[pure-silver] Re: holga focus and how do you scan a negative properly
- From: "Dana H. Myers" <dana.myers@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:47:26 -0800
B P wrote:
All of you have helped me tremendously. Thank you! I will work to get a
better scanned negative. My scanner has digital ice and is made to scan
negatives so it should work properly once I learn to use it more
efficiently, I guess.
Straying a little from *pure* silver for a moment... since you
asked about scanning a negative properly :-)
Digital ICE is useless on conventional B&W negs - it's only useful
on dye-base negs (color, chromogenic). You really want to have a clean
B&W neg in your scanner.
I've fallen into the habit of cleaning negs directly before scanning
with Edwal Anti-Stat cleaner, though PEC 12 might be better. Some
folks complain of residue from the Edwal Anti-Stat, I've never had a
problem with it. PEC-12 doesn't have anti-stat, and that's apparently
the difference.
I scan using a Nikon LS-9000, and it's really quite outstanding with
a bit of a learning curve. Even though the LS-9000 offers "only"
4000 dpi scans, it actually has an optical resolution close to that.
(The much less expensive Epson 4490 flatbed offers 4800 dpi scans, but
the actual optical resolution is probably about half of that.) One
other really useful feature of the LS-9000 is the ability to vary
the analog gain of the sensor, which is especially useful for
taming very dense negs.
120 film is placed in a Nikon glass carrier, 35mm in the normal
Nikon carrier. Scanned at 4000dpi, taking care to preserve the
range of the neg and 16-bit scans. After scanning, adjustments
are made in PhotoShop Elements, where I particularly like the
easy.Filter curves plug-in and the FocusMagic plug-in, which I
use at very low-levels of sharpening, just enough to bring up
the film grain to about the same level as when looking in a
grain focuser under an enlarger.
That's how I scan negs. My goal in scanning is to accurately
preserve the "silverness" of the neg, in terms of the grain
and tone structure. While there are a few differences, it's
really true that the things you do to create a good negative
apply whether you're printing in an enlarger or scanning - the
quality of the original capture determines the outcome.
The one difference between printing and scanning I've found is
that negs with slightly less exposure and slightly less development
tend to scan better; think of the difference between diffusion
and condensor enlargers when it comes to development. This might
be influenced by my use of the LS-9000, which has a very sharp
light source; a flat-bed scanner may be more like a diffusion
enlarger.
My output is from an Epson R2400 printer in Advanced B&W mode,
profiles created in ABW mode using ColorVision PrintFIX PRO, papers
include Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster, which has a surface
much the old Kodak E-surface that I admit I love, and the current
crop of high-end fiber-base papers, all of which are very good, though
I think I like Harman Gloss FB Al the most; it's certainly the sharpest,
but still isn't quite the same as the Multigrade FB papers I used to
love.
Now I've strayed too far from silver, I'm sure :-)
Dana
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