Re: Scanning Negatives - Advice Needed

Scanning is very much an art; I use an Epson V850 Perfection flatbed scanner. For negatives here is the approach I generally use:

• Brush with anti-static photographic brush followed by gentle dust-off (N.B.: slides and negatives often have dust/fingerprints that can’t be removed mechanically)
• Keep the scanner glass clean also
• Place negative under a piece of thin plate glass on the scanner bed to keep it flat
• Turn all the auto correction options in the scanner software OFF
• Scan to a TIFF image at highest bit depth (16-bit gray or 48-bit color) to get best results for blacks

Image processing:
• I use Affinity Photo—incredible product, only $60 purchase and all future updates free
• There is a learning curve but Affinity has good on-line videos
• Use the Live Filter and Adjustment layers on top of the background pixel layer

My general steps for B&W:
1) import TIFF image
2) straighten and crop as necessary, then resave as TIFF, close, and re-import
3) add a Noise Filter layer, Unsharp Mask layer, and a Clarity layer. They need to be set for each image, but with experience making adjustments becomes easier
4) perform an Auto Levels on the background pixel layer
5) add a Levels Adjustment layer; adjust the gamma as needed on both the Master and Intensity levels
6) add a Curves Adjustment layer; for images with skies, I typically I use the Curves to darken the high values of the histogram
7) add a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment layer; adjust both as needed (don’t over-do the contrast, easy to do especially for color)
8) add a Shadows/Highlights Adjustment layer; I usually increase the shadows by about 10% to compensate for film latitude and the scanner
9) Touch up the background image

One very nice aspect of the adjustment layers is that you can copy them from one image and paste them into a new one, which can save a lot of time.

The last step has the most artistry involved, but Affinity Photo has very good tools. The inpainting brush is almost magic, and the healing brush works well for detail repair; sometimes the clone stamp brush is needed. The dodge and burn brushes can selectively lighten or darken areas. It also has a frequency separation filter that can help fix some problems like light streaks; watch the videos to see what it can do. When touching-up, I disable the noise, unsharp and clarity layers, then turn them back on when done. Lastly, export the whole stack as a new JPEG.

Hope this helps.