I'm going to be creating digital negs by first scanning 4x5 delta 100. Could anybody give me any tips on the best way to expose and develop the sheet film prior to scanning. Is there anything I need to know or should it just be devloped as standard? I've just begun playing round with expansion and contraction of negs through development before getting on the road of pt/pd printing and have been happy with what I'm getting. Should I just go with my gut and develop them how I think will best suit the scene if I were to print in normal silver black and white and worry about making adjustments later? :confused:
I'm going to be creating digital negs by first scanning 4x5 delta 100. Could anybody give me any tips on the best way to expose and develop the sheet film prior to scanning. Is there anything I need to know or should it just be devloped as standard? I've just begun playing round with expansion and contraction of negs through development before getting on the road of pt/pd printing and have been happy with what I'm getting. Should I just go with my gut and develop them how I think will best suit the scene if I were to print in normal silver black and white and worry about making adjustments later? :confused:
Generally speaking if your negatives print easily on a grade 2 paper then you should have no problem scanning your negatives. I beleive Sandy King has made some tests that suggest a contrast index of about .5 (or possibly a little lower, I can't recall his exact figure but it's in that neighgorhood) is a good target to shoot for if you need to put a number on it.
If you are ever going to print the film in the darkroom, then what Don Bryant said.
If you are only going to scan, and never print in the darkroom, you can optimize for scanning. You do that by decreasing development a bit to make a less dense negative. You'll have to play with it some to get it right for your scanner and your workflow, but start somewhere around N-1 maybe.
The reason this works is Callier Effect. Callier Effect is the light scattering from the metallic silver. Callier Effect is directly proportional to density. More silver, more reflections. So to lessen Callier Effect in the highlights (dense areas) you decrease development time and therefore highlight density. This has the nice side effect of reducing graininess also since graininess is directly related to density too.
Last edited by Bruce Watson; 01-06-2009 at 05:47 PM.
Reason: too late in the day -- can't type anymore
I would say to develop your negs as Don said, for Grade 2 - 2 1/2.
You never know what you'll be doing in the future. I started off with scanning less dense negs, and now I have a lot of negs that are very hard to print in silver, now that I have a darkroom. Fortunately, I can scan those older negs, get more contrast in PS, apply a curve and print a neg for pt/pd or any other process in QTR.
I'm looking forward to trying Ron's silver gelatin QTR profile with these flatter negs as well. Film to digital to digital neg to fiber paper...!
I would disagree with this. If one wants to be able to do work in the darkroom, then one is stuck with that. However, I believe the best scanning neg is twice as dense as the darkroom neg. Top end is at roughly 2.0 vs 1.0 in transmission density. I had been making negs like this for printing in platinum and I found that the same negs scanned wonderfully (I have a drum scanner).
I have great respect for both Don and Bruce's opinions but my experience varies on this one.
I would disagree with this. If one wants to be able to do work in the darkroom, then one is stuck with that. However, I believe the best scanning neg is twice as dense as the darkroom neg. Top end is at roughly 2.0 vs 1.0 in transmission density. I had been making negs like this for printing in platinum and I found that the same negs scanned wonderfully (I have a drum scanner).
I have great respect for both Don and Bruce's opinions but my experience varies on this one.
Lenny
EigerStudios
I'm not saying Mr. Eiger is wrong. Different films, developers, workflows, scanners and software give different results. I've run experiments with 5x4 Tri-X where I ran my Dmax from around 1.0 up to around 3.0. Since I'm also drum scanning, it wasn't difficult to scan any of these. But the results varied quite a bit.
The problem is two fold I think. First, graininess is directly related to density. The more density you build, the more graininess you build, because it's the creating and overlapping of the silver that gives you the grain clumps that form the density. The physics is the physics; it's just how it works. If you are using really fine grained film, or you aren't going for big enlargements, perhaps this isn't such a big deal.
The second thing is Callier Effect. Callier Effect is also directly related to density, for the same reason. The more silver, the more light scatter. What this means to scanning is a decrease in local contrast in the most dense areas -- that is, highlight compression. One can compensate for this with a curve in Photoshop. To some degree anyway. And this, I think, is a big deal. It's a big deal to anyone scanning or enlarging in the darkroom. This is why the darkroom guys preach "only as much density as you need to print easily and no more." It applies to scanning too.
There is a third problem and that is that some films will start to show artifacts if "abused" the way I was abusing Tri-X for awhile. I was seeing "density halos" which looked sort of like ripples in a pond. They formed dense areas of the film that were adjacent to thin areas of the film. Perhaps a developer exhaustion problem, perhaps a development products problem. Since I was using continuous agitation (Jobo CPP-2, 3010 tank) I was surprised either way. And I'm sure that some films will do this and others won't. I'm just sayin'...
Once I got a handle on what the heck was actually going on with the film, particularly Callier Effect, I started testing film going the other way -- thinner than normal. What I found with Tri-X, and have repeated with TMY-2, is that less density is good for scanning. Especially with TMY-2, graininess drops to just about invisible at an 11x enlargement level (normal for my personal work, sufficient for a nice big 125 x 100 cm print). More importantly, I no longer have to do any decompression of my highlights in Photoshop, because at lower densities Callier Effect is much less noticeable.
Clearly, you have to optimize for your film (which will undoubtedly vary widely in how it responds), your developer, your workflow, your scanner and software, etc. This will require anyone who does it to personally do the testing. Just like doing Zone System testing to find your personal EI and "N +/-" development times. Gotta do the testing to know what works for you.
And just as clearly, if you are *ever* going to try to print in the darkroom, *only* optimize for the darkroom. It will scan just fine. You'll just make yourself miserable if you optimize for scanning then try to print in the darkroom.
ICallier Effect is also directly related to density, for the same reason. The more silver, the more light scatter. What this means to scanning is a decrease in local contrast in the most dense areas -- that is, highlight compression. One can compensate for this with a curve in Photoshop. To some degree anyway. And this, I think, is a big deal. It's a big deal to anyone scanning or enlarging in the darkroom. This is why the darkroom guys preach "only as much density as you need to print easily and no more." It applies to scanning too.
I wonder how dependent this is on film? My film scanner is an Epson 3200 and my main black and white film is ADOX sheets. I just can't get it to be so dense as to fully occupy my scanner's range (in the dark area)
for example, this is a fully black sheet scanned.
yet even when photographing a lamp (including the bulb) I don't get that level of density.
however, when thinking about this (and writing this responce) I wonder if when I look at this in detail (below)
I have to ask if this 'luminesent glow' is the callier effect? If so then it suits this image but may be detracting for others. So perhaps some pulling of development is still warranted for the optimum on some scenes?
The problem as I see it then is that without access to a scanner which allows you to optimise the transmitted light levels along its optimum response scale you are getting an inferior result (like my epson).
and then created something at the same size.... as a comparison. It is just a test image, but prints beautifully. The little black square in the front of the image at mid bottom is the crop for the thing on the right, blown up to 100%.
It isn't very useful. On the film it's less than 1/4 of an inch (.17) , which would mean to print it at 4 inches tall would be a 16x enlargement, and that would be what it looks like at 13 feet or so... I think I have these numbers right...
So I added another image at the right which is what things would look like at 40 inches from this neg. I have to use a jpeg level of 8 or 9 (out of 100) so don't expect too much. There is a lot more there.
However, I see two things. 1) You and I likely print very differently. I don't want the kind of contrast you show here. This means that we likely have very different approaches to printing. That's an observation, not a value statement. 2) I think some of the grain contrast is the result of Phenidone. It's why I am still using Metol. Doing some tests this week and more on that later...
Film is Efke 25 and developer is D-23. Afternoon sunlight. I don't know if this post clarifies anything... but there it is...
Yep. This is why I said "I'm not saying Mr. Eiger is wrong. Different films, developers, workflows, scanners and software give different results."
I realize we are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Nothing wrong with that. But I can only report on my testing with the film, developer, etc. that I use because that's all I've tested. So again, I'm not saying you are wrong. Not at all. I'm just saying what I've found.
TMY-2 is about as different from Efke 25 as films can be. My developer of choice is XTOL by the way. I use it at 1:3, in a Jobo CPP-2 and a 3010 tank.
I wonder how dependent this is on film? My film scanner is an Epson 3200 and my main black and white film is ADOX sheets. I just can't get it to be so dense as to fully occupy my scanner's range (in the dark area)
for example, this is a fully black sheet scanned.
Different films develop density in different ways. You'll never get a fully black sheet to fully occupy a scanner's full range. The histogram you show is about all you'll ever likely get.
Originally Posted by pellicle
yet even when photographing a lamp (including the bulb) I don't get that level of density.
You can if you develop long enough. Cook that film!
Originally Posted by pellicle
I have to ask if this 'luminesent glow' is the callier effect? If so then it suits this image but may be detracting for others. So perhaps some pulling of development is still warranted for the optimum on some scenes?
The problem as I see it then is that without access to a scanner which allows you to optimise the transmitted light levels along its optimum response scale you are getting an inferior result (like my epson).
I don't know how to answer that question. The glow you see there is I suspect mostly flare of one type or another. There is some Callier Effect, but I have no idea how much. Light sources are hard to quantify.
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