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Manual Focus Lenses Forum

Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.
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B/W Negative Scan Scratch Removal
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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:25 pm
Post subject: B/W Negative Scan Scratch Removal
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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:25 pm
Post subject: B/W Negative Scan Scratch Removal
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Slides or color negatives are easy. My scanner can do IR simultaneously with the scan in visible light, thus the Silverfast software can remove reliably any other blotch or scratch within a few seconds, and my results are neat and clean. The software in its latest version even learned to deal with Kodachrome slides. However, it´s still impossible to scan black and white negatives with the IR feature, since it cannot penetrate the silver halogenide layer in those films - thus all my B/W raws are scratched, and sometimes that badly that manual PP would take hours for a single image.

Next, find a software that manages B/W scratch removal? So far I failed. Even the famous Polaroid PolaDSR does a crappy job with B/W.

Is here anyone who tackled the problem and can give me advice?


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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:58 pm
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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:58 pm
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If the scratches are on the film base side (i.e. not the emulsion side), as painful as it is, could oil-mounting like they used to do in traditional photomultiplier drum-scanning help mask the scratches?


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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:26 pm
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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:26 pm
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RokkorDoctor wrote:
If the scratches are on the film base side (i.e. not the emulsion side), as painful as it is, could oil-mounting like they used to do in traditional photomultiplier drum-scanning help mask the scratches?


Thank you, I wasn´t aware and had to look that up. Those negatives are not mine, and from the way the scratches run crisscross in all directions, I suspect they are on both sides and a result from the way they were stored and taken in/out repeatedly of one of this simple pergament paper envelopes in which they are delivered back from the lab. I´ll consider the oil method rather as some last resort measure. I´d be way more happy if it can be fixed with software.

That´s one of the blanks where it´s seen best.

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