Noise/film grain reduction for Kodachrome scans. Any plugin recommendations

[saiguy]

Mark, thanks again for your expert advise.

ScanCafe. Mail your slides to Bangalore. At least I remember they brag about using Nikon LS9k scanners. Think they use Nikon scan software. Digital ICE. I think 8 bit jpegs delivered. But it is an unbelievable bargain price. For sure a good option for some. There are safer choices, such as Affordable Photo, if I have the name correct. They are based in Chicago. There are others as well on this continent.

SRD the non IR dust tool in SF I found to be dangerous. Maybe I over did it. I am so afraid of it that I skip it entirely and just do the clean up in PS.

Your comment on Kodachrome grain issues is a welcome one. Think I will use Neat Image for a safe level of noise reduction and pass on PKS for this project. Like to stay in LR as much as possible.

Reading time? I use 2 ADF trays for batch HDR scans. While 1 is scanning I am cleaning & numbering another 1 and get about 2 minutes rest before the 1st tray finishes. In this WF I do not use MultiScan. I found it is detrimental to slides that do not require it. I think you recommend it for all.

Feeling a bit guilty now for importuning on so many smart people for advise. One last one if permissible.

Workflow
Batch scan to HDR. The 64 bit IR choice. Will use Tiff. If it was an archive I controlled I would use DNG for the validation feature.
Develop files in HDR Studio. Using a conservative white point of about 242 for reasons mentioned above.
Open that file via bridge in PS.
Use Neat Image for NR and do manual cleanup as needed. Maybe do other stuff while in PS.
Export that file and use it as a Master file in a new LR Catalog. Do the finishing tone/color work there.
The finished files will be exported to an external drive for delivery. Every thing baked in. 16 bit tiff, ARGB. My friends/clients are clueless about         digital imaging. They may get a photo printer for letter size out put from these files. Any web out put will convert to sRGB anyway, so I believe. Think it is a middle path output.

Feed back on this WF will be much appreciated.

thanks again to all you smart persons,

[saiguy]

Bruce, thanks for you condolences. Only 1k hours, maybe more, not a life time. Seems IR does have some functionality in SF8, hopefully a lot. It is an important project. Fortunately I have the time and desire to do a good job with it.

[Mark D Segal]

..............Keep in mind that dust removal on the Nikon will not work with Kodachrome either.  ............

This is incorrect. With SilverFast Ai 8 Studio it will work fine using one or the other of the two tools the application includes for this purpose. I've cleaned-up and published results of using this process when SilverFast was still in version 6 on Kodachromes dating back to 1958.

[Mark D Segal]

Mark, thanks again for your expert advise.

ScanCafe. Mail your slides to Bangalore. At least I remember they brag about using Nikon LS9k scanners. Think they use Nikon scan software. Digital ICE. I think 8 bit jpegs delivered. But it is an unbelievable bargain price. For sure a good option for some. There are safer choices, such as Affordable Photo, if I have the name correct. They are based in Chicago. There are others as well on this continent.

SRD the non IR dust tool in SF I found to be dangerous. Maybe I over did it. I am so afraid of it that I skip it entirely and just do the clean up in PS.

Your comment on Kodachrome grain issues is a welcome one. Think I will use Neat Image for a safe level of noise reduction and pass on PKS for this project. Like to stay in LR as much as possible.

Reading time? I use 2 ADF trays for batch HDR scans. While 1 is scanning I am cleaning & numbering another 1 and get about 2 minutes rest before the 1st tray finishes. In this WF I do not use MultiScan. I found it is detrimental to slides that do not require it. I think you recommend it for all.

Feeling a bit guilty now for importuning on so many smart people for advise. One last one if permissible.

Workflow
Batch scan to HDR. The 64 bit IR choice. Will use Tiff. If it was an archive I controlled I would use DNG for the validation feature.
Develop files in HDR Studio. Using a conservative white point of about 242 for reasons mentioned above.
Open that file via bridge in PS.
Use Neat Image for NR and do manual cleanup as needed. Maybe do other stuff while in PS.
Export that file and use it as a Master file in a new LR Catalog. Do the finishing tone/color work there.
The finished files will be exported to an external drive for delivery. Every thing baked in. 16 bit tiff, ARGB. My friends/clients are clueless about         digital imaging. They may get a photo printer for letter size out put from these files. Any web out put will convert to sRGB anyway, so I believe. Think it is a middle path output.

Feed back on this WF will be much appreciated.

thanks again to all you smart persons,

Bangalore is a non-issue. At least - I haven't heard any complaints of material going astray. But no matter, if you aren't comfortable don't do it.

I agree SRD is not very good. iSRD is fine, and there is a newer algorithm built into the latest version which works very well too - much better than the old SRD - you reserve it for use in case iSRD fails.

Your workflow has too many steps. Once you need to make a TIFF you can choose between HDR, LR or PS to do the remainder of the editing and printing. The most straightforward approach is to clean-up (i.e. iSRD or the other) in SilverFast at the time you make the scan. Then import the scans to LR where you can do ALL the rest right from that one application, and very well. Don't under-estimate LR for grain reduction either - it works well. Sharpening in LR is very similar to sharpening with PKS because the genesis of the algorithms both come from Pixelgenius (Jeff Schewe & Colleagues). Keep your life as simple and effective as you can - this will do it for you. At the least, give it a try and see if you like what you get.