look for the kindle.e-book version of the book @nonesuch00 recommended.
I have Gimp - which I'm not hugely proficient with - and I understand that can use Photoshop plugins/filters, so I think that's covered the post-processing side. Just need to collate the family stories that go with some of the photos before it's too late. One I found was similar to this on on a 'Rare Historical Photos' site:
Apparantly it would have been taken in 1943, and the bit added to the Sphinx was to reduce the chance of the head breaking off if the ground was bounced around a bit by large bombs going off nearby.
Regards,
Richard
I too have a negative scanner somewhere I never used that's likely as old
and so so many negatives, from my Father's photography and ones I developed myself
just never get around to it
I don't think the physical side of scanners (or printers) has chnaged that much so, drives permitting, an old photoscanner might well be fine - you could also dig back for reviews.
I have a collection of about 5000 slides and would like to scan some of them on an as-needed basis. The problem is that they're Kodachrome so the usual Digital ICE feature can't automatically clean up dust specks.
Any suggestions for a scanner or software that would work on these?
I had an old scanner that worked on Windows XP but does not work on Windows 10
Also I had an old printer that I tried connecting to my mum's new laptop, did not work as well
I have to find mine first, the cat knocked the box over and I scooped up the bits and put it god knows where
I actually tried photographing my Kodachrome slides projected on the wall, did not go well
The flatbed scanner on my printer scans photos quickly around 20 seconds for 300 dpi, longer for 600 dpi. But I found using a macro lens on a tripod camera in a uniformly lit room, works just as well, and a shutter snap is a lot quicker.
I had no problem with dust specks with my V500 and the Epson driver/software, coupled with a quick shot of canned "air" just before placing te slides on the scanner. Kodachrome, Ectachrome, Fuji, (my father apparently grabbed whatever was convenient) all worked. The software could not, however, clean up the dust specks on the camera lens . . .
I think the OP will be plesantly suprised with how much Epson has built into the software.
That is a cool picture. You should idenity when, where, and who ASAP and get the pictures scanned and backed up. My father's and uncle's WWII & Korean photos are mostly disappeared now, and some of them were fascinating to see. I remember some from my uncle that were of him jumping (parachuting) with a bunch of other guys and the whole sky was filled from one end to the other of nothing but guys jumping. It was like it was raining frogs. Crazy! I never did ask him where the pictures were taken, or when. All I knew was it was WWII.
I'm working on a similar project... no fast way but plugging through. I try to do five a day, which isn't so overwhelming, and maybe it's not much in the moment, but by the end if the month it adds up. (And is certainly more than me feeling like the project is too big and just not touching it.)
One thing I've also done is, for the ones I have stories or information on, inserting a copy of the picture into a .doc file and adding what I have... or who I need to ask about it (or have asked and am awaiting a response).
If you use IrfanView and open a picture go to the "I" in the menu bar which opens Image Properties and at the bottom is a button marked Comment. Add any information here and save it and it saves to the image. I use it to paste the render times and any other settings that I want to remember for any future renders of the scene. Opening it again in IrfanView and going to Properties/Comment shows me what I have written there.
I use a flatbed-Scanner with 600 dpi. Then the photos are processed with Topaz Photo AI for sharpening, noise suppression, and upscaling. Lastly there are several online AI to remove scratches, and dust, and restore missing pieces.
It's going to be a tedious process not matter what. I think I'd get a scanner with a big bed and scan as many photos as possible at a time.
This sounds like a very interesting collection.
I did the scan deal on a series of HP printer/scanners. I know some of the basic details about the people but not a lot. I tried to match people to my memories of what my mother told me, but that was when I was a kid, and decades had passed. If older generations are still alive in your families, do ask them about the pictures you have. It will give them joy to recall those folks and their times together and preserve their memories.