Dealing with white spots on scans of prints and negatives

[camner]

Operating System

1. macOS 15 Sequoia

I am beginning to process about 6000 scans of prints and negatives. To varying degrees nearly all of them have small, white spots, undoubtedly coming from dust on the print or negative. Many also have scratches and other imperfections.

Photoshop (beta), Luminar Neo, and On1 (and there are probably others) claim to have AI-assisted dust and scratch removal. Luminar Neo and On1 did a decent job with scratches and other imperfections, but did absolutely nothing with the small white dots (I discovered later that on the ON1 website it specifically states that its dust removal tool is intended to work with camera sensor dust and not with spots coming from photo and negative scans, which explains why it does such a poor job on those!) Photoshop (beta) did the best job of removing the white spots, but even when the scratch removal slider was set to the lowest setting of 1, it also removed a lot of other things that were actually part of the detail of the photo (e.g. flower stems or petals, small "holes" in shots with trees where sun shone through, etc.).

It's clear that the state of the art is well short of the Holy Grail of 1-click removal, but I wonder if anyone has found a tool that isn't too heavy handed, but can serve as a reasonable starting point for additional manual work using the healing spot tool, thus saving one the time of having to do an entire image, that might contain hundreds of these spots, manually one spot at a time.

 

[Califdan]

The best dust spot removal tool is applied before you do the scan.

For prints, slides and negatives, gently wipe them down with a micro fiber cloth. Then use use a squeeze bulb blower or for better results a compressed air can like "dust off" to blow off any remaining dust. Similarly clean your scanning device. If you're using a flat bed scanner, clean the glass every after every two or three scans. Use a bright LED flashlight aimed sideways across the surface of the glass to check for dust. If you're using a camera clean the lens often (both ends).

Scratches are another thing entirely.

 

[Califdan]

One more thing. Don't scan at a higher quality than you need. Most old film based images are not "fine art" quality to begin with and will never be blown up to massive sizes for viewing. So, why have a 60mpx scan of a print that will never be viewed larger than 8" x 10"? All you're doing when scanning at higher resolutions than necessary is getting way more detail than you need in the imperfections.

 

[clee01l]

I've scanned lots of 50+ y.o. Kodak slides. My process starts with a slide that is as dust free as possible, scanned and followed by a trip through Photoshops Neural Filter "Photo Restoration". and finally in Lightroom Classic using the Generative AI Remove tool to pick up anything not handled by Photoshop.

 

[camner]

Thanks both! Cletus, when you run it through Photoshop’s Neural Filter "Photo Restoration," what slider settings seem to work best for you?

 

[clee01l]

Thanks both! Cletus, when you run it through Photoshop’s Neural Filter "Photo Restoration," what slider settings seem to work best for you?

The results are visible. So I move the slider until I get the best results.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[charleskinghorn]

I have been using Retouch4me Dust for my scanned negatives and prints. It is not perfect, but I find it very effective. The Retouch4me apps are aimed at fashion and portrait photographers; but I tested it thoroughly on my black and white scanned negatives before buying it. It is a bit expensive, but they occasionally have sales.

 

[camner]

thanks much for this tip. I will check it out. I have about 6000 scans, and if it would save me time versus manually using the healing tool I might find it worthwhile

 

[camner]

@charleskinghorn

Tried it last evening. Best I’ve seen! (But it’s not perfect…). Much better than ON1, Luminar Neo, or Photoshop (beta) at dust spots on scanned images. Not cheap, but well worth the price for a large project like mine.

Thanks again!

 

[charleskinghorn]

You're welcome. I'm working on scanning and cataloguing at least 1,000 rolls of black and white 35mm and 120 rolls of film, as well as colour slides. From there I will pick and choose the individual photos to work on. That's when Retouch4me Dust will be very useful. But as I said, it's not perfect; it's not very good on the odd stray hair.

 

[PhilBurton]

You're welcome. I'm working on scanning and cataloguing at least 1,000 rolls of black and white 35mm and 120 rolls of film, as well as colour slides. From there I will pick and choose the individual photos to work on. That's when Retouch4me Dust will be very useful. But as I said, it's not perfect; it's not very good on the odd stray hair.

So

I have been using Retouch4me Dust for my scanned negatives and prints. It is not perfect, but I find it very effective. The Retouch4me apps are aimed at fashion and portrait photographers; but I tested it thoroughly on my black and white scanned negatives before buying it. It is a bit expensive, but they occasionally have sales.

So do you use any additional tools to clean up the remaining spots?

How about dust spots on DSLR sensors?

 

[charleskinghorn]

So do you use any additional tools to clean up the remaining spots?

No, just LR and PS spot retouching.

How about dust spots on DSLR sensors?

I'm using Retouch4me Dust for scanned images, not those from a DSLR.

 

[clee01l]

No, just LR and PS spot retouching.


I'm using Retouch4me Dust for scanned images, not those from a DSLR.

Dust spots are the same so the app should work for cameras too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[charleskinghorn]

Dust spots are the same so the app should work for cameras too.

That has never been a concern of mine, so I have never tried it for that. But you would have to have a very dirty sensor to make usng the app worhtwhile. Scanned images, however, can be dusty and require a lot of spot removal. I don't use any dust removal features when I scan negatives. Also, I think Adobe has introduced that feature into its software, making the use of an outside app unnecessary.

 

[clee01l]

That has never been a concern of mine, so I have never tried it for that. But you would have to have a very dirty sensor to make usng the app worhtwhile. Scanned images, however, can be dusty and require a lot of spot removal. I don't use any dust removal features when I scan negatives. Also, I think Adobe has introduced that feature into its software, making the use of an outside app unnecessary.

Adobes Spot removal tool is still manual but generative remove does an outstanding job. Any automated tool would be a better option. To that end Photoshop's Photo Restoration Neural Filter is my "go to" option for removing dust and scratches that my Scanning app doesn't handle.