Paper Quality: Cheap vs. Expensive for Photo Printing

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not an active user of Photoshop but I recall some filter functions - a pretty steep low pass filter filtering away fine details, and a high pass filter emphesize very much fine details. It's all about spatial frequencies - low and high, and a bandpass filter as a combination of low pass and high pass , and leaving out the grain frequencies - they seem to be pretty similar in their spatial frequencies. It works optically the same as with electrical filter circuits in audio amplifiers. You find videos of retrouching actions using such methods in the background. And there are filters surpressing the grain patterns from rasterization.

 

[photog-art-printer]

I'm not an active user of Photoshop but I recall some filter functions - a pretty steep low pass filter filtering away fine details, and a high pass filter emphesize very much fine details. It's all about spatial frequencies - low and high, and a bandpass filter as a combination of low pass and high pass , and leaving out the grain frequencies - they seem to be pretty similar in their spatial frequencies. It works optically the same as with electrical filter circuits in audio amplifiers. You find videos of retrouching actions using such methods in the background. And there are filters surpressing the grain patterns from rasterization.

Hi!
Sounds complicated. Have not tried it.
Not a Photoshop expert, but apparently did purchase the first copy ever sold in USA (for $1600) in 1990.

Because of my "Zombie Colours" and grain complaints, I have fiddled around with this image and attach two test strips for critique.

GRAIN - I played around with various things and did not seem to improve anything. Comments?

COLOUR - Same thing. Various options here, maybe some improvement. What do you think?

Which colour do you prefer?

 

[Flummi]

Much better skin tones. Maybe reduce saturation and play with color balance (white light). But image enhancements are a little out of scope of this forum...

Some remarks:
- The hat ist full in clipping (all full white, lost information). Try to scan with lower exposure/brightness.
- 5 MP out of a (low noise) digital camera are good for A4 to A3 prints.
- 5 MP scanned from analog film with grain printed on A2 will always produce a, lets say, image with artistic touch.

Edit: People cannot know how "green" the grass in photo real was. But they instinctly know how a skin tone should look. So this gives a hint what to optimize first. You can also mask the image and adjust image areas separately. Thats getting more time-consuming. Welcome to the world of image processing.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

People cannot know how "green" the grass in photo real was. But they instinctly know how a skin tone should look. So this gives a hint what to optimize first. You can also mask the image and adjust image areas separately. Thats getting more time-consuming. Welcome to the world of image processing.

This is not a photo editing forum or similar, so I just removed the sunburn and used the Topaz Denoise AI in demo mode, the film grain is gone from the face; I used rather extreme settings - I know it can be done better with a little bit of focus what should be done and by how much - e.g. if the person actually had a sunburn why removing it ?

So welcome to the world of photo editing.

 

[photog-art-printer]

This is not a photo editing forum or similar, so I just removed the sunburn and used the Topaz Denoise AI in demo mode, the film grain is gone from the face; I used rather extreme settings - I know it can be done better with a little bit of focus what should be done and by how much - e.g. if the person actually had a sunburn why removing it ?

So welcome to the world of photo editing.

View attachment 16025

Downloading Topaz to try ..... big file ... download error ...

 

[photog-art-printer]

My guess about Ai denoising may be correct.
The grain is so large, when I used various settings (including Ai) the software informed me "there is no grain".

Not sure how "Ink Stained Fingers" did what he did.
Maybe working with the image of the image tricked the Ai into a different guessing game.
This screenshot shows my attempt with "strong" noise removal.
No improvement (to my eyes).
Next week, I expect some different software to be released, and it may be a free upgrade to something I already have.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm infrequently using an older version of a Topaz Denoise plug-in for Paintshop, but this wasn't doing the job, so I downloaded their newest version. I'll try to reconstruct the settings I was using if they weren't the default settings. I see that there are quite a number of denoise/grain removal packages on the market - stand alone or in conjunction with editors - image editors and raw converters , all claim super performance but I haven't tested any other of those.

 

[photog-art-printer]

I'm infrequently using an older version of a Topaz Denoise plug-in for Paintshop, but this wasn't doing the job, so I downloaded their newest version. I'll try to reconstruct the settings I was using if they weren't the default settings. I see that there are quite a number of denoise/grain removal packages on the market - stand alone or in conjunction with editors - image editors and raw converters , all claim super performance but I haven't tested any other of those.

Hi!, Thanks.
At this time I am studying the options.
As I mentioned above, shortly, I am expecting a free upgrade to another software product.
During breakfast today, I have been playing around with the noise, and have not achieved anything significant.
No need to reconstruct your previous settings.
My understanding about "Ai" is that it works of familiar settings, and then attempts to match the problem to a database.
This type of scenario rarely works for anything in my life as I do not fit normal patterns.
The "Ai" (Ki for you) probably looked at the copy of the original (that you played with) and that particular version of the image triggered something ... and it did something.
My guess is .... if I can locate the original file, the Ai may in fact work.
The image that we have been looking at is a huge enlarged version, and I believe this may be the problem.
I am also presuming the "Ai" brain has been trained on mostly digital images, and it not familiar with older pictures ... because how would it see those images? ... How could it learn?
The only way "Ai" can learn, it to examine the problem, and then be programmed as to the best method of dealing with that situation.
My assumption is .... in 1990, few photographers were able to to spend the small fortune required to purchase the equipment. It was an expensive and complicated package. I believe I paid $75,000 cash and avoided the local tax by having it shipped out of State (in the USA).
Therefore, I presume, the "Ai" bot, has probably never seen anything similar to my scans, and therefore, does not know what to do.

But ... I am now curious, and will spend time playing around, and if I find something interesting, I may share it here.

To complicate issues, everything I read and view online about this looks nothing like my own view of the screen.

Note - The "blown out" white hat may be fixable by creating a HDR version of the image, and then incorporating the white area into the original shot. Have not tried that yet.

 

[photog-art-printer]

This is a non-Ai (manual) attempt at grain reduction on the background.
Not sure if it is better or worse.
(Colours not yet fixed)

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

These are about the same settings I used yesterday with Topaz Denoise AI; it shows a strong grain removal but details are preserved very well around the face and on the band around the hat with the flowery print. It's up to the user to judge whether this look is better than the original - or something in between. I don't know how well all the other programs on the market compare - most of them offer a demo mode or a test upload to the vendor for an test image.

I think grain removal should have started somewhat earlier at the time of scanning , high resolution scanning beyond the resolution of the film itself does not deliver any more image details but just resolves the film grain better. Some scanning software like Silverfast offer as well HDR scanning to catch the large exposure latitude of films much better and prevents washed out areas. But I'm out of it as of now.