Scanning Coming Out With Pits

[AggieB]

My mother's wedding photo is torn & I thought I would have it restored for her. I brought it to work where we have a high quality scanner that is large enough for the photo (11x14). It's a gorgeous old sepia print with some tinting on it. When I scanned it (600 dpi, as recommended by the restoration artist because of the size), there are all these little circles scattered regularly over the surface. I can't see or feel anything on the actual photo. I used photoshop cs3 with silverfast scanning software & scanned it to tif format. Has anyone any experience with this kind of thing? I've never seen it before.

[PBarnes]

I have had lots of spots show up that weren't easily visible to the naked eye, but I've never had anything regularly spaced over the image. My only suggestion would be to try scanning at a lower dpi, like 300, and see if that helps any. With a photo that large, I would think 300 would be plenty for restoration, but then I'm no expert.

[Smiles]

Sometimes on old prints the finish gets "shiny" spots and they show up oddly when you scan. I don't know if this is what you're coming across, but you could try re-scanning even at the same DPI and see if they still show up. You might turn the photo 180 degrees, just for good luck???

[BarbaraC1977]

I presume you've cleaned the photo--canned air to blow off dust and debris, at least. I'm also presuming you've cleaned the glass on the scanner. How large are these spots? Can you post an example?

[April Showers]

I've had that happen and it usually is from the finish on the photo. I've also found scanning at a higher dpi can help. I know, it is an enormous file. I usually scan my heritage photos at 600 dpi- higher if they are small, 300 if they are big. I've also printed photos that scanned that way and none of the spots showed in the print.