converting old negatives to digital

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
I think you can make a case that this is *more* accurate than the result
produced by manual retouching of a dirty scan. Would you care to have
an opinion on that?

It's more accurate if the person scanning the negatives never saw the
original. If the person scanning the negatives has a good memory of
the original scene (highly unlikely, but possible), they may be able
to produce a more accurate result.

In general, I think you are correct. However, more accurate is not
accurate, it's just better than a black (or white) spot in the middle
of the picture.

Accuracy is often not what people want anyway. People prefer more
saturated colors, higher contrast, etc. My HP scanner came with a
software option for "better". Yes, the scans sure looked better,
especialy on the screen, but they were far from accurate.

A few years ago, when I followed those things, the number one complaint
about Vuescan from first time users was that the results were so "washed
out". They were used to the colors "improved" by software.


Obviously it's best to dust off your negs first, take the trouble to
clean them if they have oily fingerprints and such. But when that stuff
has been dealt with, and we're down to stuff embedded in the emulsion,
scratches, and stuff, I'm a big fan of ICE. If it leads one to be
careless in cleaning, then you're certainly harming your quality.


That's for sure. It all comes down to how much time you are willing to
spend getting good results from your negatives. While digital processing
is a far cheaper than making trial prints on paper in a darkroom, good
results need skill and effort. Excellent results need far more of each.

Geoff.

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