This board is an ADDers nightmare, I keep getting distracted everytime I come here to post a question. :classic:

1. This may be basic, but I could not find the answer in my distracted searches. Were photos ever taken with the sepia or light brown hue? Or are all of the ones I see due to fading? I have asked at antique shops and they do not really know either so I thought someone here must know. I have been scanning each pic twice, once with the sepia just in case, and then in silverfast, pulling the saturation all the way down and working with the shadows and such. It still scans as a 24bit color pic, but without any saturation.

2. I have Silverfast 6 AI, with and Epson 4490 and wanted to know to what extent or how far you all go (if you use software like this) to correct colors, scratches and such before scanning both color photos, and older sepia faded pics, and even some slides.

I feel like I am doing a lot of my corrections in Silverfast (curves, levels, selective color and scratches) before even getting it to Photoshop CS2 and my filters.

I always figured that if I could startd with a good foundation in Photoshop I would be better off. for example, removing a magenta colorcast from poor development at the lab. But I am afraid that I am spending the energy in the wrong software as I try to get the colors and contrast so perfect in silverfast as opposed to waiting and doing that in photoshop.

Any Advice is welcome.

Well, some of those sepia colored prints are the result of fading but some were actually the immediate result of the photographic development process and materials used at the time. Today after restoration of these prints, some and depending on the image subject, some viewers prefer the sepia look, other prefer the black & white look. It's really a matter of taste.

As for prescanning, I have tried a number of techniques and methods. Whether I am using a Flatbed, negative, or slide scanner I do no pre-processing. I take the native scan from the scanner in the highest resolution I need, in the largest A/D bit resolution (12 - 16 bits) and import it directly into Photoshop. No color correction, no curve adjustments, no sharpening, no autolevel, no descreening, no anything. Any post scan adjustments are done in Photoshop plus any other associated plugins and tools in my Photoshop workflow.

If you have the scanner apply some of the destructive adjustments, your only recourse is to re-scan. There are no adjustment layers to delete. Not to mention all the other reasons you may have chosen Photoshop for as your primary image editing tool.

Regards, Murray

1. No photos where taken with a sepia tone, they where taken in black and white, then prints from those black and white negatives where toned in a special sepia process. Last I knew one could still buy sepia toning chemicals. Its kind of a fun process if you do not have to make to many at one time. :grin: So there are two ways to a sepia print, intentional and by ageing.

2. I am not familier with that software so do not have an opinion.

Hope this helps

Mike

[QUOTE=Mike]1. No photos where taken with a sepia tone, they where taken in black and white, then prints from those black and white negatives where toned in a special sepia process. Last I knew one could still buy sepia toning chemicals. Its kind of a fun process if you do not have to make to many at one time. :grin: So there are two ways to a sepia print, intentional and by ageing.

Sepia toning can be bought in most any photo supply stores. It's a two step process, and takes about 10 minutes. You can use any just about any black and white photo, no matter how long ago it was processed. First it's bleached, during which the photo actually turns nearly white. Then it's rinsed and put into the sepia toning. Almost immediately, the picture re-appears and often does so with better shadow detail. This process was done in the past because sepia-toning made the photo archival, and far less prone to fading than the original.

Back during the days of WW2, and maybe WW1, soldiers in the field sometimes used coffee during processing to obtain a sepia effect. Chemicals were not easily obtainable, such as those used in the darkroom.

Edx