Scanning 50 year old photography with textured finish for A1 enlargement?

[DaisyDukes]

Hello there everyone,

It's nice to be here among all your techno savvy peeps!

I have a dilemma that I would be insanely grateful for some help with if somebody has the time and experience to push me in the right direction...

For the past week I have tried to scan in some wedding photographs from my parents wedding and am basically getting nowhere extremely quickly..lol. It's their anniversary on the 23rd Feb - which is the reason for the urgency.

The major problem is that the photographs have a shiny grain effect on them and when I scan them in the scanned image has a large smattering of tiny white dots that totally spoil the image. I have to scan at 1200dpi as I want these photographs blown up into A1 images so need as much detail as possible.

Time is running out for me and I am pretty much getting desperate to find a way to solve this...please please please does anyone have any ideas how to get the scanner to stop picking up the reflected light from the grain on the photos?

Many many thanks if anyone could help.

Daisy

 

[Benco]

AFAIK there's no way of preventing that when scanning reflective surfaces. Your best bet could be to take the photos to someone who specialises in poster or giclee printing, they'll have the kit to capture and reproduce your photos.

 

[DaisyDukes]

:cry::cry: Oh no...Benco...that's what I feared.

I am unfortunately not in a position to afford paying for a service like that. Pretty much on the worst side of skint at the mo.

It's hard to believe that with all the technology we have these days that there isn't a solution to this dilemma... :-(

Thank you so much for your reply anyway Benco..it's very much appreciated.

Daisy x

 

[Benco]

Something else you could try is to photograph the photos yourself. As long as you have (or can borrow) a decent camera and tripod this is doable. Mount the photographs vertically in the best, flattest light you can, use 50mm focal length and position your camera so that the photo fills the frame, use manual setting and set ISO as low as possible, aperture a couple of stops above wide open, the shutterspeed will probably need to be slow so use the self timer or remote to take the picture. Shoot in RAW if possible (or set camera to highest possible JPG quality an use a nuetral coloured piece of card or paper to set the white balance).
Unfortunately unless you have a very good, high resolution camera it's unlikely that this will give you an image good enough for a high quality A1 print, depends how good you need it to be though, the resolution could be interpolated up to do A1 as long as it doesn't need to be uber-sharp.

 

[DaisyDukes]

:shock: Sinking...due to the being COMPLETELY out of my depth...! lol

I don't have a super duper camera unfortunately Benco and I doubt the one I've got would be up to the job. But...I will have a go regardless as I am willing to try anything really!

Really and truly - thank you for taking the time out to reply - I really appreciate it.

Thanks Benco.

Daisy x

 

[Benco]

No worries, If you have a friend who's a keen photographer they could help you out.