Can Elements do this??

[Bob Mc]

A close friend of mine was born and grew up in China in the late 20's and 30's.

He has a very large number of photo negatives that he would like to convert to digital and then produce prints. He has a scanner so that part of the process seems to be straight forward - but certainly time consuming.

I'm still learning Photoshop 7 and know nothing about Elements 3

However, there are a couple of general questions about converting them to positive images prior to printing.

1. ? Can Elements 3 handle the conversion from negatives to positives?
I would assume that the negatives have faded over the years (although hopefully protected from light most of that time) and I also assume that Element 3 can handle that type of adjustment.

2. ? Since there is a large number to convert - is there a way to "automate" that process in E3?

I Have not seen a sample of the images so I can't provide one yet for you to see, but I'd appreciate just the general info about possibilities at this point

Many thanks in advance for any ideas you could provide me

Bob Mc

[Richard_Lynch]

1. ? Can Elements 3 handle the conversion from negatives to positives?
I would assume that the negatives have faded over the years (although hopefully protected from light most of that time) and I also assume that Element 3 can handle that type of adjustment.

Yes to both. First, changing a negative to a positive is as easy as inverting the image (Ctrl+I). Second, adjustment for fading, so long as it is linear (i.e., the negs have been stored in darkness, not partially in light), a levels adjustment (as outlined in hidden power http://aps8.com/hppe3.html) will likely take care of most or all of the problem.

2. ? Since there is a large number to convert - is there a way to "automate" that process in E3?

I'd say yes and no. I might also suggest getting an outside service to scan--and/or to review and scan selectively. I have often used the Kodak Photo CD services, and it runs about $2/scan with a resolution that is far better than a home flatbed scanner with a transparency adapter. If your friend has a negative scanner, that is another story. If you are talking about automating the correction process, it can be automated, but I don't recommend it. Individual images have individual exposures, and if the images are worth saving, it will likely be worth the time to correct them on an individual basis. Running a script that does auto-correction may work for some images, and not others, and would lead to images being judged unfairly due to what may have been an error in scanning or in the cold automated procedure making a bad decision not based on the way the image looks. That said, I have batch actions that will auto-correct images that you can download for free from the hidden power website: http://hiddenelements.com/downloads.html

Hope that helps.

[Bob Mc]

That's great information that you provided.

I'll refer your site and book to him.

Since I posted the questions, I've seen a couple of the scanned B & W photos - 2 positive and 1 negative. The negative was easily converted as you suggested and the other 2 came out pretty good without much enhancement.

Apparently there really are hundreds that he would like to salvage, I imagine that he will do the scanning himself since the cost would be prohibitive the other way

Regards,

Bob Mc