5 How long does scanning and correcting an image take?

Transcription

1 1 Scanning Slides and Negatives on the Plustek OpticFilm General Workflow 5 How long does scanning and correcting an image take? 6 Photoshop Instructions for Adjusting Scanned Images 9 Additional Resources

2 2 General Workflow 1. Make sure the scanner is turned on the green light on the front indicates that power is on. 2. Check the scanner properties. In the Windows system tray, right-click the QuickScan Icon and select Properties. a. If you are scanning slides, the Scan source should be Transparency. For negatives, change the scan source to Negative Film. b. The Purpose option decides which program the finished scan will be sent to for editing. Choose Adobe Photoshop. c. File Format should be *.TIF. d. You can choose a Destination folder for your finished scans. The default is the desktop. e. Set a File name prefix for your scans. f. In Scanning Attributes, your Mode should be 24-bit Color and Resolution Leave everything else at the default. 3. Once your settings are properly set, click the Close button.

3 3 4. Before inserting a slide or negative into the holder, clean both sides with dry compressed air. Do not blow on the film your own breath has too much moisture. 5. Insert the slides or negatives into the appropriate holder. 6. Insert the holder into the scanner through the slot. It will click into proper place for scanning.

4 4 7. To start a scan, press the QuickScan button on the scanner. 8. Scanning time is approximately one minute and 20 seconds per slide. Once the scan is complete, the image will open in Photoshop. 9. If necessary, rotate and crop the scan. 10. Auto-correct the scan for tone, contrast, and color. 11. Look over the scan for scratches, dust spots, and other blemishes. If you notice any, use the Spot Healing Brush Tool or the Healing Brush Tool to fix them (further instructions for this step on pages 7 and 8). 12. Once the image is corrected to your satisfaction, make sure to save your changes (File Save to save the original, archival TIF scan). 13. Create an archival copy. a. Go to Image Image Size. b. Change the document size to approximately 6x4 (or 4x6, if portrait format). c. Go to File Save for Web and Devices. Choose JPEG as the file type, and select your preferred quality (High or Very High should be sufficient). Click Save, and choose your save location.

5 5 How long does scanning and correcting an image take? The total amount of time you will need to spend on each image is variable, depending on the quality of the slide as well as your experience with the software and the scanning process. Here is a bit of a breakdown. Scanning at the recommended resolution (3600) should take up to 1 minute and 30 seconds for each image. The auto-correct tools for tone, contrast, and color should be sufficient correction for most images, and take less than a minute to use. Editing the image may take only a minute or less, if the scan is in very good condition. However, healing blemishes can take several minutes, or longer if the scan is very old. Saving the JPEG access copy should take less than a minute once you learn the process. So, a fair approximation of time needed for each slide is between 3 8 minutes per image, using our particular scanner. Here is another article s take on the approximate amount of time needed to scan and correct an image:

6 6 Photoshop Instructions for Adjusting Scanned Images Rotating or flipping an image If you load your film correctly into the film holders, you should have no need to rotate or flip the resulting scan. If you do need to, however, here s how. Go to Edit Transform, and choose the appropriate option. o If you click Rotate, you can move your mouse anywhere outside of the image, and your cursor will change to this image. Click and drag to rotate the image as you like. o If you want to rotate by multiples of 90 or 180, choose Rotate 180, Rotate 90 CW (clockwise), or Rotate 90 CCW (counter-clockwise). o Or, you can choose to flip your image over either the horizontal or vertical axis, using Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical. Note If the Transform tools are greyed out, or you get an error message that the layer is locked, go the Layers window, right-click on the thumbnail of the image, and select Layer from Background. (If you cannot see the Layers window, go to Window and make sure Layers is selected.)

7 7 Crop an image To crop an image, select the crop tool from the toolbar. (If you cannot see the toolbar, go to Window and select Tools. ) Click and drag to select the area you want to crop. Anything outside of what you selected will be greyed out. You can use the boxes on the border of the selected area to adjust the crop size. Once you are satisfied, right-click in the selected image and select Crop. Using the Spot Healing Brush Tool The spot healing brush tool is useful for easily fixing small blemishes. Select the tool from the tool bar, adjust the size of the brush if necessary, set the Mode to Normal, and click on the blemish you need to get rid of. The tool will automatically try to fix the blemish. This tool works best on small blemishes in areas of the image where the colors and contrast more or less are uniform. before correction after correction

8 8 Using the Healing Brush Tool There are some blemishes, such as long scratches, or spots near patterned areas of the image, where the Spot Healing Brush Tool does not work very well. In these areas, you can try to correct the blemish using the Healing Brush Tool. Select it from the toolbar, and zoom in on the place you want to correct. This brush works by repairing the blemished area of the image with pixels from another area of the image, specified by the user. Choose an area, preferably close to the blemish, that more or less matches what the image beneath the damaged portion is supposed to look like. Alt-Click on that section to choose it as your source location. Then, click on the blemish to repair the damage. The Healing Brush Tool is a tricky one, and may take some practice to get used to and learn to use efficiently. before correction after correction with Spot Healing Brush after correction with Healing brush Oops! I goofed up If you make changes to your image that you are not satisfied with, you can use Edit Step Backwards to undo the changes. You can also use your History window to see a list of all the changes you ve made to your image, and undo/redo steps from there. (If you cannot see the History window, go to Window and select History. )

9 9 Additional Resources ScanCafe Doing scanning yourself Plustek User s Guide Start All Programs Plustek OpticFilm 7400 V4.0.1 Document Scanner User s Guide How to use the Plustek OpticFilm Basic image editing using Adobe Photoshop ng_adobe_photoshop.pdf Slide used in examples: EMS Slide DS 666.A3 A #39