LaserSoft Imaging

I'm about to begin batch scanning tens of thousands of slides, negatives, and prints to create a searchable digital archive for a client of mine and I wanted to get some feedback to hone my workflow prior to just diving in...

Basically, I assume the best way to ensure that I capture all detail in the original image is to scan completely flat and apply sharpening, tonal adjustments, dust removal, etc. in Photoshop after the initial scan has been made. Would you all agree?

With regards to sharpening... It almost seems better to do this in Photoshop after the initial scan capture so that I can sharpen as needed and selectively if required. Would you agree?

With regards to clipping the white/black points and any tonal corrections using the histogram... I could accomplish the same thing in Photoshop after the scan is made, correct?

It seems slow and problematic to try to apply iSRD dust/scratch removal in batch because it often leaves artifacts or corrects things that aren't dust/scratches, and because each slide needs a different amount of iSRD and 1:1 previews of all slides takes way too long. I assume I'd probably leave iSRD off and just touch up in photoshop afterwards if necessary, correct?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!

Dear customer,

You can do a lot of steps in Photoshop but not all.

The highlights and shadows (White-/black-points) have to be set in SilverFast.
Otherwise you will lose tonal range when the image is rendered.

iSRD does not have to be individually adjusted for each image.
It is a automated hardware based process.
Doing this in photoshop will be much more work.
You might confuse this with the software sided SRD which needs to be set up individually.

Kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

I just finished a 2 month personal project scanning in 4788 35mm slides. There are two important factors when setting off on a project like this: Time and File Storage. I can say from experience that your biggest concern should be the amount of time it will take to complete the project. Editing even 50% of your slides in -insert your favorite editing software here - will greatly multiply the amount of time it will take to complete your project. Tens of thousands of slides could potentially take years, depending on your workflow. I spent an estimated 200 hours scanning and entering information about my slides. Only a handful received light editing in post software.

The other consideration is file storage. Scanning at 4800 DPI and relying on SilverFast's "Find Frames" tool will produce images around 100MB. For my 4788 slides this came out to be almost exactly 500 GB. When you edit in Photoshop you immediately create a duplicate, plus potentially multiple duplicates if you copy layers. The original 100MB TIFF file can end up being a 500MB PSD file. For tens of thousands of slides you will immediately have a file storage/archive issue. You'll want at least one backup, too, so plan on the cost of storage. You'll also need to figure out how to make sure you have backed them up. On my Mac I use arRsync (http://sourceforge.net/projects/arrsync/) for copying and Compare Folders (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/compare-folders/id816042486?mt=12) to make sure I have everything copied.

I have to question the logic of scanning that many slides. Who is ever going to see them? If this is for archival purposes, then there should be some amount of forethought as to file format and hard drive format. What is available today may not be available X number of years down the road. Let's say you have 20,000 TIFF files on NTFS formatted USB 3.0 hard drives. When someone opens up the time capsule 20 years later will the drives turn on? Will the data be intact? Will NTFS or USB 3.0 be in use anymore? This may be beyond the scope of your project, but I think there is some responsibility to alert a client to the realities of having that many photos in a collection.

If you are shooting for the ultimate in image quality you would scan in 48 or 64 bit HDR mode. This would allow you the most flexibility in post by saving as much information about the image as possible. It would also further increase the amount of time and storage space, and reduce the compatibility of the file format (only some editing software can open DNG files). I chose TIFF as a trade-off. I don't have all that lovely RAW data, but I have lossless, high image quality and acceptable file size.


Regarding your specific questions:
With regards to sharpening... It almost seems better to do this in Photoshop after the initial scan capture so that I can sharpen as needed and selectively if required. Would you agree?
I would agree that selective sharpening after-the-fact is preferable, but to apply it to each and every image multiplies the amount of work and time. I used a general light amount of sharpening in SilverFast (Power 300, Radius 1.2, Threshold 0). I recommend doing this and save detailed sharpening for selects.

With regards to clipping the white/black points and any tonal corrections using the histogram... I could accomplish the same thing in Photoshop after the scan is made, correct?
Yes and no. You obviously can make these adjustments in post, but you are working within the restraints of the file format. A tiff may have less level information to adjust than a DNG. This applies strongly to color and other settings.

It seems slow and problematic to try to apply iSRD dust/scratch removal in batch because it often leaves artifacts or corrects things that aren't dust/scratches, and because each slide needs a different amount of iSRD and 1:1 previews of all slides takes way too long. I assume I'd probably leave iSRD off and just touch up in photoshop afterwards if necessary, correct?
I didn't use and scratch removal during my scanning. It physically doubles the number of passes the scanner has to make, turning the 18 minute scanning process for 12 slides into 36 minutes. And then, like you said, the results were varied. For the best results you'd have to adjust the SRD settings for each slide, which is an extremely time consuming process. I suggest performing manual healing and cloning in Photoshop on selects.



I wrote more than I anticipated, but I hope it was helpful. Feel free to ask me more questions if you'd like.

Mark O.