Dmitri’s Thread
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Getting better Polaroid Reclaimed Blue scans (brighter highlights, Newton rings gone, and sharper image) by removing the transparent plastic layer.
Inspired by the recent In An Instant video (youtube.com/watch?v=DZxk1i…), I was playing around with my Reclaimed Blue (analog.cafe/r/polaroid-rec…) frames, trying to create a transparency.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. I tried making one out of a frame exposed 10 minutes before, which ended up having the emulsion and a lot of the white crumbly stuff stuck to the front of the frame. But the film that I exposed about two hours prior ended up splitting in a way that let me remove just the clear front plastic cleanly (to do this, I followed the technique described here: analog.cafe/r/polaroid-emu…)
I happened to have scanned the frame before opening it up and I made another scan with the clear plastic gone, which I then overlayed digitally to compare the results (attached). On the left is the scan with the plastic gone and on the right is the original frame.
Even on a crappy flatbed, I could see that the highlights were a lot clearer, there were obviously no Newton rings, and the dirt and scratches were gone (with the protective plastic). And I am sure the results would yield even better sharpness/resolution on a decent scanner as well.
Here’s a close-up of the Reclaimed Blue frame after having removed the transparent plastic layer (left) and before in its original shape (right).
You should see the darker, slightly purple highlights on the right where the plastic covered the emulsion. This artifact is eliminated after deconstructing the Polaroid frame (left):