Old photo scanning issue
 

Soliciting ideas,

I have some "surface textured" photos. They appear clear in hand. But, when scanned, the surface picks up the light, resulting in severe contrast loss.

Tried changing the scanner settings, but that just causes a general reduction in clarity. Any fixes?

I would recommend that you do not scan any photographs, because photographic surfaces are very sensitive and can get damaged during scanning. Instead, try taking pictures with a good digital camera set at a high resolution.

Hope this helps!
Charles

Is it possible that the reflection you're seeing in the scan is due to "silvering" in the photo rather than the surface texture? I ask because I've used several types of scanners over the years, and even with the non-CCD ones that seem to have trouble with anything with "depth" (like cards in PSA slabs) seem to handle textured photographs without the issue you're having.

There is no basis for that statement that I know of. The amount of light that falls on a photo in one or a few scans is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the light that falls on it over time, even if it is only viewed occasionally.
Major libraries (Library of Congress for example) do scan both prints and negatives. Scanning and producing a hi-res digital file is the best way to preserve the image virtually forever.

As someone who has worked with photographs in museums before, I know that photographic surfaces (albumen prints, gelatin prints, dags, etc) are very sensitive and can be damaged when touching or rubbing against other surfaces, like the bed of a scanner.

I was referencing the potential to damage surfaces from the physical act of scanning, not from the light exposure involved.

The best way to preserve images of sensitive material like photographs, or other fragile works on paper, it seems to me, is with a digital camera. This can do the same thing that a scanner can do without touching a sensitive surface. That is the way many major museums do it. Maybe my recommendation is overly cautious?

Charles

The biggest problem with your suggestion is that one needs to be careful to keep the plane of the camera exactly parallel to that of the photo being recorded. Otherwise you end up with a spatially distorted image. Most people don't have the requisite equipment to make this easy (your museum probably does). It is quite difficult if you are just shooting from a tripod.

+1

I've never quite been able to get a good set-up with my simple digital camera for photos, and the one time I tried and sort of got something set up, I had to take it down to use the camera elsewhere. It would be nice, and actually much quicker, to have a permanent set-up (preferably with a separate monitor so I could see the layout without using the camera's viewscreen), but generally speaking, I'm not dealing with enough sensitive materials to reasonably give up the space and hardware for that kind of permanent installation.