Roll Call - Those using Lightroom to manage scanned photos

[NJHeart2Heart]

Hi all,
Visiting again after a long hiatus from Lightroom centric activities.

This is not so much a call for help as it is a call for those sharing the same types of challenges due to the less standardized process of scanning physical photos.

I'm back at my long term family history photo scanning journey. I recently scanned about 500 photos from a family member, and after scanning them into my now "standard" photo filenaming convention, realized I still have several groups of photos that are a mess

I'd just like to take a quick count of who is currently or recently done a large historical scanning job, with it's related file naming / dating issues. Thought it would be nice to start a thread for those who are focusing on this specific type of work.

It seems that @PhilBurton was the most recent poster regarding photo scanning, but I know there have been others over time. I'm no expert, but I'd be happy to share my journey thus far and tidbits that have helped me smooth out my process (which someone else might find helpful).

How are we all doing with our respective projects? Care to share your current workflow?
Any questions we can brainstorm on together?

Looking forward to chatting with fellow scanner - Lightroom users.

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I was skeptical since I have a Super Coolscan 5000ED where Digital ICE doesn't work on Kodachrome or silver B&W, but the Wikipedia entry on Digital ICE says that the 9000ED does have a newer version of Digital ICE that can clean up Kodachrome (see the section "Further Development"). And that SilverFast and Fuji have versions of that technology. Another website shows examples of the 9000ED with Kodachrome.

I did my homework

At the moment I'm wrestling with severe color shifts on scans of 30-year-old color negatives. After I have VueScan do initial negative inversion, fade correction, color restoration, and dust/scratch removal, in Lightroom I also have to add a Blue curve midpoint shift that finally gets the color to neutral. For these negatives anyway, the curve adjustment worked better than adjusting white balance, HSL, or camera calibration.

I have not tried myself but Peter Krogh adviced to use color compensation (CC) filters: link. Perhaps worth trying?

 

[davidedric]

I have the 5000ED, and I thought I was cornered when I went to 64-bit Windows because Nikon never produced the drivers. Fortunately, Vuescan scan works just fine. Just in case anyone has the same issue.

Dave

 

[Klaas]

I'm too in the business of scanning old photographs (paper, negatives, Kodachrome, Agfachrome and others). I got a Nikon Coolscan V ED and it works fine. Software: Nikon Scan 4.03 Vista for Kodachrome und Vuescan for all the other brands. My PC runs with MS Windows 10 Home 64 bit.

With Nikon Scan I choose Kodachrome, but the scans show too much blue, I'm afraid. So I changed the gradadation of blue a bit and now I'm very satisfied with the results.

Vuescan was calibrated for Ektachrome. The colors are sufficient for Agfachrome too. For calibration I used a IT8.7-Target from Wolf Faust. But as already mentioned, very old pictures (Agfachrome) show very often very little color. Vuescan does for theese pictures a great job. Vuescan brings colors back, which I can't see on the original.

Klaas

 

[Anthony.Ralph]

+1 for the IT8.7-Target from Wolf Faust

Anthony.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

Hi Rob 211,
Thanks for mentioning your name tag process, though I'm curious how you use keywords to indicate relative completion of name tags on a photo.
For me, the color labels are easiest to apply on the fly while I'm reviewing. I apply my names, than a quick press of 6-8 and on to the next photo. I think with keywords, I'm afraid I'd forget to remove one keyword once a photo moves to another stage of completion. Although, as mentioned when I finish the naming process I do add a keyword to all photos which have complete (or at least as complete as needed) name tags.

 

[Klaas]

... about what system of organization ... ie:
1- How do you name your files,

I don't change the file names used by the camera, I can't see any reason for it. For scanned pictures I name them with 001, 002 and so on.

2 - Where do you store them (what folder system do you use),

I created some general folders like abstract, events, persons, locations and so on. Within these folders are subfolders. For instance within events I use folders for each journey. My name convention YYYY-MM Location (1998-07 London).

Best regards
Klaas

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I created some general folders like abstract, events, persons, locations and so on.

And what do you do with a photo of a certain person on a certain event on a certain location? Duplicate it and put it in all associated folders?
I would use collections or (hierachical) Keywords for this and just let Lightroom place the image files on the standard date based location.

 

[Klaas]

And what do you do with a photo of a certain person on a certain event on a certain location? Duplicate it and put it in all associated folders?

You should have priorities And naturly no duplicates. The reason: You haven't always Lightroom available, for instance streaming from a NAS (network attached storage device) to a beamer. In that case you only can follow the folder structure.

I would use collections or (hierachical) Keywords for this and just let Lightroom place the image files on the standard date based location.

Keyword are set additionally, so that I can find a person whereever the picture is.

Best regards
Klaas

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Peter Krogh's new book on the subject is available now. I received a review copy this afternoon, and from a quick glance, it looks as comprehensive as I'd expect from Peter.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[CloudedGenie]

I bought a copy of Peter's book, and did a quick read-through. It will require another, more detailed read...

I have a question regarding the recording of custom metadata. Most of my own negatives were color film that I sent out to be scanned. I can update the EXIF info with the camera and ISO information, but I'd like to also record the film type and perhaps how the scan was generated, in case I want to re-scan some of them... I would also like to record the film processing date - I know the all photos on that film were taken before that date.

Is there a plugin that creates and exposes these fields and can perhaps sort on these custom fields, or is that something that would be a totally custom development?

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

Most of my own negatives were color film that I sent out to be scanned. I can update the EXIF info with the camera and ISO information, but I'd like to also record the film type and perhaps how the scan was generated, in case I want to re-scan some of them... I would also like to record the film processing date - I know the all photos on that film were taken before that date.

In his book Peter describes he's putting this kind of information in hierachical Keywords (Chapter 12).
For personal notes (how the scan was generated i.g.) you could use the 'Big note' plugin from John Beardsworth

 

[johnbeardy]

My Capture Time to EXIF is designed as an easy way to add dates and other EXIF to scanned images.

 

[CloudedGenie]

@johnbeardy, I've been using your plugin to change the capture date and time for the photos where I have that information (such as our wedding photos), or the camera make and model for my two Pentax bodies.

What I'm struggling with, is finding the best way to record e.g. Film type. I know Peter Krogh suggests a keyword, but I feel it should be treated like the other EXIF info. Similarly, if I could capture the frame number in a field, I could use that for sorting (I'll often have a good handle on the dates for two or three photos on an entire roll of film).

This is even harder now that my mom sent me a box with all our family photo slides (loose, unsorted ), some from about 2 years before I was born... I have at least sorted these into separate films (based on the processed date stamped on it) and then ordered it by the exposure number...

I discovered an AnalogEXIF extension of the XMP schema -- this is not supported by ExifTool or Lightroom, and I could only find applications that run on Android. Would it be possible to build something similar for Lightroom and expose these fields for smart collections, or is is this too much work for the expected amount of gain?

 

[Anjikun]

I am planning to digitize a bunch of old photos but haven't started. I have to admit I did not even realize I could photograph them instead of scanning them. I have scanned a few things and find it very slow, although I don't know maybe I set the resolution too high. People on here using scanners, how do you know what to set the scan specifications to?

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I am planning to digitize a bunch of old photos but haven't started. I have to admit I did not even realize I could photograph them instead of scanning them. I have scanned a few things and find it very slow,

You can accomplish very good results with 'camera scanning'. There is a new book about the subject from Peter Krogh 'Digitizing Your Photos with Your Camera and Lightroom', i liked it very much. Lot's of tips and practical advice. I wrote a (dutch) review on this book yesterday.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

@Roelof Moorlag - is there anything really new in there in doing color correction of (raw) negatives with Lightroom? Tried to make it through a Google translate of your review, and it sounded like it was more of the same - try inverting, and if not use Silverfast or Photoshop (or etc)?

I'm still trying to find a good lightroom-only workflow so as not to have to create TIFF's of everything, without much success.

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I'm not sure what your workflow is in Lightroom to 'flip' negatives to positives but Peter is focusing on getting the most efficient workflow. His goal is to scan the negatives with as good as quality possible with high volume and little time. He admits that a better quality sometimes is needed and that you can use Silverfast than. In that case your workflow is a lot less efficiënt indeed.
I don't think the Lightroom techniques he discribes are very 'special' but i found it helpfull to see him at work in the video's, making presets for the different brand and types film you used.
The only thing i didn't know before reading the book was that the facerecognition of Lightroom does not work on photographed negatives (even when 'flipped' to positives). For some that alone could be a reason for 'routing' via Silverfast i think.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

Thanks. To me facial recognition doesn't work period, so no great loss. What I've been doing lately (well, besides "putting it off" which is most of what I have been doing) is taking an image with a camera, trying to invert it and get decent color in lightroom. If not, take it to photoshop and invert there and output a JPG which I touch up in Lightroom. The theory is that 99% of the images are never going to be used for anything and the JPG is good enough; if I need one I'll re-invert to a TIFF in PS and the touchup changes in Lightroom will still be applicable, just copy over to the JPG.

The JPG's are 1/10th the size of the TIFF's, and while size is not all that relevant with cheap disks, I have a ton of old negatives.

 

[johnbeardy]

@johnbeardy, Would it be possible to build something similar for Lightroom and expose these fields for smart collections, or is is this too much work for the expected amount of gain?

Sorry, I missed this post. Take a look at my BigNote plugin which is unencrypted and intended to allow you to create your own custom fields in LR.

John

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

The theory is that 99% of the images are never going to be used for anything and the JPG is good enough; if I need one I'll re-invert to a TIFF in PS and the touchup changes in Lightroom will still be applicable, just copy over to the JPG.

Yes, one of Peters arguments is to scan for inventory. With that inventory you can much better decide which negative is worth to revisit and scan it with more attention (or let it scan by a specialized service) to get the most out of it.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

I am planning to digitize a bunch of old photos but haven't started. I have to admit I did not even realize I could photograph them instead of scanning them. I have scanned a few things and find it very slow, although I don't know maybe I set the resolution too high. People on here using scanners, how do you know what to set the scan specifications to?

I scan my photos at 900 dpi I think, which is I believe more than enough for even large reprints if desired. It takes about 3 minutes to scan 3-6 photos depending on size. When I do a scanning session I set aside a couple hours at least, since it does take a bit. My process has evolved and I'm pretty happy with the timing.

 

[NJHeart2Heart]

I've been working on a series of articles covering my process for creating digital files from paper prints and adding metadata in Lightroom. These are probably basic for you all here who are well practiced using smart collection workflows, but if you know of anyone that has relatively little experience with LR and who wants to work with heritage photos, these might be helpful.

Legacy Photos and Lightroom - Google Drive

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

I scan my photos at 900 dpi I think, which is I believe more than enough for even large reprints if desired.

Maybe. Depends on how "large" large is.

Assuming 35mm film enlarged to 16x20, this gives a magnification of about 14x and becomes about 64dpi which is likely usable but not ideal.

Bay Photo (just used them so they were handy) recommends 250dpi, which I think is higher than needed at 16x20, but to get that you would have to scan at 3500dpi. A more modest goal of 180dpi requires 2540. All this assumes no crop horizontally to get the 20".

This is one reason I decided to use a camera. With a D800 you get about 5200 dpi equivalent, which for a 16x20 gives 368dpi. A D700 would give 212dpi.

All that said (and no implications of Dawn's images of course) - my old negatives are pretty bad, not just badly preserved but I was an awful photographer with cheap equipment in much of my life. There's nothing much in there which merits an enlargement, much less that kind of resolution. But if your trove of old negatives is more worthwhile, it is worth doing the math.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

If you scan film, I would use the native scanner resolution. If you scan prints, then between 300 - 600 ppi is enough. Anything higher will only produce more pixels, not more detail.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

If you scan film, I would use the native scanner resolution. If you scan prints, then between 300 - 600 ppi is enough. Anything higher will only produce more pixels, not more detail.

I realized that Dawn said "photos" so I may have lept to the wrong conclusion it was negatives (her second post that mentioned paper prints and mine overlapped). Sorry. Though the math is always worth doing if someone is scanning negatives, to see what you are getting. It is also worth noting that some scanners' maximum resolution is really interpolated, i.e. it might scan 800dpi, but then offer 1600 or 2400 as an option by basically upscaling like photoshop would (and thus pointless to do in the scanner as it adds time and size without detail). Check your scanner specs for true resolution (or check online for testing/reviews).