Epson 2480 and Gimp Photo Retouching

Getting back home after 2 weeks, things were in a bit of a mess and I accidently kicked a box of old photos. A lot of good memories in the photos and some of the prints were dusty or damaged. I had negatives for most of the photos, so I decided that I should slowly start to digitize my most precious photos. Scanning negatives allows you to work with much higher resolutions (2400dpi and above) and detail than you would otherwise get from film prints (100-300dpi). After some research I found that Epson 2480 Photo Perfection was affordable and Linux/FreeBSD compatible.

Epson Perfection 2480

I found it to be adequate for my needs so far. Quality of the scanner was good unlike what I read on most online reviews. Complaints about software don't apply, we use FOSS and in this case GIMP. It supports tranparencies (slides and negatives) as well as normal flatbed scanning up to 2400dpi. I've only done scanning with negatives so far and I found the performance fits my needs. It took me a while to find it in Malaysia as only one shop carried Epson scanners in Low Yat. The rest only sold printers and all-in-ones. Most of the other newer photo scanners (HP/Canon) are not supported by FOSS operating systems which is a shame. They're going to miss out on a huge new market.

Details of the printer available from Epson Malaysia site.

Scanning Negatives with GIMP

The scanned negative at 2400dpi

Negative has orange/brown hint that needs to be removed.

Positive image composite, but the colour levels are all wrong, this needs to fixed with the Levels tool.

Levels are fixed, but there is a slight blue colour cast that needs to be removed as the bricks are not red and leaves are not yellow/green.

Blue cast removed, but colour values need adjustment as the entrance and trees are too pronounced making the picture unnatural. This effect though is something that you might want for other photos where background is not important.

Final image with values adjusted. This is the same as the printed photo. It looks a bit blurry as I scaled down the image. Sharpening and unmask filters could be used, but I left it as is, as colour correction was my main aim.

Whoops, also needed to flip the image as I scanned the wrong side. :)

Grokking the GIMP is a very good introductory resource. With the GIMP online help you will find that the tutorials for more popular commercial programs are applicable also in GIMP.

Happy GIMPing! :)