Recommendations sought on photo/slide restoration plug-ins

Hello and thanks for the help,

I'm attempting to restore several hundred photos, slides and negatives. They are a mixture of B&W and color;, the oldest taken in the late 1800s, but most taken in the 1950s and 1960s. (My part in preserving family history)

I'm looking for plug-ins to help correct the fading and color balance of these photos, slides, and negatives. (I'll scan the photos and large format negative with an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo Scanner. I'll scan the 35mm slides and filmstrips with either a Cannon FS-4000US or a Nikon Coolscan V Ed. I have not purchased the film scanner yet. Some of the plug-ins I'm considering comes with these scanners, so the choice of plug-in may influence my choice of scanner.)

I must not be searching properly, because I've only found a few "main stream" plug-in candidates (I thought there would be many more such plug-ins).

The ones I've found are from Kodak (Applied Science Fiction) and Extensis. The Kodak ones seem to have a better reputation. Specifically:
* Digital ROC Pro plug-in from Kodak (Applied Science Fiction) to restore color balance. * Digital SHO Pro plug-in from Kodak (Applied Science Fiction) to restore contrast and detail. * Intellihance Pro 4.1 from Extensis to restore color balance, contrast and detail.

I was also surprised by the high price of these restoration plug-ins ... lol

If you have other recommendations (freeware and shareware are ok) and/or experiences in using these tools; I'd appreciate hearing it.

Thanks,
DG

Personally I'd use the retouching tools in Elements and save the money for a better quality scanner. The only plug in that I've felt the need to pay for is noise reduction (Noise Ninja and Neat Image are both pretty good - but more for digicams than scanned images, as you really need to create a new profile for each film/scanner combination that you use, which for old film may not be practical!). Digital ice included with some scanners for dust and hair removal in transparencies is supposed to be worth the extra, but colour balance and contrast are pretty straightforward to do in Elements.
Susan S.

Have you tried http://share.studio.adobe.com/Default.asp? There are TONS of free plug ins that can help you.

Suzi
wrote in message

Hello and thanks for the help,

I'm attempting to restore several hundred photos, slides and negatives.

They are a mixture of B&W and color;, the oldest taken in the late 1800s, but most taken in the 1950s and 1960s. (My part in preserving family history)

I'm looking for plug-ins to help correct the fading and color balance of

these photos, slides, and negatives. (I'll scan the photos and large format negative with an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo Scanner. I'll scan the 35mm slides and filmstrips with either a Cannon FS-4000US or a Nikon Coolscan V Ed. I have not purchased the film scanner yet. Some of the plug-ins I'm considering comes with these scanners, so the choice of plug-in may influence my choice of scanner.)

I must not be searching properly, because I've only found a few "main

stream" plug-in candidates (I thought there would be many more such plug-ins).

The ones I've found are from Kodak (Applied Science Fiction) and Extensis.

The Kodak ones seem to have a better reputation. Specifically:

* Digital ROC Pro plug-in from Kodak (Applied Science Fiction) to restore

color balance.

* Digital SHO Pro plug-in from Kodak (Applied Science Fiction) to restore

contrast and detail.

* Intellihance Pro 4.1 from Extensis to restore color balance, contrast

and detail.

I was also surprised by the high price of these restoration plug-ins ...

lol

If you have other recommendations (freeware and shareware are ok) and/or

experiences in using these tools; I'd appreciate hearing it.

Thanks,
DG

I've been gradually working my way through a similar project for a couple of years and agree with Susan; Elements is all you need.

I agree, I am involved in a similar project, and Elements does all I need. And we have some really old and faded slides that need a lot of work, underwater ones that need plenty color correction, and Elements does it all.
All you need is time!
Jane

A lot of these family history projects are huge. And it takes a lot of patience and personal dedication to get the job done. It can become so tedious that it makes one wonder if there is something available to just fix all the problems for us. But Elements will do an excellent job for you. The project you are undertaking is just going to take a lot of time and patience to complete.

I had the same problem with old photo's. I ended up getting a Epson 3170 scanner along with their software. It really cleaned up old photo's, then I used elements for the final touch. Works well

Still think that the best way to clean up old photos is just using Elements ... I do have several plug ins but they have a limited usage. Its difficult to have a plug in that works with all the problems you get.

Wendy

Sometimes a plug-in is handy. I have the ASF ROC plug-in and found it very useful. True, you can get equivalent results by careful use of the color cast feature and the separate color channels in the levels adjustment layer. But you can get close to a great result in one step with ROC, then go in and touch up as needed.
Bob Warren

Hello Susan S.

What scanner would you recommend?