silver scanning question

[Blues_X]

I was helping my grandmother recently with her new scanner. She had a photo of her brother in which the silver was coming up through the surface of portions of the image. When we scanned it, these areas looked terrible (I don't have a copy of the image to post).

Is there any technique to scanning images like this? I know that for textured images, you can perform two scans (one like normal, the other with the pic rotated 180 degrees) and combine the two images to remove most of the texture shadow. But I don't know what would work for this, since it's a problem with a reflective material.

Thanks,
Lance

[Doug Nelson]

For photos on an actual mirror, you might want to go the copystand/camera route. However, I had one that looked like a mirror, but actually was semi-transparent, so I scanned it like a slide with excellent results.

[Blues_X]

This photo wasn't on a mirror, or transparent. The silver in the photo emulsion was coming up to the surface.

A good camera on a stand, without a flash, might be the best route. I bet I could place it at just a very slight angle to minimize the reflection if I have to.

After the scan, the silver portions of the image came out an ugly purple tone, so it had purple specks all over some parts of the photo. And my grandmother just has the photo software that came with the scanner, so I didn't have access to Photoshop at the time.

[Jakaleena]

Hi Blues

There's been some discussion of this in the forums previously. If you do a forum search for "silvering" you should come up with some good information.

[Blues_X]

Thanks Jakaleena! My brain wasn't firing on all cylinders last week, or I would have thought of that myself.

I had at least browsed through the forums looking for a thread that sounded similar, so I wasn't totally lazy

From what I've read so far, it looks like the only way to help with the silvering in the pre-process stage is by using a camera instead of a scanner to capture the image.

[Chris W.]

Hi Lance,

You might check the restoration challenge #17 and see how Cheri Karafa handled the silver...I tried it and it really worked pretty well.

Good luck!