I remember that there were some issues with the checkbox when I researched that a couple of years ago, therefore I only scan to tiff and leave the checkbox unchecked. However, I do not remember any more what the issue was …
In theory I suppose it’s possible to have an IR channel on a scan from a camera, but if I’m not mistaken you’d need it on both sides of the negative.
There have been a few historical B&W negatives I’ve worked on where there were a lot of small dirt specs and small holes in the emulsion. I’ve had some success using G’MIC, Repair, remove hot pixels. It does cause some softening so I really only found it useful for large, even areas such as sky. I used 2 layers, the top without the G’MIC and the bottom with it applied. Then I used layer masks to brush away the sky in the top layer. But this is really only useful when there’s a sky with hundreds of these small specs.
Here’s an example of what 3M Magic tape can do for small dirt specs. I scanned this for a client from a 645 transparency. On the left was just blowing off the dust with a bulb blower and the right was after using tape.
Not sure if I understand this correctly. I guess the scanner only does one side illumination, and scanning from the other side. I don’t think it has two ccds.
I did a comparison of different inpainting algorithms in this post:
The whole technique I used is described a couple of posts before.
As only the missing parts of the image are inpainted, there is no overall reduction in sharpness. Furthermore, there’s at least one inpainting method for which I would attest that the result is not distinguishable from regular image content. Fair enough, my example does not show scratches at areas such as faces where the content is more crucial, but from my experience with old family photographs, the results are really excellent and the manual effort is close to zero, only some initial mask adjustment (which is necessary only one time per film stock).
That’s really impressive. However,
- I have mainly to deal with scratches, not so much with dust (k, dust as well …), as some of the old family photos are not in a very good condition,
- given the already weak condition, I don’t want to stick a tape onto the negatives, and
- probably it’s difficult to get the same tape you have been using where I live. There is some tape called “magic tape” from 3M sold under the “scotch“ brand, but even if it looks the same, it is highly likely that it is produced locally and maybe different from what is elsewhere sold with that name. At least the description says “highly adhesive” such that I wonder if it will rip off the emulsion layer from the carrier layer of the film … Picture here.
Still interested to learn more 
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It’s probably the same tape, but I’d certainly test it on some scrap negatives before applying it to good ones. I just press it on with my finger and lift it straight off. Don’t rub it across the surface or it will leave a residue.
I don’t use the tape for old, historical negatives for the reason you mention, that the old emulsions may be damaged. For those I rub them gently with a microfibre cloth, often slightly dampened with 99% isopropyl alcohol.
If a negative or transparency is badly scratched I apply Edwal No-Scratch or light mineral oil. This is essentially “wet mounting” the film, as is done on drum scanners and some flat-bed kits, and is the most effective way to hide scratches. The film needs to be cleaned after, with either 99% isopropyl or liquid film cleaner, but it works exceptionally well. In my tests, it’s far more effective than ICE for bad scratches.
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Thanks for the insight. Most negatives are extremely precious to me as the other depicted family members already passed away, so I probably won’t do too many experiments. However, I still do some film photography (35 mm) and am very interested in medium format, so this may be handy in the future. Still, decent medium format cameras are an invest and are very low in priority … But for these I would definitely use “camera scanning” because a nikon medium format scanner is way too pricey. And I still did not start “scanning” my pocket film archives, especially as I am searching for a good method to hold the film flat while photographing. Any idea? “Anti newton” glass may cause too much resolution for the little pocketfilm negatives, not sure if highly transmissive glass such as schott mirogard would work better … any idea?
I don’t personally use anti-newton glass as it adds 4 more surfaces that can collect dirt. My film holders are:
35mm slides. They are mounted and flat enough, but I also keep a supply of Pakon plastic slide mounts into which a slide or negative just slips into. They work well and can be re-used.
35mm negative strips. Carrier for an Epson flatbed scanner.
6x7 and 645 film. Beseler enlarger film carriers.
4x5 sheet film. Epson flatbed carrier.
5x7 and 3x4 inch film. Homemade carriers, sometimes taping down the sides of the film.
I set my macro lens to f8, but sometimes use f11 for more depth of field on curved film.
I do have some lantern slides of Turkey around 1903, taken by my grandfather. The positive slides (negatives from negatives and coloured) themselves are sandwiched between two pieces of glass, but the original negative film, which is also there, is badly curled, which will require anti-newton glass if I digitze them.
Chris, what formats are your family negatives? Are they B&W?
Also quite a gem …
All color, especially the older ones from my parents, 35 mm and pocketfilm. For 35 mm, I am happy with my scanning process (k, there’s always something to improve, but in general, it works well). I tried to 3D print a holder for the pocketfilm for my scanner, but it turns out that there’s not much where you could grab the film to keep it flat, which gets me to the glass discussion and the camera scanning.
Talking about pocketfilm, I just realized that this may be a false friend, as it seems to be called 110 film in English solely …
I once (5 years ago or so) shot a b/w film, developing it together with an experienced friend, and it came out blanc. This reduced my personal interest in b/w a bit … When my children are a bit older, I think I will try this again at home. Maybe in combination with medium format?
And, also, I’d really love to have some medium format portraits of my children with this smooth sharpness transition that for me makes the “medium format/large format look”. I know that many people try to explain that this look is not special, but I know what I see 
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Our discussion made me research a bit again and I found something really interesting: Muster-Set Glassorten (9-teilig) | Muster | Sonstiges | Zubehör | HALBE-Rahmen GmbH. This is a set of different glass samples in the format of 210 mm times 210 mm. The sample pack contains mirogard museum white glass and also some one-side rough white glass (among others). It’s just ~ $10 (plus ~ $6 shipping). With this I can test several combinations . (Just ordered.) This is all intended for use in picture frames. Therefore I could imagine that the structure of the rough glass in fine enough to count as anti-newton glass (I would probably use it on the carrier side of the film and on the light source side, such that the picture itself has almost full resolution).
I also found an interesting article that said that the surface roughness of the emulsion side of the film is rough enough to be covered by regular (white) glass, let’s see …
It’s wonderful to have photographic memories of our parents and grandparents. Let us know how the glass works out.
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I checked and I am actually using the raw flag. I think there was an issue in the past, but it was probably solved. Sorry for the false information. I’ll correct it in the post above as well, such that nobody will draw wrong conclusions or avoids using a good solution.