[sjm]

How do I remove or disguise the blackish metallic "glow" that appears on some dark areas of old B/W photos? They almost appear to be blue.

Should I scan in B/W instead of RGB?

[Doug Nelson]

Example please?

Perhaps you're speaking of the iridescent tarnish that sometimes affects the silver (ie: dark areas have the most silver)?

[DJ Dubovsky]

I know exactly what she's talking about Doug and I think your explanation is probably correct. It does take on a bluish hazey look. I don't know how exactly to get rid of it and so far all I had was areas that were small spots easily cloned out. If you have a vast area to clean up cloning won't work. So I am eager too to find a cure for this desease.
DJ

[sjm]

I still can't get my images to upload here so this is the link to my photopoint album.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?...878&p=55580751

[Ed_L]

This is strictly a guess on my part. Would a color range selection work for making local adjustments to the affected areas? Maybe you could make a selection based on color range, save it as an alpha channel, duplicate that channel, gaussian blur a little, then load it as a selection to make corrections on. I don't know if it would work, but that would be my first attempt. I'm not on the same field as others here, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

Ed

[thomasgeorge]

Sounds like a form of deterioration known a mirroring, caused by oxidative-reductive deterioration of the silver. It is usually the most pronounced in dark areas and can be most clearly seen by varying the viewing angle. One way to reduce it is to scan in the photo in color mode and examine each channel in RGB, duplicate the best channel and do the same for CMYK mode and duplicate the L channel in LAB mode, then combine the seperate images into one and finish by using burn/dodge tools and clone tool, etc.. Thats a toughie to correct though. I've used the above technique to clean up a few photos showing mirroring, but the results range from great to dismal. Hope this helps you some, though. Good luck, Tom

[kathleen]

there has been an EXHAUSTIVE thread on the adobe photoshop forum for several weeks concerning a restoration with the same problem. not sure if you have to be registered for the link to work, here it is ; if it doesn't work, the name of the thread is mold and mildew stains and the author is Linda K.

here is the link to the site where she has posted her work. she really has done a nice job, think it took significant time.

i have several photos with this problem and think i posted some of them over in the archives, if you get a hankering to do more.

i know i tried using magic wand and color range selection on the blue, and adjusting with selective color with some improvement but no cigar. tom's suggestion sounds promising.

[thomasgeorge]

Went back in my files and found a good example of mirroring. See attachment. Interesting link, Kathleen. It logged me in as you! Is that what they call Identity theft? Tom

[DJ Dubovsky]

Sjm
Yup, that's what I thought you were refering to. Nasty stuff hey? Looks like you might just have to try out a few experiments with what the guys mentioned and from some insite you get off Kathleen's link. If you discover the magic method of fixing this don't forget to let us all know.

Kathleen
Your link worked fine and I notice it says I was logged in as Kathleen Crimm. I haven't read it yet but I plan to look it over and the same with the other link. Some how she managed to clean it up quite well in her example. Thanks for the links, they may be a great help.

Tom
What did you do to fix your example? You said the technique you suggested can produce a range of results and this on looks pretty bad to begin with.
DJ

[Ed_L]

I just had another thought on this (very bad news!). If it seems to be too time consuming, there might be another thing to try. This is only a thought, but if you could get two pieces of clear glass (no bubbles) a little larger than the photo, you could sandwich the two pieces together with a little petroleum jelly smeared between the two pieces. Put the glass sandwich on the scanner, then put the photo on top of that. Scan the image. Here's my thinking, which may not be very good: The deterioration causes more light to be reflected from the silver, therefore making the photo to appear as it does. By using the pet. jelly between the glass, this might cause the scanner light to become more diffused, or scatter on the image, therefore bringing the overall tone of the scan closer to what you want. It would give a softer scan, and the contrast would probably be less. What do you think Tom, Doug, anyone? Is it worth a shot, or am I completely off base? Also I don't know if there would be a depth of field problem. This might be pretty bizzare thinking, but what the heck - so was the pet rock!

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Hey, they laughed at Galaleo and Columbus. It's worth a try and maybe you could use it as a top layer over the original scan and only cover the bad areas via a layer mask. You may have solved a big problem. Who knows.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

Dj, Wish I had a quick and concise answer but no such luck! What happens is that the silver in the image oxidizes to silver ions which in turn begin migrating from the original site of the base particle and turn into elemental silver (metallic) ion state and it again reacts to light and darkens, only not in its original location--sort of "bleeding" over as it were. Masking the original image and blurring,replacing,dodging the "bleed" area can help, but so far, no quick fix! The problem, then, is actually too much image data and in the wrong place. Perhaps someone reading this will get an idea on how to remedy this. I, not having many wits to begin with, am at the end of what I still have!! Ed's suggestion would be worth a try, at least it might cutdown on the gloss! The example I posted also shows a loss of data(the "bleaching" on the suit and at the bottom which was the baryta layer of the paper showing thru) due to storage method(trunk in old unheated and damp barn) which will eventually consume the entire photo. As I understand it, there is ,as of yet, no way to really halt this type of deterioration, slow it down, but not arrest it. I used the aforementioned method to attempt a restore but it was a pretty grim result. Just aquired a new color correction plug in and am going to try it out on this photo. Perhaps with some success for a change! Tom

[sjm]

It appears that I'm way over my head with this fix! I'm still at the coloring book level compared to the pros here.

I'll try the suggestions and report back with results.....good or bad!

Thanks again!

[Doug Nelson]

Kathleen:

I've seen it more than once that someone will post their own personal link to one of those photo album sites, which includes their personal ID. So when someone follows that link, the site thinks its you. You might want to edit that post to show a visitor link rather than your 'owner' link.

Everyone else:

Good thread. Back in the pre-digital days one way to lessen the effect of silver 'mirroring' was to use omni-directional lighting or even polarized lighting with a filter over the lens as well. The idea is the 'mirroring' effect is caused by light reflecting at differing angles of incidence, giving the effect. Limit the light available and/or the angle of that light, and there's less light reflecting at different angles.

Now how that could be replicated on a scanner I have no idea. But I suspect you'd see differing amounts of mirroring if you turned the image at different angles to the scan bar.

[kathleen]

please don't take my cookies away.