03-06-2006, 01:52 PM
I just began a project like your mother wants to do. I bought an Epson 4490 from OD. So far I scanned about 100 pictures and really haven't had to do any color correction - (whether the picture I scanned needed help isn't an issue here) as the scans are as good or better than the prints.
The biggest drawback is DUST. I brush the photos over my arm hair and use canned air to blow off the glass on the scanner but dust is a constant and irritating problem (consider that I'm scanning at 300 dpi and viewing the results full screen on a 37" monitor). ICE, which is included with the scanner doesn't work on reflection copy and using the Photoscop filter for dust and scratches degrades the image unacceptably. My current remedy is to use the Magic Wand to select only the area with dust (usually black/dark areas w/o much detail) and apply the filter to that area only. I use the clone stamp for individual dust motes on other areas
It is a time consuming task.
I'm saving mine as jpegs at maximum quality. This gives me a file size of about 1MB per 4x6 picture vs about 12MB for a TIFF image. I found that resaving (once) after retouching doesn't noticably affect the quality, even on my big monitor. However, with compression set anywhere below that, a resave kills the PQ. I save the scan as TIFF if I want to do retouching in more than a single session
Any suggestions from seasoned scanners highly appreciated.
The biggest drawback is DUST. I brush the photos over my arm hair and use canned air to blow off the glass on the scanner but dust is a constant and irritating problem (consider that I'm scanning at 300 dpi and viewing the results full screen on a 37" monitor). ICE, which is included with the scanner doesn't work on reflection copy and using the Photoscop filter for dust and scratches degrades the image unacceptably. My current remedy is to use the Magic Wand to select only the area with dust (usually black/dark areas w/o much detail) and apply the filter to that area only. I use the clone stamp for individual dust motes on other areas
It is a time consuming task.
I'm saving mine as jpegs at maximum quality. This gives me a file size of about 1MB per 4x6 picture vs about 12MB for a TIFF image. I found that resaving (once) after retouching doesn't noticably affect the quality, even on my big monitor. However, with compression set anywhere below that, a resave kills the PQ. I save the scan as TIFF if I want to do retouching in more than a single session
Any suggestions from seasoned scanners highly appreciated.