[NT73]

The funereal head mask of King Tutankhamun made of beaten solid gold with carnelian and turquoise decorative bits.
Now if I have remembered correctly the head mask was on the mummy and both placed in another gold complete body cover, very similar in ornamentation, and then placed in to the sarcophagus and then into three separate wooden boxes. Rather like a complicated russian doll.

Taken from National Geographic . >>
The layered treasures included four nested boxes, or shrines, of gilded wood, then three mummy-shaped coffins—two gilded and one of solid gold—all inside a red quartzite sarcophagus. At the center rested Tut himself, with a stunning mask of gold covering his head and shoulders.< <
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A photo I took with a Minolta underwater camera around 96', on 35 mm free cheapo slide film (possibly Max Spielman)
Darkish room with a bit of daylight coming from a side window. (No preview like today. ) Oh! and a crowd shoving you around some of the time.

Scanned with a £100 Plustek slide scanner and Silverfast software saved to TIff.
Selective 'De-speckling' and 'Dust and Scratches' filter in Photoshop and a bit of added saturation. ' Resized for Web' and saved as a jpeg.
I removed the black bit and two little white bits (down at the bottom) the other night and then could not post it? So going back to the original they are still on.
That apart, was it worth the effort?

[Zig]

( Pah... I just wrote a whole workflow out for a tweak, and the bally thing didn't save!)
Anyway...yes, very much worth the effort! Really nice for a slide too, as you've retained a lot of detail here.

I did waffle on about making a duplicate layer, saturating one and playing with Shadows/Highlights menu in the other in PS....then resizing yourself in the Image tab(long side of 700 to 780) rather than letting PS do it, so you have more control, adding a tad of smart sharpen to the final image before going to Mode>8bit and saving as a level 8 or 9 jpeg again...I've just covered it again in this sentence.
I've included the below as an example of my blather and hope it's a help nt...

Ooops...o bother: I forgot to tweak the gamma..my aplogies...but it still conveys the idea and effect of the Shadows/Highlights tab and a little localised dodging of highlights...really hoping I've not knackered it too much...!

[Toad]

Hi NT:

Its a nice photo, and I appreciate your providing a workflow as I always struggle a bit with scanning slides (particularly now as there are no good decent Vista 64 drivers available for my Epson scanner - oh how I hate Vista).

I realize that there is very little that can be done about it, but I feel the reflections and also the people that you see *though* the glass really hurt this photo unfortunately - particularly the guy with the blue shirt on the left. Sometimes in the past, I have spent hours removing reflections via a combination of cloning, dodging, and burning. These days, it would have to be a pretty amazing photograph before I would go to that effort. It might be worthwhile to cut out all of the background and replace it with black or some other solid color. That would make it much easier to minimize the reflections from the mask itself. I realize that this is a ton of work, however, and if you don't believe in modifying photos to that extent - or aren't comfortable with doing it, there isn't much that can be done.

Other than those pesky reflections, the only critique that I would have is that the focal point (the mask's eyes) is dead center. Cropping a bit off the top (as Zig has done) would improve the composition.

best
T

[NT73]

Thanks Zig for the comments and no you haven't knackered it. I was trying to convey the darkness a bit in the room where it was.
The resizing I did manually through image size, just save to web was what I meant, and yes it should be straightened and cropped. For sharpening I use 'Unsharp mask'
I will have to try with layers. I never remember to, and as long as I don't save the PS version I don't lose the original. I take on board all info, wether applicable to me or others. You can never stop learning.

[NT73]

Mr Toad. Thanks for the comments also.
The reflected man is stood in front and to the side of me. I was tossing up wether to crop the top, but left the full scan as it was. To clone the B/G to black is pointless as there are numerous version on the net, and I am not in competition with them, but I get your point.
And re - the drivers for scanners have you checked recently. My model was unsupported a year or so back (bought when I had a XP PC) but a driver appeared for Vista and ...well it saved me £250-300 for a new model scanner.

The only amazing thing is, on my first visit to Cairo Museum I left in an ambulance and never got to see anything on the second floor, apart from the ceiling from a stretcher .
A touch of King Tut's curse.

[Zig]

Goodness my man..an ambulance? :o

[nia]

This was excellent photograph, dear NT, but by learning from you, my dear master, what about the horizon scope I hope you don't mind what I did!



Actually, I hate to take something's pictures behind the glass, especially in museum or somewhere else. There is always a reflection or someone behind the glass... A few weeks ago I was in Istanbul Forum Aquarium, offf, how difficult to take pictures of the fishes... I remembered this now.

Thank you dear NT,
with my love,
nia

[NT73]

The guard (with the gun) would not let me take it out of the case to photograph. I told him it would get reflections and it would not be straight, but no.

[nia]

The guard (with the gun) would not let me take it out of the case to photograph. I told him it would get reflections and it would not be straight, but no.

The guard with the gun!

[matthew]

Some disjointed thoughts:

These are tough conditions with a by-today's-standards inadequate camera, which dictates the possible results. This is a good photo as a personal memento, which seems to be its main purpose. (As if you need something to remind you of armed guards and ambulance rides!)

The cropping and straightening helps very much, which is always mandatory with scanned film. (After all, you can spend all the time you like with laser levels and thousand-pound tripods, but if it goes into the scanner crooked, what are you going to do?) I approve of the centred taking as it allows some of the empty top to be cropped out, giving a more pleasing aspect ratio, improving the finished composition, and maintaing a natural perspective. That is what you were thinking when you composed it that way, right?

Reflections in glass are miserable. I should carry a polarizer, but don't. My usual solution is to take a different picture, perhaps one that plays off the contrast of the setting, but sometimes square-on and documentary is the way it needs to be.

I use software called "Vuescan", which runs just about any scanner ever made and gets updates almost weekly. Always getting to download new copies is one of my biggest sources of entertainment in the whole scanning process. Slim competition, I know, but joy is where you find it.

[nia]

Some disjointed thoughts:

These are tough conditions with a by-today's-standards inadequate camera, which dictates the possible results. This is a good photo as a personal memento, which seems to be its main purpose. (As if you need something to remind you of armed guards and ambulance rides!)

The cropping and straightening helps very much, which is always mandatory with scanned film. (After all, you can spend all the time you like with laser levels and thousand-pound tripods, but if it goes into the scanner crooked, what are you going to do?) I approve of the centred taking as it allows some of the empty top to be cropped out, giving a more pleasing aspect ratio, improving the finished composition, and maintaing a natural perspective. That is what you were thinking when you composed it that way, right?

Reflections in glass are miserable. I should carry a polarizer, but don't. My usual solution is to take a different picture, perhaps one that plays off the contrast of the setting, but sometimes square-on and documentary is the way it needs to be.

I use software called "Vuescan", which runs just about any scanner ever made and gets updates almost weekly. Always getting to download new copies is one of my biggest sources of entertainment in the whole scanning process. Slim competition, I know, but joy is where you find it.

"Vuescan", is it like Photoshop, dear Matthew? I haven't known this program, and also

"Reflections in glass are miserable. I should carry a polarizer, but don't. My usual solution is to take a different picture, perhaps one that plays off the contrast of the setting, but sometimes square-on and documentary is the way it needs to be." I think I understand what you mean here, but if you see my aquarium photos, I got difficulties by taking pictures, but this is different from this glass. Anyway, thank you for all these points, I noticed them all,

have a nice weekend,
with my love,
nia

[NT73]

Vuescan as far as I am aware is a software program for scanning, as is Silverfast which came free to me with the scanner. (There is a paid version with more extras) I have heard the Vuescan is preferred to Silverfast having a simpler interface. If you learn how to use one or the other, there should be no problem.
You can't use vuescan without a scanner as far as I am aware.

But like the 'Gimp' and 'Photoshop' (which are editing programs), if you have taken the time to get to know all the workings then either probably will do the job.
I had one of the first versions of Photoshop Elements, which I was still learning how to use, when I changed PC to Apple and I then acquired CS. So I had a head start. :/ There is so much buried in it.