Scanning B/W photos

[cubilcle281]

Hi all,

I am scanning some old family black and white photos for which the
negatives are no longer available. I would like to get the best
possible scan since the scans will become the 'archival' copy.

What is the best way to do this scan? Initial tests have showed that
there appears to be just a little bit more than 400dpi of resolution
from the photos (quite a shock, most color photos only have 2-300dpi),
so I have settled on 600dpi for scanning (most are only 2x3 inches, so
luckily we aren't talking about huge filesizes here!).

Many of the photos are starting to fade and have a brown or yellow-ish
tone. Should I scan in black & white, or color? Although I don't have
the time to restore the photos now, I would like to capture as much
information as possible to make a future restoration job possible.

Lastly, my software (Epson Twain) tends to clip the highlights &
shadows when it performs the auto levels correction. Since I am using
Photoshop Elements rather than the full photoshop the scans are only
8-bit so I don't think I can afford to not do levels correction before
the final scan. Is there any way I can force the software not to be so
agressive with its levels setting?

Thanks.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

Hi all,

I am scanning some old family black and white photos for which the
negatives are no longer available. I would like to get the best
possible scan since the scans will become the 'archival' copy.

What is the best way to do this scan? Initial tests have showed that
there appears to be just a little bit more than 400dpi of resolution
from the photos (quite a shock, most color photos only have 2-300dpi),
so I have settled on 600dpi for scanning (most are only 2x3 inches, so
luckily we aren't talking about huge filesizes here!).

Many of the photos are starting to fade and have a brown or yellow-ish
tone. Should I scan in black & white, or color? Although I don't have
the time to restore the photos now, I would like to capture as much
information as possible to make a future restoration job possible.

Lastly, my software (Epson Twain) tends to clip the highlights &
shadows when it performs the auto levels correction. Since I am using
Photoshop Elements rather than the full photoshop the scans are only
8-bit so I don't think I can afford to not do levels correction before
the final scan. Is there any way I can force the software not to be so
agressive with its levels setting?

Thanks.

Hi...

Given that I'm archiving all the kids and grandkids shots for history,
including some for which there are no negatives (school pics, ones other
people took but shared a print of, etc), and doing it with an Epson 3200
I'll take a shot at a bit of it.

Respectfully suggest that you scan at waaaay more than 600 dpi. Were I
you I'd go for the scanners max optical resolution. Much much easier
to clean up (dust, scratches, etc), and why limit yourself to their
ever being printed much, if any, larger than they are now? Someday,
someone might want an 8x10 of one of the kids wallet sized school pics,
right? And storage is cheap. Virtually free.

Scan in color, save the original, make another black and white of it
if you like in post-processing. Heck, if you ask your scanner for
a black and white it will just do it itself in "scanner post-processing"
anyway. Keep both. Some will like one, some the other. Some folks
like photos to reflect reality; others like them to look "pretty"

Keep them in tiff format.

Twain. Don't know what model you have, but make sure you have the
latest driver. There's no comparison between the one I got with the
scanner and the updated version I got from Epson's site. Free.

Use it in Pro mode. Unless you click the auto tab you can do anything
you like. Clicking the auto icon does indeed clip whites, but I do it
anyway just to easily get to a reasonable starting point. Then click
the histogram and drag the white level/black level and gamma where you
prefer.

Hopefully others will add more.

Take care.

Ken

 

[Lotas]

Hi

As Ken suggests, you should use a resolution above 400dpi, however,
even a postcard size photo scan at 800 dpi generates a big file. I'm
currently scanning old b/w pics at 800 dpi and 24bit color and it is
more than enough.

Regarding color balance, just use a neutral setting, so you don't loose
detail. (disable any color correction). Keep the photos that way in
tiff format and make a copy for editing.

If you really want more quality, you could consider vuescan and even
calibrating your scanner, but maybe calibrating isn't necessary as
we're not talking about professional work.


regards

 

[Don]

I am scanning some old family black and white photos for which the
negatives are no longer available. I would like to get the best
possible scan since the scans will become the 'archival' copy.

Everything Ken said plus scan in 16-bit if you can! That's what you
should archive. Also, scan "raw"! More later...

What is the best way to do this scan? Initial tests have showed that
there appears to be just a little bit more than 400dpi of resolution
from the photos (quite a shock, most color photos only have 2-300dpi),
so I have settled on 600dpi for scanning (most are only 2x3 inches, so
luckily we aren't talking about huge filesizes here!).

The conventional wisdom is that photographs simply don't really
contain any data above 600 dpi. But if you have the storage go with
native resolution anyway. If you print, this means you can print
larger pics without having to enlarge. If it's for viewing on a
monitor, even though the resolution and dynamic range is limited right
now, this is bound to change. Yes, you can enlarge your original scan
but that means "inventing" pixels in software (interpolation).

Many of the photos are starting to fade and have a brown or yellow-ish
tone. Should I scan in black & white, or color? Although I don't have
the time to restore the photos now, I would like to capture as much
information as possible to make a future restoration job possible.

That as well as this:

Lastly, my software (Epson Twain) tends to clip the highlights &
shadows when it performs the auto levels correction.

is why you should scan "raw". Especially, if you want to archive!!
That means, disable *all* software post-processing adjustments in your
scanner software! Usually everything with the word "auto" in it! All
that does is edits (i.e. "corrupts") the image before you get it!
That's probably why you get clipping, for example.

Finally, I saw someone mention Vuescan. It's free to try and you can
make up your own mind but my advice is stay away from it as far away
as you can. Vuescan is notoriously buggy and unreliable (check the
archives!). And since you're after maximum quality the last thing you
want is to have you data mangled and corrupted right at the start!

Don.