Scanning Badly Scratched Negatives

[MPDPhotoLab]

I'm using a plustek 8200i with Silverfast 8 Studio Ai. All works well until I try to scan negatives that have scratches all of the way through the emulsion. When I include the scratched spot in the frame, the image becomes very light--as if the histogram is pushed right. It looks like the scanner and/or software are seeing the brightness coming through the small hole in the emulsion and averaging it with the rest of the data for a 35mm negative. Is there a way to tell the system to not use that data? (Hey! That's a really bad scratch--ignore anything you see...) Do I need to repair the negatives? The scratches are small and few in number-about the size of a ball point pen tip and one or two per frame. Unfortunately, the exposure metering is sometimes all over the place, so pre-scanning one negative then switching to a second is not always possible.

Rob Young
Police Photographic Technician
Mesa, AZ PD

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear Rob,

I think you are right.
The hole lets through too much light and that shifts the shadows (because it is a neg.) into a wrong area.

You can work around this.
Limit your scanframe to an undamaged area (like in the second image).
Then open the NegaFix Expert settings and uncheck the "Auto" checkbox in the expansion dialog.
Now the scanframe will not adjust anymore and you can enlarge it for the entire image.

But remember to enable the auto checkbox again for the next negative.

kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

[MPDPhotoLab]

Sorry for the late reply. Excluding the damaged area from the pre-scan and applying those settings to the whole scan resolved the problem. Thank you for your prompt solution.

Rob Young
Police Photographic Technician
Mesa, AZ PD
PO 1466
Mesa, AZ 85211-1466