White marks on 35mm prints

[Randy Winkman]

I took and old film to get a couple of prints done for friend the other day. One has a couple of white marks on it where the negative had marks on it. If we ignore the ins and outs of why they are there and if the shop could have done a better job, is there a recommended way of touching up the print to disguise them? They are going to be put in frames on the wall and not looked at close up. The colour I need is a sort of boring greyish-blue.

[LongQ]

Randy Winkman said:

I took and old film to get a couple of prints done for friend the other day. One has a couple of white marks on it where the negative had marks on it. If we ignore the ins and outs of why they are there and if the shop could have done a better job, is there a recommended way of touching up the print to disguise them? They are going to be put in frames on the wall and not looked at close up. The colour I need is a sort of boring greyish-blue.

Back in the day it is likely that such blemishes would have been removed with some water based ink dyes and a fine paint brush, assuming photographic printing paper was employed.

Now I am not so sure since the "papers" are often plastics. Plus the print quality may be so good that such fixes would stand out anyway. There was a lot to be said for 'grain' back in the day.

How to fix the problem areas and what to use may be dependent on the print hosting materials.

[Randy Winkman]

LongQ said:

Back in the day it is likely that such blemishes would have been removed with some water based ink dyes and a fine paint brush, assuming photographic printing paper was employed.

Now I am not so sure since the "papers" are often plastics. Plus the print quality may be so good that such fixes would stand out anyway. There was a lot to be said for 'grain' back in the day.

How to fix the problem areas and what to use may be dependent on the print hosting materials.

Thanks. I think a paint brush might be involved. I do like to think of myself as something of a master-bodger.

[Ledaig]

What size are the prints?

If small enough, can you not scan them, clone out the blemishes and reprint?

Failing that, send the negatives to a scan to digital type company and do the same maybe?

[Randy Winkman]

Thanks. That might be the best option. Or possibly touching up the prints by hand and then normal scanning. I have a spare one I can practice on.

[tog]

Have you got a decent camera? Photograph the prints, shop out the blemishes, reprint them. I regularly have to copy photographs like this and it works well if you're careful.

[Mr Will]

Neg Scan - Photoshop - Print.

The printing will all be digital these days anyway so all you are doing is adding a bit of touching up in the middle.

What sort of white marks though? It might be easier to remove them from the negs than you think.

[andy-xr]

Scan the negatives, or if you're not too bothered about absolute resolution, scan the prints and photoshop the bits out you dont want using clone tool

The thing with scanning negatives is at hi resolution you'll see hairs and all sorts of things that will *really* piss you off when you're looking to clean the prints up

[NJH]

Ain't that the truth. Handle the negatives with cotton gloves, use a rocket blower to remove dust. If it comes to it they can be cleaned with pec pads and pec-12 fluid. Many pro labs can scan for you if you don't have your own scanner, I greatly prefer to scan myself but its a steep learning curve that I think is only worthwhile for those very much set on shooting and scanning lots of film.

[Randy Winkman]

Thanks folks. I touched up the marks myself then got the pictures scanned so than the paint didn't show up from different angles because of the finish/texture. They are now invisible to the naked eye but it does show how the original prints that I have, the new copies and the scanned copies are all different shades/brightnesses. But that only matters if you see them all together.