how to improve scanned pics?

[bvahan5]

i do have a scanner Canon N6700, purchased in 2002.
i use it in my small printing business
when i scan pics (i.e. photos) they always get too much Red in it, also images come out darker...
later with Photoshop (5.5) I try to clean images
raise Brightness, but it makes pics blury
i use Color Balance - but its very difficult - when i am decreasing Red then Cyan is increasing, etc. how to take Only Red away without touching other colors?

 

[rickwells]

If you are working with RGB images, change to CMYK mode to make adjustments - you are obviously familiar with CMYK, being in the printing business.
Go to IMAGE>LEVELS. In the dialogue box and choose the magenta channel from the channels drop down menu at the top. You can decrease the amount of magenta in the highlights, midtones and shadows. You may need to decrease the yellow too.
Go back to the composite channel (CMYK) and do an overall adjustment to correct the 'darkness'.
Anyway, you can experiment.
You can also use the 'curves' adjustment - it's more 'powerful' although its a bit more complicated to understand.
There are a number of alternative solutions.

 

[duncdude]

You might want to look into getting a copy of something like Silverfast AI


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[rickwells]

I would agree with duncdude - image enhancement software really does work. I have a pretty old Umax scanner and I wouldn't scan anything without using the enhancement facility.

 

[duncdude]

thank you rickwells

I used to use a copy of Colorscope - which only came bundled with high-end Dainippon Screen scanners. It had about 95% of a scanner operators knowledge in a small piece of ai software. It was incredible.


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[prophotodx]

I have found that if you scan an image or photo a little flat, or without much contrast, and then add contrast with either a levels correction or curves correction it looks better. Plus I usually start with a resolution double of what I actually need at the output size/res.

DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)