Spotting high resolution images? Best practise?

[l2oBiN]

What is your technique for spotting dust of high resolution (3200ppi) scanned transparencies.


The vuescan IR clean, while it does a good job of recognising dust to be spotted, does a bad job at actually spotting them (gives artefacts). I was wondering whether the IR channel data, i.e. the recognition of particles, could be used just to sort of give you a map of where the particles are, then you could just go directly to the mapped particles without having to wonder around each and every bit of the scan, looking for dust... perhaps there is some sort of software available to do this?

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Digital ICE natively implemented in a CCD scanner and integrated with the manufacturer's software plug-in has worked better for me than Vuescan's-- at least on the Minolta and Epson scanners I've used that have ICE.

But you'll still want to spot scans and clean up artifacts even with ICE. The easiest/best/fastest way I know of this is a Wacom tablet and stylus using the cloning tool in Photoshop roving around at 100% image size, often zooming in a lot closer for the repairs. I've set up the tablets buttons so that it's almost become intuitive. (I would never want to go back to using a mouse for this). Cloning out dust is probably the most hands-on time-consuming part of CCD scanning dry. (Still beats the heck out of Edwal Scratch Remover in the darkroom, though!)

[John Rodriguez]

Spot healing brush, set to content-aware mode. Soooo much better then the clone tool.

[vinny]

Healing brush @ 100% view. Scroll down and across one page at a time. No need to go closer than 100%

[Preston]

You didn't mention which version of PS you're using. In some older versions the spot healing brush uses 'proximity match'. Newer versions have 'content aware'. The spot healing brush is much easier to use than the clone tool, although I have used both to remove dust bunnies.

I also 'view actual pixels' (100%) and do as Vinny suggests. By cleaning one page at a time, I make sure I get all the little buggers.

One thing I'll note: If you are making prints, run a proof and look for spots. Sometimes sharpening will make little bits show up, so you'll need to spot them out before making a final print

--P.

[Frank Petronio]

The best practice is to start at one corner of the image zoomed to 100% magnification. Spot everything you find objectionable and then, using the scroll bars, click once inside the scroll bar itself (but not on the darker indicator) and your image will move to the next tile or rectangle. Inspect and clean, repeat until done.

Then inspect it one more time looking for things you may have missed on the margins between tiles.

There is no point in zooming closer unless you get to a critical fine section.

At some points - along edges - you may find the healing brush will not produce the desired results and you must use the clone tool.

Music helps.

Remember to save occasionally in case of computer or power issues.

[Richard M. Coda]

Two layers... one set for darken, one set for lighten, darken on top.

Clone tool at 100-200%

Clone the white spots on the darken layer, clone the dark spots on the lighten layer...

For a QUICK fix on darker images I make a duplicate layer, convert it to a Smart Object, and run the Dust and scratches filter on it. Because it is a smart object you can adjust the settings of the filter. Set the smart object layer to darken... gets rid of most of the white spots on a dark image. You can do this several times at different settings. From there you can mask and adjust each layer locally.

[Darin Boville]

Music helps.


No kidding there. Frank's way is the way I do it. The only two minor details I'll add is to beware that sometime dust or whatever near or at the edge of the page gets missed. Sometimes it helps to use the space/hand tool to move the image up/down/left/right to see.

The second thing is to clean your screen. I don't know how many times I've spotted the dust on my glass!

--Darin

[adam satushek]

Yeah I agree, music/podcast, 100% magnification (sometime 200% if its a tricky spot), healing brush and clone stamp when necessary, work my way from upper left to lower right.
I also find that a throwing a gnarly curve layer on top can really make subtle dust spots pop in continuous tone areas like skies making them easier to spot. A few glasses of wine or a nice Belgian beer certainly helps as well.

[chacabuco]

Make a duplicate layer and apply a dust and scratches filter that takes care of most of the dust. Then take a snapshot in your history pallet. Undo the dust and scratches filter in your history and paint out the dust with your history brush set to darken mode. This works really well in conjunction with the clone tool for really detailed areas.

[Ben Syverson]

Always sharpen before you spot... It makes the dust much more visible. I know many people will disagree, but if you don't sharpen before you spot, you'll wind up spotting twice.