Contact Sheets: Yea or Nea?

[giganova]

For years I have developed my films, cut them into strips, put them on my light table, looked at them with a loupe and selected a few shots that I decided to scan.

But yesterday I snapped a picture of an entire film on my light table with my iPhone, transferred it to my Mac with Airdrop, opened it in Photoshop, inverted the picture and looked at it. To my surprise, I saw a few good pictures that I would have missed by only looking at the negatives. From now on, this will be my standard workflow because looking at an entire film as a positive is a great way of judging whether some of the photo are good. I night actually make a printout of that contact sheet and file it with my negatives after I put them in a sleeve.

Do you do something similar?

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I have tried original CS and digital CS. It didn't worked for me. Someone, somewhere wrote what it will really stand out on the negative. It does...

 

[Hatchetman]

I scan the film to decide which frames I want to print.

 

[BLKRCAT]

I agree with the OP. Though my contact sheet holder is a pain in the ass and usually ruins all of my negatives with degraded sticky foam.

 

[Mjd-djm]

I always scan every shot on a roll of film. Sometimes you get lucky... but more importantly I feel that analyzing every shot blown up is the best way to learn. Plus I consider every shot I take as important in some way... at least as a record of where I've been, what I've done and what I've seen.

 

[x-ray]

I haven't made contacts in many years. I mainly did them for clients to select from. In some ways I wish I'd made contacts of my personal work decades ago but its too late now with thousands of rolls and sheets in archival binders.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Same here. Except for the most experienced it's far easier to read positives than negatives.

Chris

 

[cz23]

I insert my negs into a holder sheet, place it on my Surface, and photograph it. On the Surface I display a blank PowerPoint slide. And I place a sheet of glass over the negatives. The Surface size is such that it requires two shots, which I merge and invert in Photoshop.

They are not especially great contact sheets, but I have not shot film for many years, and judging from a positive is much easier for me.

John