I have not had a proper chance to play with my new digitisation equipment as yet, even though I have had it for about 3 months now. So, this week Alison (the office organiser) and I have been having a play with them to see what we can achieve. Our goals were to understand the equipment better and to develop some processes around how to scan quickly and efficiently for clients.
The photo on the left was scanned using the Epson V700 with dust reduction turned on. I had read some comments about the dust reduction feature, but I think in this case it worked pretty good.
- Image 2
The photo on the right was done without the dust reduction.
We did get some other software with the scanner, but have not mastered it as yet. The software is supposed to reduce scratches and other marks in a more significant way than the dust reduction feature. We tried it out on the very poor quality photo, which is featured below, without success.
The feature we were quite surprised and happy with the results was the auto colour management feature. With this turned on and the dust reduction this first image came up really well. Image 3 below left looks like what the photo might have been like when it was first taken in 1978.
The colours in this managed photo are much sharper and defined. I have not as yet had a go of this photo with Photoshop. Normally I deepen colours of photos as it makes a more brilliant photo. But any adjustments to images need to be done with some consideration of what is needing to be achieved, as well as whether or not it actually suits the photo
- Image 3
aesthetics. Photoshopping individual photos is quite time intensive and it really needs to be worth the time. i.e. the photo will be used to print a larger portrait etc.
I forgot to mention this photo was digitised at 48bit colour. I cannot remember what DPI we choose, but it was large. Each of these photos came out to almost 15MB each. I should be able to print an A4 reproduction of these quite easily and it would look great. I would think a larger print would be possible as well.
- Image 4
The other photo we had a bit of a play with, particularly to try out the additional software, which I mentioned above is featured in image 4 & 5. This photo is in quite poor physical condition. It was taken either late 1973 or early 1974. The surface of the image is significantly cracked and some parts have peeled off. This shows how the different photo papers used can impact significantly on their quality and condition over time. When handling the Anglicare Victoria photos some of the best preserved photos were ones printed on actual paper or heavier card. These were photos from the 1950s and earlier.
All these photos have been kept in a plastic container with lots of other photos for many years without any individual holders or other managed environment. This would have definitely contributed to its deterioration, but as I have already mentioned, what the image is actually printed on makes a difference. Good quality photo paper is vital to ensure l0ngevity.
- Image 5
Image 4 shows non-colour management, but dust reduction. Image 5 shows colour management. I have always remembered the photo looking like image 4, so not sure that image 5 represents the colours effectively. I did pull this image into photoshop, but when faced with the extent of the damage and thinking about how long it might take, I did not continue. It is a lovely photo, but not worth the effort for me (being the client at this time).
The other image I wanted to show was one scanned on the Fujitsu fi-5750C with 24 bit colour and at 600DPI. Image 6 is paint on paper dated February 1982. The depth of colour is good, but not quite what it looks like physically. The different dark colours at the tops of the trees have been merged somewhat in this image. It might need some photoshopping or some further playing with the settings. This image rendered to a massive 200MB and it took a lot of effort to get it down to the kind of size that would be suitable to upload on the web.
- Image 6
All of these images were scanned as a TIFF image in the first instance, which is why the image sizes were so large. On this webpage the images are in the compressed format of JPEG. I have not played too much with other compression formats as yet, but would like to learn more about them. I often use PNG format for images that I need to ensure the background does not appear as a white square. Photoshop is such a great tool to play with images.
I will be playing with the scanners again soon to see what else can be done. I will hopefully have more time to play with the settings and in Photoshop to see what can be done. I have a range of photos from 1973 up until about 2003 printed on various types of papers. Bring on some more rainy afternoons.
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