Re: Scanning b&w negatives
Re: Scanning b&w negatives
- Subject: Re: Scanning b&w negatives
- From: MSP Graphics <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:15:27 -0800
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
Hi Ludovico,
I wouldn't bother with the approach just suggested. I don't need to
speculate on this as I've scanned thousands of negatives, both on
flatbeds and drum scanners. Profiles are of limited value here
because negatives vary too much in density and contrast to make
profiling the scanner practical. Besides, the only thing you could
really "profile" is density range and contrast, or gamma, and that
always gets heavily readjusted anyway. In general, the approach is to
set the scanner's range wide enough to record both ends of the tonal
scale, and the gamma to somewhere between 2.2 and 2.8 (experiment
with this because this may be defined differently in different
drivers) and scan as a positive. In Photoshop, convert the scan to
Gray Gamma 2.2, invert and begin adjusting the contrast in Levels and
fine-tune in Curves. Your image is now tagged, so further conversions
will have a basis. I know this seems a casual approach, but keep in
mind that it doesn't matter so much how you start out so long as you
don't clip either shadows or highlights and the image does get tagged
before editing and converting. Also keep in mind that low-end
scanners like the Epsons have no way to alter the analog signal
before digitizing, so there's not much point in narrowing your
density range in the driver as opposed to doing so in Photoshop's
Levels later on. All this said, it does take a lot of finesse to
produce beautiful grayscale scans from negs, so start practicing.
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