Enlarging from negatives versus print

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 02:33:56 GMT, "MikeWhy"
wrote:

"Raphael Bustin" wrote in message
.. .
It is ludicrously easy to expose negatives properly in
the first place, given their huge lattitude. And easy to
scan also, since the density range on the film is
lower than for chromes, by an order of magnitude.

Yah, but what does an order of magnitude amount to on a log-scale?


1

rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

Quoth Raphael Bustin :
| On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 06:00:18 -0000, "Donn Cave"
| wrote:
.....
| Some percentage of my color negatives basically will not scan.
| Entirely my fault, apparently, they seem to be overexposed and
| color shifts in the highlights, but in some cases I believe the
| proofs if I can dig them up were not as bad - like RA4 has a
| much narrower range than a scanner, so doesn't see the problem.
|
| Anyway, for thinner negatives the negative is a much better bet
| than the print, my point is just that in some cases the print
| may be the only way.
|
|
| This runs entirely contrary to my five or six years of
| film scanning -- mostly from negatives, on a variety
| of film scanners.
|
| It is ludicrously easy to expose negatives properly in
| the first place, given their huge lattitude. And easy to
| scan also, since the density range on the film is
| lower than for chromes, by an order of magnitude.
|
| I've used film scanners ranging from a Microtek 35 to
| a SprintScan Plus, to Nikon LS-8000 and Epson 1640.
| No problems ever getting negatives to "scan right."
| (I'll soon be scanning LF negs on a Microtek 2500.)

That will be somewhat similar to what I'm doing, given
that my Duoscan HiD is supposed to be Artixscan 1100
hardware.

Unless you're going to take responsibility for my scans,
or the original poster's, I guess I don't care what your
experience has been. The example wasn't hypothetical,
I have the negatives, the prints and the scans, and the
prints in a small but significant percentage are so much
better that if I really needed a scan, I'd go back and
scan the print.

It isn't for lack of trying, I've fiddled with white
points and curves and whatever controls I have. I
posted a lengthy message about it in comp.periphs.scanners,
no takers. The scanner works OK, for the most part,
but it really loses with these particular negatives.
Therefore, if someone came to me and said `I have a
bunch of negatives and prints, so which should I scan?'
I would have to tell them to try the negative first,
but if it sucks, then try the print. I have proof.

And in my case this isn't a professional print vs.
amateur scan, either. I did most of the printing,
in my bathroom with Ilford color filters over a
12V halogen outdoor light in a cardboard box (contact
prints, of course.) I'm not a patient man, I try a
couple times and settle for something close, and
they're not all fabulous prints. But they're reasonable,
and the scans are hopeless. I have already alluded to
the reason why a fancy high DMAX scanner might leave
you with some problems that you don't have with RA4
paper. In theory, perhaps that can be corrected with
software, but of course the scan start to lose bits
as you apply these corrections, while the paper doesn't.

Donn Cave