Do you post process scanned film before publishing online?

[fixbones]

Huubl: Thanks for posting pic examples. Went to you blog by the way. Film looks better IMHO

 

[HuubL]

Huubl: Thanks for posting pic examples. Went to you blog by the way. Film looks better IMHO

Thanks! That's what I thought too. 🙂

 

[mcgrattan]

I usually scan with a fairly flat setting -- I try to get all the basic levels right in the scanner software, but I am wary of clipping at either end so I go for a fairly conservative scan.

After that I usually do some sharpening and some level/contrast adjustment. I very rarely do anything else. I may rotate the photo slightly if it's off vertical: I have an annoying habit of leaning fractionally to the right, so photos often need a 1-degree counter-clockwise rotation.

I do sometime do noise-reduction on very grainy film scans. I never do dodging and burning, any contrast/level adjustments are global and usually fairly small.

That tends to be it. I bought a copy of Silverfast recently, and I find it gets the levels close enough that increasingly the only post-processing I do is sharpening appropriate to whatever print or screen size I want to use.

I'm not against substantial post-processing in principle, I just don't find it works for me personally.

 

[zenlibra]

Like many people here I scan for a flat file and linear curve to get as much detail as I can. Then I do a black point adjustment, brightness and contrast and curves in Lightroom.

 

[dof]

Absolutely. The raw scan/file is the digital equivalent of a negative. I've rarely encountered one that didn't benefit in some way from being "printed". I do thing of the print or post-processing as a creative interpretation of the scene as recorded. However, even so-called "straight" photography requires a mapping of the tonal range of any given scene to that of the film/sensor and from there to the screen/print. Some interpretation is inherent to the medium, regardless of intent.

 

[Haigh]

I do some tweaking if I think it will enhance the image.

 

[WDPictures]

Often I wish my images would just come out of the camera the way I want them to rather than the way I make them. Is this a feature of the M8 and the reason they are so expensive?

Even scanning doesn't seem to magically turn them into what I want so I do have to spend time processing. Usually in Lightroom initially then Photoshop for any req'd heavy lifting. Curves/contrast, spotting, blah, blah, blah unless I feel the image is worth some extra time for local adjustments and such.

 

[mh2000]

*not* post processing before posting is just stupid. some people try to say that they are "purests" because they don't do anything with their scans, implying that it is a "true image," but that is the same as saying your film should only use the canned adjustments used by the minilab... or that you only print in the darkroom with a single exposure no matter what, one chemical and never use a contrast filter or graded papers.

If you scan negatives to make prints from you should post process to make the image look as good as possible, if you are scanning prints, you should at least post process to make the scan match your print.

 

[wlewisiii]

Of course. Why cripple yourself????

William

 

[philipp.leser]

Not at least adjusting the levels would be like restricting yourself to printing every negative on grade 0 paper at a 10 seconds exposure, no matter what the negative actually needs.