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I have dozens of slides, taken during the late nineteensixties, of activities around Langebaanweg.
I spent many hours at the end of the runway, especially during weapons camps, snapping away.
I have a series of the Silver Falcons very first performance during a wings parade at LBW.
However my problems are these:
Scanning slides always leaves a lot to be desired, in my experience. Sharpness goes, colour goes and heaven knows what else. The slides are old and have begun to take on the purple hue common to slides as the dyes fade unevenly. Reticulation has also set in. Not to mention the usual crop of hairs, dust specks, fingerprints and other bedevillments.

I am not the best knower of photoshop, but I have tried every trick in the book to try and cure these problems without any real success or satisfaction. So my first question is - anyone dealt successfully with reticulation? Second one - colour rebirth and purple haze removal? If so would anyone care to enlighten me as to what they did?
I give a sample here of what I mean:

First..of all what slide scanner are you using..I have the Canon 8800 scanner.comes with good software to remove most of the scratches..and grain..I have scanned many slides..always clean then well before you scan them..photoshop the dust specks, marks out..do the colour correction with photoshop too..

the only issues I have had is the quality of the grain..those days grain was acceptable..but todays digital photos..grain has almost dissapered all together..so yes my slides after scanning remain fairly grainy..look at my link on my photos by Aircraft.co.za..many of those pictures..the three Cheetahs one..i have scanned in..from slides

_________________
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
But today is a gift.
That's why it's called the present.
____________________________
Adrian Munro
http://www.weddingduo.co.za
https://www.facebook.com/Airfirephotography/

Thanks for your reply.

With due respect those slides are all fairly recent! I have no problem with most of my slides taken, say, after 1980. No reticulation, no dye fading. I have a digital SVP specialist slide scanner with some excellent automagic software - but attempting to use it on the reticulation merely gets me a very fuzzy slide - the Canberra pic was "cleaned up" using it. And nothing seems to work on the magenta/purple cast. Sigh. I suppose I will just have to resign myself to the fact that those pics are beyond redemption. Here's a pic of the Silver Falcons in September 1967 - led by Colonel Chris Prins. Note how blurred the aircraft are after manipulation - and the sky is a mottled melange!

Ooohhh ... I can't wait to see the photos!

Some useful tips on scanning slides can be found at:

Color Correction of Faded slides: http://www.scantips.com/color.html <- May help with the colour problems, but will take time with lots of slides..
Slide Scanning Tips: http://www.slidescanning123.com/tips/

You won't. Too ashamed of most of them. Here's one of a Bucc - really bad,



Thanks for the URLs - will look at them, but I have basically given up. I have been working on these pictures - off and on - for the better part of a decade, and nothing I do to them satisfies me!

A little tip on getting rid of purple/magenta ...

I use photoshop & have set photoshop to open any jpg as a raw image. ie edit>preferences>file handling>& select handle jpg as raw.

This allows you to use the adobe raw editor on all jpgs, before they are actually opened in photoshop. This raw editor has many usefull options, but also has the ability to adjust the hue/contrast/saturation on the individual colour channels, much more than can be done in photoshop. So removing only a purple/magenta cast is really simple. I'm not sure on which version of photoshop this option became available from ... hopefully you can give it a try

Cheers

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Brent Best

Eugene, you have some amazing pieces of history. The fact that they aren't 100% perfect adds to the awesomeness (in my opinion). I know I'm not the only one when I say that I would love to see more of the photos, regardless of the quality.

I don't see anything wrong with the 3 photos you've posted; one can identify the aircraft, and see the colours. Good enough for me

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[Sardine]
My Photos: http://www.airplane-pictures.net/member ... .php?p=882
Blog: http://the-flying-fish.blogspot.com/, UPDATED on 13 August 2013

What she said!

Some of my stuff used to win international salon acceptances back then. It makes me cry to see them as they are now. Dull, colourless, unsharp, dark - I can go on! Here's the first picture I had accepted in the Cape Town Salon in 1968(?). I would not paper the budgie cage with it now, lest the poor bird gets constipation. Or the trots. I'll show a "before" and after photoshopping view. Which is proof of my inability to make photoshop sing and dance for me!

Eugene I grew up on the West Coast and went to school in Vredenburg and your photo's bring back fond memories. I saw that R9 vessel on numerous occasions operating from SAS Flamingo in Langebaan and the silver Impala's overflying the town. There is nothing wrong with your photo's. Laat hulle kom Broer!!!!! I would love to know what the serial number of that Buccaneer is.

Thirded

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

We really value any pictures from the past..in any condition..because there are so few around still today..thanks for sharing with us here..[quote="H1017412"][quote="Dean"][quote="Gripen"]Eugene, you have some amazing pieces of history. The fact that they aren't 100% perfect adds to the awesomeness (in my opinion). I know I'm not the only one when I say that I would love to see more of the photos, regardless of the quality.
[/quote]

What she said! [/quote]

Thirded [/quote]

fourthed

_________________
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
But today is a gift.
That's why it's called the present.
____________________________
Adrian Munro
http://www.weddingduo.co.za
https://www.facebook.com/Airfirephotography/

Reluctantly two more of the Falcons first public display - No4 still seems a little bang about close formation flying!





That's it though - it takes too much time for too little results!

Eugene - that pic of R9 racing across the seas (photoshop) is actually very good. Just looking through the book "Serve to Save" by Guy Ellis, one realises just what good results you are actually obtaining...even if it is laborious. The B&W pics in the book of the different rescue boats are not as good as what you are now managing to produce. Vasbyt!

Eugene: I am sure many of us would like to see some of those pics of yours migrating from the General Chatter to the SAAF and Navy forum threads