curb and glare

This is an old film shot I just scanned. As I start developing film, I'm comparing density with my old negs. I'm still off a bit with the new rolls. The funniest thing - after going back to film, is this powerful desire to click a button on the back of the camera and see the image. Where is that button? On the other hand, I don't find myself trying to change film speeds... or white balance...

Podcast

My neighbor keeps insisting that Podcasting is the "wave of the future" and that I should start a Podcast. I can just imagine it:

Podcast: Today we're going to discuss film development. There are two important factors in film development: temperature, agitation, and timing -

Three things that are important --

Okay - that's Monty Python adapted to Film Development.

What I could do is Podcast the blog. Find something that translates text into a voice and put it up for you to download and enjoy while you're stuck in traffic.

Are there machines yet that can pronounce (without sounding computerish) text? What do they do when they run into words that aren't in their database? Change them to what they suggest?

"Dear Listeners,
Today we're going to talk about Poe Casings. Poe Casings began a few years ago with the popularity of the eye pod.. "

Or does it stop and ask what word you meant? How does it pronounce "tomato?"

35mm film to 4800 output

"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.