Scanning photos on textured paper

[Chipp'n'Dale]

I have a batch of family wedding photos which are printed on a textured paper (a sort of canvas-like texture).
When I scan these, the tiny indentations really bounce the light out and it looks like it's snowing! I have tried scanning at different resolutions, but the problem remains. It's not to bad when zoomed out, but close up it looks dreadful. These photos include images of rellies who I don't have any other pictures of, so it would be great to get a good scan off them.

If a software approach can cure this, I have various programmes, including Photoshop Elements and have used these to remove scratches and creases, but as this "snow" is all over it would take ages to do.

An suggestions would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks

Rob

[Geoffers]

Have you tried a digital camera?

You'd have to be careful with the lighting, but it might help to overcome some of the problems.

[Mutley]

This is probably not what you want to hear but I'll chuck it in your pot as a last, very last, resort.

I recently received a picture of some of my grandchildren with a really awful jungle background, it was so noisy!!!
but each of the children were relaxed and smiling, they were lovely facial shots though all else was terrible.
I went to Hobbycraft and bought a round punch, they sell many sizes. I punched out the heads and placed them together on a plain background and scanned them in. I also scanned them in individually to make a tree picture.

Do only punch out a photocopy though, not the precious originals. :smile5:

[Hugh Thompson]

Mutley!!!!! you're terrible, I'd go with Geoffer's idea and experiment with a hi rez digital camera, shouldn't be too hard, and then you can enhance them with PhotoShop.
Hugh.

[Guy Etchells]

The multi coloured background is producing a type of moiré pattern caused by aliasing.
The scanning software should allow you to prevent this occurring either by using anti- aliasing, or you may have to use the filters to adjust the scans to prevent the aliasing from occurring.

It is the same effect that out brains produce when we see a film of a rotating spoked wheel and it appears to rotate slowly or even backwards.
Cheers
Guy

[David Benson]

Most scanners come with software setting that allow for scanning newspaper or magazine images. As these are composed of dots they cause patterns when scanned. Set the scanner to that setting and give it a try. It usually results in a slightly softer image but it's worth a try.

[CanadianCousin]

I have a batch of family wedding photos which are printed on a textured paper (a sort of canvas-like texture).
When I scan these, the tiny indentations really bounce the light out and it looks like it's snowing! I have tried scanning at different resolutions, but the problem remains. It's not to bad when zoomed out, but close up it looks dreadful. These photos include images of rellies who I don't have any other pictures of, so it would be great to get a good scan off them.

If a software approach can cure this, I have various programmes, including Photoshop Elements and have used these to remove scratches and creases, but as this "snow" is all over it would take ages to do.

An suggestions would be gratefully received.
Rob,

I've also had similar problems scanning textured photographs. In my case, the texture wasn't "canvas-like" - I'd call it 'pebbly' - but I think the issue was the same. My photos were original continuous tone black-and-white prints and were not halftone screened images (i.e., made up of dots for printing in a newspaper or magazine).

I've had very good luck using a program called Neat Image, which is specifically designed for photo noise reduction. It's available as a standalone program for Windows or as a plug-in for Photoshop; the latter is supposedly also compatible with Photoshop Elements (v2 and above), PaintShop Pro (v7 and above), PhotoImpact (v8 and above), IrfanView, and other similar programs.

It's available in several 'editions' (presumably with increasingly functionality) which range in price from US$30 to US$75. Fortunately, there's also a free demo version, which is what I've used to date with quite good success (I'd say 90% improvement with a bit of playing around - the paid versions may give better results). If you're interested, just Google "Neat Image" (with the double quotation marks) which should lead you to their Website as well as to some independent reviews.

One other trick I've read about, but not tried myself, is to scan pictures twice - the second time rotating the image 180 degrees - and then use a photo editing program to merge them (I guess by overlaying them with 50% transparency, although I'm not sure about this). The rationale is that the highlights and shadows produced by scanning in one direction should be reversed when scanning in the opposite direction. I can't say if this works, but it might be worth a try.

Good luck -

Tim

[Mutley]

Mutley!!!!! you're terrible, I'd go with Geoffer's idea and experiment with a hi rez digital camera, shouldn't be too hard, and then you can enhance them with PhotoShop.
Hugh.

Well, I did say last resort, if all else fails... :leaving:
However, knowing how good you are at editing and enhancing photographs I doubt you will ever need the last resort. :smile5:

[Hugh Thompson]

Flattery will get you everything Mutley, (except....any of my family photos:no::no:), I do have one that is a photo taken years ago of my maternal grandparent's wedding photo from 1900, and it's my most treasured one as it has 40 family members in it, it took a bit of work with PhotoShop and a lot of research to put a name to everyone and it's the only image I will ever have of most of the people in it, so I'm very chuffed to have it.
Hugh.

[Mutley]

Flattery will get you everything Mutley, (except....any of my family photos:no::no:), I do have one that is a photo taken years ago of my maternal grandparent's wedding photo from 1900, and it's my most treasured one as it has 40 family members in it, it took a bit of work with PhotoShop and a lot of research to put a name to everyone and it's the only image I will ever have of most of the people in it, so I'm very chuffed to have it.
Hugh.

and so you should be...

I wish I had one
but back then, had 40 of my family gathered together in one place, the Met would have been out in force, many would have gone missing and a very different type of photograph would have been taken of them. :lol:

[Chipp'n'Dale]

Sorry not to have replied sooner - some family (non-tree) stuff to sort out!

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I will work through them and report back.
So far, I have tried the "two rotated scans overlaid" tip from Tim. This has worked reasonably well - about 85% better.
Will keep trying and let you know.

Thanks All.

[paranamio]

As you initially noted, the texture reflects light from the scanner and this is due to the way scanners work. As the light passes the photo's surface it reflects off each tiny dot - a specular highlight (like a mirror). There are at least three ways to correct this - two with the scanner, one with a camera.

As one poster noted above, you can perform two scans rotated 180 degrees to one another, then combine them using Photoshop or something similar applying the Scripts > Statistics > Mean. This effectively removes what is not common to both photos. Helps for creases and deep scratches too.

Next is to use the Descreen function found somewhere in your scanning software (Vuescan has this on an Advanced options page on the Filter tab). This can get tricky unless you know the characteristics of the texture - screen angle and screen frequency - how many dots / lines per inch and the angle relative to one edge. 45 degrees and 75 lines is pretty common. Try to get the photo as square as possible on the scanner. Descreen only works with textures that have a regular pattern, not rough finishes, that's when you use option one. Works pretty well.

Third is the most fiddly, and uses a camera, two lights sources, and polarizing filters - known as the crossed polarizers technique. Identical light sources are placed on either side of the image and each is covered by a polarizing filter (usually a plastic sheet) oriented the same way, i.e., they pass light when one is laid over the other. Polarized light illuminates now the image. The camera is positioned directly over the image and it too has a polarizing filter on the front, but this one is oriented 90 degrees to the lights' - it looks black when pointed at the lights. This trick blocks polarized light reflections that are rotated by the surface finish - removing the dots - more-or-less. This technique also works for rough textures and silvering or mirroring on really old photos.

Last, and this is for advanced users, you can use an FFT (Fast-Fourier Transform - fancy arithmetic) to reduce / remove the dots / lines. One plugin that's available only works in 32-bit Photoshop, on 8-bit, RGB images. So if you have anything else you need to convert it to those specs first. Even B&W images - just convert them to RGB before stating the FFT.
the link 32-bit PS only: 3d4x.ch/Swift's-Reality/FFT-Photoshop-plugin-by-Alex-Chirokov/16,35[/
and another one for 64-bit PS: rognemedia.no/

Cheers

[Lesley Robertson]

Welcome to the British Genealogy Forum. Did you notice that you have joined an extremely old thread?
Our TOC does not allow the posting of active threads or emails, so I have edited the urls to your blog at the end of the message.