FighterControl

Here we go for Mixed bag part 15.

One of the things I've enjoyed about the scanning process is bringing the digital techniques we take for granted nowadays to my old film/slide collection.
I've found slides, edges cut and re-mounted at an angle to correct or improve the slanting horizon - an easy fix in todays photo editors.
Similarly for framing, back in those days there was many a lost shot with chopped off nose or tail trying to get that "full frame" shot, sure it meant you had to hone your panning and timing skills and it was a delight when you got it dead right, but darned annoying the many times you didn't.
Of course developing your own prints back then allowed you to correct horizons and improve framing but even though we had access to a dark room where in the early days we dabbled in E6 developing and printing from our slides it wasn't a common occurrence.

So now as I scan and then work further to get the finished product, I straighten horizons, crop to taste and if necessary and or worthwhile tidy up the frame, after all when you've spent half an hour or more scratch and spot cleaning a dirty slide scan, it takes a fraction of time to remove that annoying light/lamp post or radio mast sticking out the top of the aircraft.

Enjoy

Kev

1. Brize Norton 1993


2. Boscombe Down 1992 Air Tournament International


3. Yeovilton


4. Fairford IAT 1994


5. Brize Norton 1993


6. Fairford IAT 1987


7. Cambrai 2003 Tiget Meet


8. Binbrook 1987

A lovely selection of aircraft here, as indeed are your previous posts. I know what you mean about using digital techniques to improve slide scans (my method is using DSLR, macro lens and light box rather than a scanner). You can improve composition greatly in software, and you can also rescue slides that have been stored in perhaps less than ideal conditions and fallen victim to fungal damage, instead of chucking them straight in the bin!

daggerfan wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 04, 2022 12:12 pm

A lovely selection of aircraft here, as indeed are your previous posts. I know what you mean about using digital techniques to improve slide scans (my method is using DSLR, macro lens and light box rather than a scanner). You can improve composition greatly in software, and you can also rescue slides that have been stored in perhaps less than ideal conditions and fallen victim to fungal damage, instead of chucking them straight in the bin!

Cheers for the kind words,

My slides have just been stored in cardboard boxes in the loft - far from ideal and thus many suffer from some form of fungal damage. Some of it can be digitally cleaned after scanning, but a few are completely covered by a fine threaded growth making digital cleanup almost impossible.
I found the below slide loose at the bottom of one of the large boxes, it's pretty soft and is obviously a reject, it was filthy and I made it worse brushing it off, which you can see on the left hand side of frame on the "Before" scan, however, by then having already scanned quite a few with various "need cleaning" issues, I decided to see what I could do with this one, just to see if I could work out the best way to clean them and how far could you push it. This was a Kodachrome 64 slide.

I did a quick scan - no colour corrections to show the state of it before… then popped it out the mount, chucked it a a bowl of washing up water and wiped it clean with the dish cloth.
Then laid it on a piece of kitchen roll and folded the tissue over the top of it to dab dry.
Then I hit both sides with several good wipes using a Zeiss lens cleaning pad and put it on the window sill in the sun to dry (the emulsion side absorbs moisture and goes a bit jelly like and makes the slide very soft (sharpness wise), so you’ve got to let that dry out before scanning.
Then I “double" scanned it, corrected colour as best I could and then processed it quickly in PS, blended the dust removed and non-dust removed scans and run some noise reduction on it. (I'll explain the "double" scan bit and blending in mixed bag part 16).
A final hand spot clean and removal of the large scratches and fire extinguisher resulted in the "After"

I thought it came out pretty good considering the state of it to start with and the fairly brutal cleaning methodology.

On the whole I don't actually do any physical cleaning prior to scanning, now if there's a lot of fine thread fungus covering most of the slide I do try and clean it up after an initial uncleaned scan just in case things go badly wrong during the clean process... method is a quick few wipes over with Zeiss lens cleaning wipes, taken out of their foil packet and left folded they are almost a perfect fit inside the mount of a 35mm slide. Too slow or too many wipes and the emulsion of the slide starts to soften and get sticky and then fibres from the Zeiss wipe start to get stuck in the emulsion and you end up worse off than when you started.

Kev

1. Before


2. After

Beautiful pictures but the Victor is my favorite. And your photos from Binbrook really make me wonder why on Earth I never went to that base.
Thanks a lot for posting these images.
Arnold

My, what a difference in your before and after shots. Your clean-up regime obviously works a treat. There is a chemical cleaning solution I believe specifically for photographic emulsions called PEC-12, but it doesn't look like you need it! Keep up the good work.

The Victor is a lovely picture.

nice set especially #2 and 8

Another great set! That T8 Hunter is very nice indeed

Thanks for sharing these, another great selection of shots. Difficult to pick a favourite, but the Lightning and Victor are up there, however nice to see a Sembach EC-130, remember seeing those appearing at various bases in the UK.

Hi Kev

Yet another awesome set

Has to be the ‘Frightning’ for me

Thanks for posting

Paddyboy