Giving up on developing and scanning

that is someone we know from Corfu, it was some prints for the boy's parents and grandparents.

it had little going for it, on the hols I have to do colour so; Fuji 400 superia+ through a 75 Helier or 90 Elmar, scanned as a .tiff with a KM 5400 MKII then sorted out in Photoshop, then printed on a Agfa dLab2 on Fuji paper, not that that counts here.

I should have dogged a bit round Christos's back

"diminishing returns here?" ... don't understand

Could it be marginally better as a wet print, maybe, but maybe not.
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not printed by me, haven't got the time

I sure would be happy if it was mine.
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one can always do better, don't think I have ever been happy with anything I do
 
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Sparrow said:
agreed "good enough" is ... well, good enough.

address the weakest link in chain, that cheap film off the internet is just, well, cheap film, it doesn't matter how good the lens was, it's on cheap film, cheap scanner gives a cheap scans ..... and so on
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Dear Stewart,

Beautifully summarized.

Cheers,

R.
 
imokruok said:
Would be curious to know which scanner you were using. I have a 4490 and am considering upgrading to a V700 if the difference will be noticeable and substantial.
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Epson Perfection 1680 with transparency unit and Firewire.

The second photo of Gruene Hall was made with a Pentax 6x7, SMC 45mm/4.0, HP5+, Xtol 1:3.
 
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Grinning. I owe it all to Ken Lee. The scanner came with SilverFast 5. The kind folks at SliverFast made a most generous offer to upgrade to the current verion. $50 off the $400 price. That's when I learned how to use Epson Scan. Ken's instructions were very helpful.
 
Keith said:
Well ... with the alternatives being 'SilverFart' or 'VueScam' I'm not surprised! :D
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View Scam? Hamrick has given me free upgrades for going on six years, keeping my Polaroid 4000 working through many OS changes.

That is not a scam. It is one hell of a service to the community.
 
FrankS said:
IMO, in order to achieve the full potential of film, one has to use traditional darkroom printing methods. This takes some skill. Just as scanning/post processing does in the digital realm. If one does not have either of these abilities in adequate amounts, and one lacks the perseverance or potential to develop these skills, then pursuing an alternate process is understandable. My point is that the fault lies in you, rather than a process you are not be successful with. Sorry, that may be harsh, but it is the way it is, IMO.
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I have to side with Frank here: whether "going all the way" via wet printing, or digitally scanning and printing, if your aim is quality, there are no half-measures. Digital is "easier" in the sense of not having to muck about with chemicals and the like, but the effort toward a good (never mind great) print is still arduous. If anything, digital black-and-white, IMO, is actually harder, because of all the confusion at the moment in terms of print quality: the accepted wisdom is that the best digital print output is on matte paper, because too many systems for output on glossy or semi-gloss/semi-matte paper are riddled with undesired artifacts such as metamerism, gloss differential and bronzing. I found my own solution, sort of (actually, not something of my own making, but HP's, when they released the Photosmart 8750, the big sister of the earlier 7960). As far as digital b&w printing is concerned, particularly on glossy or semi-gloss paper, this system has yet to be surpassed, and I'm dumbfounded as to why. (I even bought a second 8750 last year to keep as a spare.)

As far as scanning film goes, you have to go for the best quality you can afford. I've always dealt in dedicated (35mm) film scanners from the get-go, starting with a used Nikon LS-10 in 1998, and currently use a Minolta DS 5400 I bought new in 1994. I couldn't stretch to an Imacon, but I think my setup comes damned close, and the printed output seems to bear this out. But, ultimately, it's not the stuff you have–whether you can afford it or not–but knowing how to work the stuff to its optimum, or at least close. I've sometimes wishtd I could have the fancier toys, and sooner, but if I could have, I might not have forced myself to make better use of what I had at hand at the moment.

I want to say "Don't give up", but that call's up to you. I can only say the my film scanner is almost as vital a tool as my camers and the film I load into them, and this "system" is still the best way to get my ideas across in photographic form. And, yet, as always, everyone needs to find, and take, their own path.


- Barrett
 
semilog said:
View Scam? Hamrick has given me free upgrades for going on six years, keeping my Polaroid 4000 working through many OS changes.

That is not a scam. It is one hell of a service to the community.
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Word. Hamrick's my co-pilot.


- Barrett
 
Let it be said that I am not in any way saying anything bad about scanning software. I use Epson Scan. That's all. I have never used anything else with the Epson scanner.

I would dearly love to be wet printing. However, I am space and plumbing and darkroom deficient. In the meantime, my hybrid workflow is better than no workflow.
 
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amateriat said:
... the accepted wisdom is that the best digital print output is on matte paper, because too many systems for output on glossy or semi-gloss/semi-matte paper are riddled with undesired artifacts such as metamerism, gloss differential and bronzing. - Barrett
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Accepted wisdom? I believe that you would find that to be untrue if you had a chance to see the results of prints made with baryta papers like Ilford Gold Fibre Silk. I'm not sure if the 8750 uses pigment inks, but my B9180 does, and I find the results when printing on baryta papers to be sensational. No bronzing, no metamerism...very nice.

Cheers...

Rem
 
Accepted wisdom? I believe that you would find that to be untrue if you had a chance to see the results of prints made with baryta papers like Ilford Gold Fibre Silk.
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This is one off my favorite papers, prints on this are stunning!

I agree with everything thats been said about learning the workflow and getting the best out off what you’ve got.

I also use Epson’s scanner software, tried Vuescan and Silverfast but found that the Epson does the job for me.
 
mgd711 said:
This is one off my favorite papers, prints on this are stunning!
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Agree!

I've tried a number of different papers with my Epson R1900 to see which gave the best results for B&W prints and Fibre Gold Silk and Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta have given me the best results by far.
JMO I think when printing B&W with a single B&W ink printer like the R1900 that the choice of paper plays a much more important role in getting the best possible results the it might when printing B&W using a multiple black ink printer like the 2880 or 3800.
 
Remegius:
I was close to giving up scanning BW film as well.
What saved the day was http://www.kenrockwell.com/minolta/mp.htm plus a diffuser screen from http://www.scanhancer.com/. The diffuser appears make all the difference for BW film. Use it for 6x6 film, and for 35mm when I want to print the entire film to show perforations and film type. Expect 3200 dpi max (the native resolution) for serious quality. Lens used for 6x6 the sharpest. Grain looks quite close to the ones that comes out of the analog process. Only available second hand by now, at around 1400 dollars. For 35mm, the Minolta Dimage 5400 has the diffuser screen built in. Again second hand only at around 350 dollars. It claims 5400 dpi, but expect no more than 4800. Lens limitations. Seems that to avoid aliases and other grain problems you have to scan at full resolution and reduce size as required afterwards.
With SilverFast software you can speed up scanning by just scanning once and for all to record the absolute values of the film density for each pixel. The corrections are done in Photoshop afterwards.
 
Could you gentlemen clarify what you mean by "metamerism"?
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A quick and dirty explanation is that your prints colours appear to change depending upon the light source you are viewing them under. A print viewed under fluorescent light will look different when viewed under a different light source.

The Wiki link here
 
archeophoto said:
The ugly truth is: If you want to participate in the world of photography these days you "have to suck it up" and scan them in - high standards or not.
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That's ugly, but far from being the truth :)

You can still shoot, develop, and print film, the normal way. In fact, for me and apparently quite a few people in this forum, it's still the preferred way to get a satisfying B&W print.
 
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