Re: Black and white negative scanning
Re: Black and white negative scanning
- Subject: Re: Black and white negative scanning
- From: Ludovico Fischer <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:19:41 +0100
You're saying it right, it's a craft. If I had to tweak every image, it
would be as time consuming as making prints. I'll pay attention to your
advice regarding dynamic range. What I think is the problem with the
flatbeds, is that they don't focus well. I am currently experimenting
with the heigth adjusters for the tansparent adapter to find the best
setting. About the AdobeRGB tagged images, they look a bit fishy to me.
I wonder if someone knows something about this. For example, If I open
an untagged grayscale image in Photoshop, what is assumed about its
profile?
Ludovico Fischer
On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 17:40 -0500, Chris Protopapas wrote:
> The big advantage of a drum scanner is the increased sensitivity to
> light, which helps a lot in scanning transparencies that have deep
> shadow detail. Negatives have a much more resrtricted dynamic range,
> which means you have a better chance on a flatbed to capture
> everything you need as compared to scanning a transparency. So a
> flatbed is not too bad in that respect. The key is to scan the
> negatives rather flat, but with the complete dynamic range as regards
> the end points. Get your black in the image as black as you gan
> without clipping, same for the highlights (ignoring specular
> highlights of course) and worry about the contrast in Photoshop. A bit
> of levels to fine tune the end points and to set the mid-tone, then
> curves to finish it off. It's a craft, like printing in the darkroom.
> If you find it's easier to scan as a positive, that's fine, inverting
> in Photoshop works well. If in RGB, you can sometimes get better
> results by assigning Colormatch RGB before inverting, rather than
> AdobeRGB. I'm not sure if you can assign an RGB profile (AdobeRGB) to
> a grayscale image.
>
>
> Chris Protopapas
> ************
> email@hidden
> Fuel Digital Inc.
> 902 Broadway, 11th Floor
> New York, NY 10010
> P 212-564-4646 F 212-564-2131
> www.fueldigitalinc.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 13, 2007, at 4:43 PM, Ludovico Fischer wrote:
>
> Yes I suspected as much regarding the usefulness a scanner profile in
> this case. What you say about the D-max sound very reasonable It seems
> not much work is being done in the area of black and white film
> scanning, it's becoming really an 'art' type market, I guess.
> Information is difficult to come by. Probably the biggest limitation
> quality-wise comes from using a flatbed, anyway. I still wonder what
> the
> effect of using AdobeRGB on a grayscale image is, though I can convert
> that to 20% dot grain.
>
>
> Ludovico Fischer
> On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 15:38 -0500, Chris Protopapas wrote:
> > Generally speaking it is impossible to profile negative scans. The
> > reasons are fairly simple: color management, the creation of
> > profiles,
> > needs a fixed target to work on. Transparencies and reflective art
> > fits that definition, but negatives generally do not. The negative,
> > whether B&W or color, is not the final image, but merely a means to
> > an
> > end. Negatives will often vary enormously in exposure and contrast.
> > This is much worse with color negatives, but B&W are subject to the
> > same variation. In the same fashion that a printer cannot be
> > successfully profiled if it is constantly drifting, negatives cannot
> > be profiled, except in an extremely loose way. For example, I use my
> > drum scanner's transparency setting to scan B&W negatives, and then
> > assign the transparency profile (in RGB) to yield a negative image
> > which can then be inverted to produce a positive image, but the role
> > of the scanner profile is not essential; it's just part of my
> > workflow. That has more to do with my 1997 drum scanner's software
> > being unable to easily produce a positive scan than anything else.
> > The
> > software for an Epson scanner should be able to produce decent B&W
> > scans. First set your black point in the DMax of the negative; that
> > will give you a black that cannot be lighter than anything in the
> > live
> > image. This is very important, but you will soon notice that
> > different
> > negatives will yield different results. This is because there is no
> > neccesary relationship between the unexposed film and the shadow
> > areas
> > of your image, unlike a properly exposed positive, where the DMax is
> > very close to a true black in the live image. A negative can be
> > overexposed, still be printable, but the shadow areas will have much
> > more exposure than the DMax. This is one reason why negatives cannot
> > be profiled; the black point is not consistent, and constistent
> > conditions are the pre-condition for color management. Diffrences in
> > processing, and different film stocks, will affect the contrast of
> > the
> > image differently, again making profiling impossible. That said,
> > scanning B&W negatives is easier than scanning color negatives,
> > where
> > there are even more variables. In reference to your other questions,
> > 16-bit is a good thing if your original scan is very flat, and you
> > need to do major work in Photoshop. As far as grayscale profiles, I
> > use 20% dot gain, but other profiles will work as well. It dosn't
> > hurt
> > to provide a tagged file to a printer.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Chris Protopapas
> > ************
> > email@hidden
> > Fuel Digital Inc.
> > 902 Broadway, 11th Floor
> > New York, NY 10010
> > P 212-564-4646 F 212-564-2131
> > www.fueldigitalinc.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Message: 14
> > Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:51:56 +0100
> > From: Ludovico Fischer <email@hidden>
> > Subject: Black and white negative scanning
> > To: ColorSync List <email@hidden>
> > Message-ID: <1194958316.5630.20.camel@gogo>
> > Content-Type: text/plain
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hello. I want to scan some black and white film negatives with a
> > epson
> > v700 flatbed, for archival purpose.I imagine it would be practical
> > to
> > scan them as 16 bit grayscale TIFF, as the files will be smaller and
> > there is no need for tinting or such effects. I am asking myself:
> > -is there a way to profile the scanner for such media? Given the
> > nature
> > of negatives, are there benefits in doing so? Is there a benefit,
> > for
> > example, in using a profile made with a IT8 target printed on
> > reversal
> > film ?
> > - What do I use as a working space profile? I've heard about
> > 'grayscale
> > icc profiles', but I can't find much information (except stuff
> > refering
> > to Photoshop 5). What are these? Or do I use a profile such as
> > AdobeRGB?
> > -same thing for final output. Is there a benefit in attaching an icc
> > profile to a grayscale image for viewing in color managed
> > applications?
> > Would that be a regular color profile or one of these 'grayscale
> > profiles'? And if I print such an image? Do the printers expect to
> > have
> > an icc profile with a grayscale image?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm sorry if the questions are really off the mark. Thank you,
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Ludovico Fischer
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > This email was scanned for viruses and spam by the Barracuda Spam
> > Firewall.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> This email was scanned for viruses and spam by the Barracuda Spam
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