Negative film scanning vs dust and degradation

[dreed]

In post Christmas sales I picked up a film negative scanner and I've put through about a dozen films so far...

The results are a mixed bag. First up, I'm not doing HDR scans... and I only shot Kodak in my youth...

Noise at ISO 400 ... looks like noise today at ISO 3200 or above. How times have changed!

The colour using Silverfast (saving as TIF) is much different to many of the prints. If I save as PSD can I expect better ability to correct with white balance in ACR than with TIFF?

But the big issue I have is white spots. On some shots they're prevalent, on others not so. Sometimes it looks more like the negative has degraded? In some cases the dust spots are not visible on the print.

Should I be pulling out a blower and giving both sides of negative film a blow before scanning it?
Or is the dust now "baked in"?
What's the best way to correct this? (Silverfast's SRD doesn't seem to do much of anything.)

I really don't want to get into photographing prints because that's going to be much more awkward to setup in order to get reliable shots (I'd probably want to build a mounting frame for the picture and/or camera and then there's lighting.)

[TonyW]

Saving as TIFF seems a good option and of course you can open the TIFF as raw via ACR.

White/clear spots on negatives would appear as dark/black spots on the reversed image.  If the spots are dust and adhering to film surface it may be possible to remove by careful cleaning.  Missing emulsion will need repair in post processing.  Software dust removal in my experience tends to lose image information for those films that it is capable of handling - AFAIK it will not work for Kodachrome and B&W film stock

IMO careful cleaning and handling will pay by minimising remedial work in pp.  Some items you may find of help

Rocket blower
http://www.amazon.com/Archival-Methods-White-Cotton-Gloves/dp/B0036WBWP6

Pec 12
http://www.photosol.com/m/pec12.html

Cotton gloves for handling
http://www.amazon.com/Archival-Methods-White-Cotton-Gloves/dp/B0036WBWP6

[plugsnpixels]

The most cautious way to proceed is to scans the negs once as they are, then attempt physical cleaning and scanning again.

I don't bother with the scanning software's tools. I personally use Photoshop's Spot Healing Brush to deal with any remaining spots when the other pre-scan methods have failed or are too risky to attempt.

[Mark D Segal]

SilverFast's iSRD tool handles dust and scratch removal very efficiently and very effectively if you know what you are doing. Don't want to toot my horn here, but all this is explained in great detail in my book on SilverFast 8. As for the rest of it, some editing is best done with scanner software and some with say LR/PS, and some it doesn't matter were you make the corrctions. I also discuss all these options in detail. There is much to this than fits nicely into a Forum post. You may also with to look uo my previous (free to LuLa subscribers) articles on this website about film scanning if you prefer not to invest in the ebook.