"Would you consider sharing your film-to-digital workflow with us? I am keen to understand your process of scanning from b&w negs."
Very straightfoward.
Film: HP5. Developed in HC110B according to manufacturers instructions. Usually shot at ASA 400. I may want to try it in TMAX developer. I generally do two rolls at a time in a plastic patterson tank.
HC110, if you pour it into a couple of dark small air-tight bottles lasts forever (not diluted). If you are not using it as a "stock" solution, you are dealing with very small amounts: two rolls takes about 20 ml of the concentrate. I like it this way. I'm always using fresh concentrate.
I have a nice "Gravity Works" film washer. The whole thing is very low tech. I sit in the bathroom, in the dark - the various pieces are setup next to me on the edge of the bathtub. A couple of minutes loading film and then lights back on.
This is the only difficult part because the cat wants to come in and check things out so sometimes I need to spritz some water on Buddy to keep him out of my hair.
Cut into strips. I can make a very quick contact sheet for the screen, i.e. at 96 dpi with my Epson 1600 flatbed and go through them on the PC in Photoshop marking the ones that look interesting.
Scanned with the Dimage 5400 at 16-bit, 2x passes, auto-focus on, resolution for output is 240 dpi.
If the negative has been developed / exposed properly, there isn't much post-processing in PS at all. Maybe a levels adjustment or maybe a touch of soft-blending. Any retouching is done on the full-sized image.
Sized down to print size. (As Markus suggests, it's best to do this in steps).
If the negative is thin or there's some effect I'm looking for - then I may sit and work it over in Photoshop. My guess is that is about 10% of the time with a difficult negative. These are usually the same negatives that I had trouble printing in the darkroom. When I say trouble, I just mean there was a substantial amount of dodging and burning. This is of course much easier in Photoshop and once you have the file saved away - you don't need to do it for each print.
The finished "production" files are saved in one or two places.
It really isn't very complicated so long as you are starting with a "good" negative.
7 comments:
Thanks for sharing this. Last weekend I purchased the Epson RX700 and I have started scanning my 10+year old negs (tmax 100/400/3200) at "original" neg size and at 3200dpi. I then tweak in P/S CS2 and resize the inital scan to print size at 300dpi.
What I am confused about is the initial scan size. (What do you do)?
Do you think it's better to scan at a approx print size and then fine tune or as my above method?
I am very new to the "digital" world an would appreciate any comments.
Regards
scanning with the highest resolution gives the best detail
in the initial scan. When you resize to print size, it's a good
idea to do this in multiple steps (say, 25% at a time and
apply slight sharpening between these steps)
P.S. I use a changing bag to load my film in the tank and
sit in my chair in my 'office'
I also read somewhere that if you are sizing down it is better to use bicubic sharper and if you are sizing up, bicubic smoother - or was it the other way around? Don't remember.
Dave, you'll see a lot of advice on the web to use "bicubic sharper" when downsizing. But the problem with this is that PS applies sharpening over which you have zero control. It varies by photo, but with some you'll get much better results by using regular bicubic so that YOU control all sharpening later.
Also, I've experimented with the step by step resizing going 10% each pass. Personally, I've never been able to see a difference in the results over doing it in one pass...either upsizing or downsizing. I work mostly in color so that may make a difference?
I even paid for a PS plugin that did the resizing in steps and could see no advantage.
YMMV. But if you try doing it both ways and are happy with the one-step results, you're done.
I haven't tried both ways: just one pass normal bicubic for downsizing. I really haven't done much upsizing. But either way I haven't run into anything that I would call artifacts.
Ah, upsizing...that's what I bought a Minolta 5400 to obviate the need for.
Before getting the 5400, I experimented with Fred Miranda's PS plug-in for "stairstep interpolation". I can't say I saw a significant difference, but this was used largely on color work; I suspect b/w would reveal a bit more of the jiggery-pokery in this maneuver. Of course, the best interpolation is none, and for the last two years I've had the luxury of not having to deal with it.
And, since it appears that I'm going to be a member of the "4800 Club", all that scanner resolution is going to get a serious workout. (Has anyone else regarded the near-simultaneous release of the Minolta 5400 scanner and Epson 4000 printer a few years back as a bit more than mere coincidence?)
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