scanning textured photo?

I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870), the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go away.

I'm thinking if the scanner's internal light source is more diffused instead
of a bright "line" light, the textured surface would not be as prominent.

Does this kind of scanner exist? How do professional scanning service deal
with this problem?

On Jul 11, 9:50 pm, "peter" wrote:
I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870), the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go away.

I'm thinking if the scanner's internal light source is more diffused instead
of a bright "line" light, the textured surface would not be as prominent.

Does this kind of scanner exist? How do professional scanning service deal
with this problem?

Professionally, you would scan then with a wet-scanner and the problem
disappears. They aren't too expensive but not something most people
have laying around. I guess it depends on how important the scan is.

"Pat" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jul 11, 9:50 pm, "peter" wrote:
I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870),
the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like
a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go
away.

I'm thinking if the scanner's internal light source is more diffused
instead
of a bright "line" light, the textured surface would not be as prominent.

Does this kind of scanner exist? How do professional scanning service
deal
with this problem?

Professionally, you would scan then with a wet-scanner and the problem
disappears. They aren't too expensive but not something most people
have laying around. I guess it depends on how important the scan is.

An idea off the top of my head. I haven't tried it but this might work.So
try it out with a photo you don't worry too much about. (Always a good idea
when experimenting.)

Get a shallow pan large enough to hold a sheet of optical glass larger than
the photo in question. Fill the pan with water. Place the glass in the
water. Slide the photo into the water face down. Slide it in slow and gentle
so that it won't collect bubbles under the photo. Position the photo face
down on the glass, under the water. Gently lift the glass out of the water
so the photo remains face down on the glass with a film of water between the
glass and the photo paper (which fills in the irregularities inthe paper
surface. While it is still wet place the whole thing face down on a flat bed
scanner and scan.

Possible reasons for failure. If air bubbles form between the paper and the
glass (possibly coming out of the paper itself) it will cause bad spots in
the scan. In this case you would probably want to add a "wetting agent" to
the water and let the paper soak face up, while the paper and water are
gently agitated to cause all the air to be removed before reversing the
paper and applying it to the glass. Also if the glass is too thick the
scanner may have a problem focusing on the image surface. Scanners assume
that the surface to be scanned is closest to the surface of the scanner
glass. About the only solution is to modify the flat bed scanner to allow
the glass in the scanner to be removable and use this as the glass to apply
the wet photo paper to, and then being careful to dry the bottom of the
glass so there will be no drip distortions added to the scanned image (and
reduces the possibility of water getting into the inside of the scanner).

One more reason to think about this before trying. When you have finished
the scan you need to be careful about how you dry the paper photo. If it
dries in contact with a surface the textured surface of the paper may be
soft enough to deform and create distracting variations in the texture.
Which is another reason to experiment on a less important photo first.

Just some untried ideas off the top of my head.

Randy

==========
Randy Berbaum
Champaign, IL

[re removing light and dark specks due to textured paper]

I would recommend against soaking old prints. There are simply too many
ways that this might damage them. Here are some non-destructive ideas that
may be helpful.

1) scan the prints multiple times at different rotations, then restore them
to their original orientation, and re-combine them as layers in Photoshop or
Elements, with the layer mode set to darken or lighten to remove the lighter
or darker dots, whichever is worse. Use Dust and Scratches to remove any
remaining dots.

2) photograph the prints using a low angled light source to avoid surface
reflections. Or a polarized filter over the lens to minimize surface
reflections. Polarizers over the light sources will remove even more of the
dots.

3) combine methods 1 and 2 by photographing with the light in different
positions, then combine as layers in lighten or darken mode.
--
Mike Russell - www.curvemeister.com

On Jul 11, 9:50 pm, "peter" wrote:
I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870), the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go away.

I'm thinking if the scanner's internal light source is more diffused instead
of a bright "line" light, the textured surface would not be as prominent.

Does this kind of scanner exist? How do professional scanning service deal
with this problem?


Turn on the descreening function of the scanning software, you need it
set for coarse (newsprint). This will soften the image somewhat but
generally takes away the texture. Play with is the less coarse the
descreen the less softening.
Most pro labs will tell you it is not worth the price they are
charging to do this. Wet scanning is almost as expensive as drum
scanning.

Tom

On Jul 12, 3:13 am, "Mike Russell" -
MOVE wrote:
[re removing light and dark specks due to textured paper]

I would recommend against soaking old prints. There are simply too many
ways that this might damage them. Here are some non-destructive ideas that
may be helpful.

1) scan the prints multiple times at different rotations, then restore them
to their original orientation, and re-combine them as layers in Photoshop or
Elements, with the layer mode set to darken or lighten to remove the lighter
or darker dots, whichever is worse. Use Dust and Scratches to remove any
remaining dots.

2) photograph the prints using a low angled light source to avoid surface
reflections. Or a polarized filter over the lens to minimize surface
reflections. Polarizers over the light sources will remove even more of the
dots.

3) combine methods 1 and 2 by photographing with the light in different
positions, then combine as layers in lighten or darken mode.
--
Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com

If you send it out to someone with a wet scanner, they will know how
to handle the photo in a non-destructive manner (I hope).

Wet scanning a very effective.

"Pat" wrote in message
ups.com...

[re wet scanning]
If you send it out to someone with a wet scanner, they will know how
to handle the photo in a non-destructive manner (I hope).

Wet scanning a very effective.

Yes, hopefully. I've done it myself, most recently on a tintype that had
incredible amounts of detail, but with the surface so roughened with time
that very little it was visible. The result was stunning - a tiny 1x1 inch
image that could be blown up to a serviceable 5x7. In this case, I use pure
grain alcohol that evaporated in a matter of seconds, to minimize any chance
of rusting the iron substrate under the emulsion.

But in dealing with old photographs, I think we have a duty of preservation,
and not simply reproduction. For paper prints, there are any number of
dangers that can happen when water, alcohol, or oil are used for scanning an
image. For a print, there are the additional problems related to the paper
itself: drying the print, migration of material in the paper, and restoring
it's original appearance.

1) the emulsion itself may physically peel away from the paper, destroying
the print
2) if the image was incompletely washed or fixed, portions of the emulsion
may be soluble in water
3) iron impurities and other undesirable chemicals in the emulsion may
migrate when wet, causing later changes in the image appearance.
4) markings on the back of the image may soak through.
5) the surface sheen of the emulsion may change
6) if a print dryer is used to restore the original convex shape of the
print, the softened emulsion may crack while drying, and/or stick and come
off

All of the above problems may show up immediately, or may take years to
happen.

If you are lucky, and none of the above are a problem, you will be faced
with the problem that after drying the paper will curl toward the emulsion
side - even with proper drying technique, there is no guarantee of restoring
the print to its original appearance.

These are obviously important prints, or we would not be taking this amount
of trouble to scan them. Even if you get a good scanned image, for many of
us damaging the original is too high a price to pay, particularly when there
are non-destructive alternatives that can be tried first.

Furthermore, scanner technology may improve in the future. For example,
imagine a version of Digital ICE for print scanners that removes surface
texture. Using such a device, it might be possible for someone a few years
from now to get a batter scan than is possible today even with soaking.
This makes it even more important not to damage or otherwise modify the
originals. Archaeologists are aware of this, and often leave sections of a
site untouched, anticipating future improvements in technology and
technique. We should do likewise with our photographic prints and
negatives.

BTW - for more material on scanning old images, and potential problems such
as those mentioned above, I recommend my friend Ctein's "Digital Restoration
From Start to Finish".
--
Mike Russell - www.curvemeister.com

peter wrote:
I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870), the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go away.

I'm thinking if the scanner's internal light source is more diffused instead
of a bright "line" light, the textured surface would not be as prominent.

Does this kind of scanner exist? How do professional scanning service deal
with this problem?


Processing the scanned image with Neat Image or Noise Ninja can
eliminate better than 90% of the grainy effect, providing the image
contains a large enough area of a single tone from which to take a
sample of the texture.

Colin D.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article kNfli.4797$CJ4.4642@trndny08, "peter"
wrote:

I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870), the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go away.

Take a look at:

http://tinyurl.com/2cayna




If this is what you want to do you'll need an FFT plug-in.

One is offered in the footnotes. You'll need WinRAR to unpack it but a
link to that utility software is given in the footnotes as well.


You'll find another RGB version of a FFT/IFFT plug-in for PS at:

http://tinyurl.com/yr35d9





If you're a Mac user, you might want to consider "ImageJ 1.38". "It is
Not a plugin but a complete program" and "runs on Linux, Mac OS 9, Mac
OS X and Windows".

It's free.

Here's the complete message that Ken [Cameraken] posted on the
RetouchPRO forums website where the topic was "Photo film texture
removal advice." (entire thread: http://tinyurl.com/255qg4):

Hi Wils

There IS a mac version.
Its called ImageJ

Image J is part of The Image Processing Toolkit
Available Here for Free
http://tinyurl.com/2dhjx5
ImageJ runs on Linux, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and Windows
The Docs are here
http://tinyurl.com/yrgror
And the bit about FFT is here
http://tinyurl.com/2edbzx

It is Not a plugin but a complete program.
You will need Java Installed.

Ken




If you just want to see what you can do using just what you have at
home, this sample chapter from Katrin Eismann's excellent book,
"Photoshop Restoration and Retouching" should be of interest:
http://tinyurl.com/36h95z

Don't forget to click on the "Figure 5.XX" to see in detail what is
being discussed.


Hope one of these suggestions fills the bill.

ron
(who simply brought up Google and typed in "paper texture removal")

In article kNfli.4797$CJ4.4642@trndny08, says...
I have some old b/w photos with textured surface like a fine grit sand
paper. When I scanned these photos with a flatbed scanner (epson 4870), the
textured surface shows up as specks of light and dark spots, almost like a
digital photo taken in high ISO. I can reduce this effect somewhat with
photoshop and noise reduction software, but they never completely go away.

I'm thinking if the scanner's internal light source is more diffused instead
of a bright "line" light, the textured surface would not be as prominent.

Does this kind of scanner exist? How do professional scanning service deal
with this problem?



The best way to copy old documents like this is by rephotographing
them using the standard copy setup of two lamps at a 45 degree angle
to the surface. In extreme cases you may need polarizing filters over
the lamps and over the camera lens.
Find a book or online guide if you don't know how to create this setup.
If you fill the frame with the old photo and shoot at a high level of
detail you won't have any problem using the digital image to make new
prints.
Photographs have a resolution of only about 8-14 lines per mmm so the
high resolutions used by scanners aren't needed.

All scaneners use a light which is perpendicular to the surface and
this creates reflections which can't be eliminated.

--
Robert D Feinman - Landscapes, Panoramas, Photo Tips
Web Site: http://robertdfeinman.com