Giant frogfish image comments and scanner question

[docrobina]

It's too bad that the contest only will permit horizontal format images. :( Hopefully the photo spot can get "fixed" to permit vertical images too.:o


Here is a giant frogfish from Indonesia. Only photoshop manipulation was to remove a huge amount of dirt and dust from the image after scanning. Anyone know how to "clean" a Nikon 4000 slidescanner. The one I have at work hasn't been used for a while and every slide I scan comes out with loads of dirt specks all over it. I would take it apart if I were given a little guidance, but only if it will still work.

Anyway, I appreciate any comments about my image anyone might give. It is Velvia/ F100 twin 125 Ike strobes.

Thanks for your comments.
Robin

[Clay Coleman]

Very nice shot. On the picky side, you might have gotten a bit closer and moved around the green algae in the lower left corner. It's a nice face, but the eye is not very well defined. A nice rendition of a cool subject, and thanks for sharing. -Clay

[docrobina]

Clay,
Thanks for the comment. On the slide the eye is in sharp focus, and on the large scanned file. Is there any way to improve that in small files like needed to post?
Also any experience cleaning a Nikon Coolscan 4000 of dirt and dust??

Robin

[Clay Coleman]

Hi Robin. I can't think of a good way to bring out the eye in a small file. Maybe try to dodge the eye a bit in PS, but be careful of making the image look "fixed".

Can't help you with cleaning the scanner. Help anybody? -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

I have to say, I have never had any experience cleaning slide scanners. I keep a dust cover over mine when I'm not using it to keep it from getting dusty. Are you SURE the slides aren't dusty to begin with? I always spray my slides with a photo-friendly compressed air can to get the most dust as possible off before I scan.

One thing you could to improve this shot is crop the large scanned file a little then post the re-crop. Also, a little unsharp mask filter will make the details "pop" a little. Just don't overdo it.

I think it's a nice shot. I would like to see the camera a little lower, on the level of the fish, rather than looking down on it so much.

Jonathan

[docrobina]

Thanks for the suggestions and critiques.

It is a full frame scan of the slide, no cropping. Scanned with the unsharp mask on already. Will using "sharpen" filter help???

Also I did nothing to it in Photoshop other than removing the dirt bits.

Since the scanner belongs to my work and now is not used by coworkers much, it has not been cared for much. :(

[Jonathan Bird]

When you resize an image to post on the web, the process of downsizing the file softens it a bit. So if you resize it from the original scan, then use a little unsharp mask (that's the name of the filter) to sharpen it back up a little, it will "pop" better on the monitor.

For a small image for web posting, try sharpening of 80%, radius of 1-1.2 pixels and levels 6.

Jonathan

[solanaboy]

ey J man, even though I am logged in and I try to click on the frogfish picture it always goes back to the log in page:confused:

[Jonathan Bird]

Give it a day, it if still does it, let me know. I'll check out your settings.

[Sealizard]

Doc,

I'm trying to bring up my scanner and am having *technical problems* at the moment. I think it's unplugged, actually. A serious technical difficulty for me! :D

However, I seem to remember that I never used sharpening or unsharpening when I scanned - I mostly did a *pure* scan with the intention of tweaking in Photoshop. So try it with sharpen/unsharpen OFF. Then pull it into PS.

Also, the Coolscan 4000 (which I think you're using) has Digital Ice software that supposedly accounts for and removes dust from your scans. Don't ask me how - its software magic. So make sure Digital ICE is ON.

That leads me full circle to Jonathan's question "are you sure the slide isn't dusty to begin with."

By the way, how can you tell dust from backscatter on a scanned image?

Let us know if you're still struggling with this. I always scanned, then pulled the image into PS, tweaked as needed, followed finally by sharpening as needed.

[docrobina]

Doc,

Also, the Coolscan 4000 (which I think you're using) has Digital Ice software that supposedly accounts for and removes dust from your scans. Don't ask me how - its software magic. So make sure Digital ICE is ON.

That leads me full circle to Jonathan's question "are you sure the slide isn't dusty to begin with."

By the way, how can you tell dust from backscatter on a scanned image?

Let us know if you're still struggling with this. I always scanned, then pulled the image into PS, tweaked as needed, followed finally by sharpening as needed.

Thank you for your suggestions. I know the dirt is in the scanner, as I have a clean slide and other scans all show the dirt. It is not backscatter as it shows up on the image as black bits.

my scanner software offers to scan with "unsharp mask" on or off. I have used it on most often.

[Jonathan Bird]

I don't know about cleaning the scanner, but as for the other questions.

Backscatter is white dots on the image. Dust is black usually.

As for the dust removal on the scanner, most scanners use a method where they locate the dust in the prescan using infrared. IR is blocked by the dust but goes right through the rest of the image, so you get a "map" of the dust that can be used as a mask on the image. Then during the scan, the IR "mask" is used to tell the software where to interpolate out the dust. It works very well and is nearly undetectable. Having used a Polaroid 4000 without this feature for years, I can attest to how much time it saves!

As for unsharp mask (which is actually a process to sharpen, not unsharpen!) you are better off IMHO to do this in PS after the scan so you have control over how much to do so you get it just right without overdoing it. I would leave the unsharp mask OFF on the scanner settings and then do it in Photoshop.

Jonathan

[sorvju-f]

Here is yellow one from Indonesia

http://sorvjuf.1g.fi/kuvat/UW-chat/Yellow+fogfish+p.jpg/full

Jukka