The film resurgence is real, and lasting.  But many of the tools we have are from another era, including the digital ones.  Many, if not most film shooters today use a hybrid workflow, by scanning our film and editing the files in the same software we use for born-digital images.  

Adobe makes some of the most advanced computational photographic tools in the industry. They make the lives of digital photographers and retouchers easier every day.  However, those of us working in the hybrid workflow have largely been ignored.  This is understandable considering our relative footprint in the photographic industry.  However, with both Kodak and Ilford now releasing new films and increasing production, it's time to throw us a bone.

Some scanners have a tool called "Digital ICE" which finds and eliminates dust and scratches in C41 and E6 films automatically.  When well implemented, this is very effective.  However these scanners are very old, and most users do not have access to them.  Even if they do, you still don't have access to ICE when scanning B&W films.  High end scanners such as Imacon/Hasselblads, Drum Scanners, IQSmarts, don't have this feature at all so as to maximise scan quality.  What's more, the future of scanning for home users is largely going to be through camera capture, which also has no in-scan dust reduction.

I believe that Adobe should work to develop a tool which can be used in Photoshop, Lightroom (why not both?!) which can automatically find and eliminate dust and scratches on film scans.  I believe they have the base of knowledge to do this, and that with "content-aware" technology, dusting by hand should be a thing of the past.

Please sign my petition, and bring a 'healing brush' to my heart.

-Mark Sperry

Owner of Northeast Photographic