Unless you are planning to make massive blowups of your images, 3200dpi is not a bad place to be and the files are a lot smaller.
Hello, downsample your tiff to 1800px longest side, then save as jpg, then upload here. We’ll still be able to see your dust and/or scratches and maybe someone can deal with them.
Obvious question, you cleaned your negatives on both sides carefully with a blower and your scan surface is free of dust?
Using your screenshot I gave it a try with G’mic and ART.
This is G’mic, using the Recursive median filter followed by Constrained sharpen.
This is done in ART, Local edits - color similarity mask - choose the sky, then Softening - Guided filter. Even better I think.
Thanks for the tip, Paul. Here is the crop with plenty of visible dust as a 1741x1800 jpg.
Also, deep thanks for your wonderful Tiny Little Photo Palace!
@yasuo Your GIMP skills give me hope! You write “not perfect,” but that’s only when pixel-peeping. This result is excellent to my eyes, and you achieved it using only GIMP, which I can use on my Mac. Thank you.
Meanwhile, I am working on installing the G’Mic plug-in for GIMP. It’s difficult because the two folks who created paths for this (aferrero2707 and Partha) are no longer doing so. I found instructions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GIMP/comments/1af6ywm/how_to_install_gmic_for_gimp_21036_macos_latest/
They suggest this link for the G’Mic download:
https://ports.macports.org/port/gmic-gimp/
Following the instructions, I attempted to install the G’Mic plug-in using Terminal:
Franz@My-Dharma ~ sudo port install gmic-gimp
Password:
sudo: port: command not found
Franz@My-Dharma ~ sudo port install gmic-gimp
sudo: port: command not found
Franz@My-Dharma ~ port install gmic-gimp
zsh: command not found: port
Franz@My-Dharma ~ install gmic-gimp
usage: install [-bCcpSsv] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group] [-m mode]
[-o owner] file1 file2
install [-bCcpSsv] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group] [-m mode]
[-o owner] file1 … fileN directory
install -d [-v] [-g group] [-m mode] [-o owner] directory …
Franz@My-Dharma ~ %
Sadly, the plug-in does not seem to have been downloaded. At any rate, I cannot find it in the normal path, nor does G’Mic appear in search results on my HD.
Sorry to be both so technical and so needy, but I am encouraged by Paul’s (and others’) recommendation of G’Mic and I’d love to get it working in GIMP.
Thanks.
That’s reeeaally verrryy olddd ! 
@buddhaauthor, try to install Krita on your Mac, G’mic is (at least on Linux) part of that.
Franz, I understand you want to follow the Gimp/G’mic route, but on the other hand you need to correct hundreds of scans as you said. ART is in my opinion the easiest way, although I’m uncertain about the state of the Mac builds. I know some people are testing them, but on ARTs homepage the link to Mac downloads is empty.
Anyway, here’s the result trying to remove your scratches in ART with just one filter and its three sliders.
1 Like
When you paste console output, please either put it between ```text and ```:
```text
some text
more text
```
Then it will show as:
some text
more text
Alternatively, add 4 spaces to the beginning of each line, like this:
<leave this line empty>
some text
more text
<leave this line empty>
It produces the same output:
some text
more text
@Paul Holy moly that looks great and just one filter with three sliders!
Regarding ART on the Mac, the “experimental” Mac build site asked me to accept Richard Barber’s invitation to collaborate on the shared folder. Sadly, it then said the folder was unavailable and that the owner may have stopped sharing it. So, this does not look like a currently supported software alternative for the Mac.
Trying to remain positive, if an easy fix for dust exists in ART, it probably exists in RT as well (though probably hidden within a menu and also substantially addressed by other tools. None of these will have the words “dust” or “scratch” in their names, and the use of more than one at a time will likely have a detrimental effect on the image). Perhaps I can find it!
Hello, the following is done in RT using Local adjustments on full image, Contrast per Detail levels.
dust_RT.jpg.out.pp3 (15.5 KB)
2 Likes
Richard, thank you for your quick reply (and, more importantly, for keeping ART current). Clicking your link I am told by iCloud that you have invited me to share work on this folder. I click to accept the invitation, but the following screen says “Folder Unavailable. The owner stopped sharing, or you don’t have permission to open this folder.”
No doubt I’m doing something wrong on my end, but I don’t know what it might be.
István, thank you for the fix of my malformed pastes. I use Terminal a couple times a decade and have neither skills nor even awareness!
Ok, I have also privately sent you a couple of links via private message that should work for you. The iCloud problem might be due to the original machine it was shared from is down until mid August. I will see if I can re-share it from another system.
Richard, thank you very much!
I’m trying to learn everyone’s effective dust removal techniques in RT, GIMP, and ART. Meanwhile, though, here’s another effective technique. Encouraged by Paul, I aggressively cleaned the slide with a microfiber cloth, while before I had only used compressed air. The difference shocked me and did not seem to damage the slide. Here’s a side by side. (Sorry the color settings differ, but everything else about the scans is the same. And there is no dust removal at all on either.)
2 Likes