Exposure in hybrid workflow

[Henk]

Hi all,

I shoot film (XP2 and 100TMAX) and then scan them. I expose for the shadows as is common in a fully analog workflow. But I have too much noise in my darks when I scan (in my opinion).

Since scanning is using a CCD sensor and sensors produce far more detail in the highlights and are less sensitive for noise at the right end of the histogram, I'll think I'll try exposing the digital way :
expose for the highlights (expose right), and then adjust exposure in the digital editing. I use a Nikon coolscan V ED and Vuescan. I don't adjust anything in Vuescan, but in PS afterwards. I save as tiff and do most of the adjustments in
camera raw, because this is far less destructive then adjusting in PS itself.

Before I start to do this : is anyone in the hybrid workflow exposing this way ?
Is it correct what I'm saying above?

Thanx !

 

[charjohncarter]

I don't like scanner noise either, or grain aliasing. Although, you won't have too much aliasing with Tmax100. One of my friends overexposes his scans (so they come out lighter) then pulls them back in his editing software. He claims it reduces noise in shadow areas. If you exposed for highlights wouldn't you lose shadow detail?

 

[mfogiel]

Henk,
You have 2 different problems here.
1) XP2 ( and any other chromogenic film), these may or may not be true to the box speed ( most of the time they are not), but since they tollerate overexposure very well and underexposure very badly, plus without the silver particles, they do not block the scanner with high density shots, the simple rule is to expose them at half the box speed, or to expose at box speed for the deepest shadow where you want any detail.
2) Silver film, especially slow ones, will block the highlights in you scanner when too dense, so if there's a general rule, if anything it is better to underexpose them.

I find that it takes some experimenting to get the best results, so while I settled for exposing XP2 at EI 200 and using the XP2 profile in Vuescan, I have noticed, that exposing silver films at their box speed and using the Tmax 400 D76 0.40 profile works well. When you try different profiles. look at the histogram and try to find one, which spreads it as wide as possible, WITHOUT having a right shoulder which is unable to reach the zero line. For better understanding read the tutorials found on this page:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GrRP

In any case, it would make sense to make a bracketing of your favourite films, and see in your workflow what is the EI that delivers the best compromise between the tonality and sharpness.

 

[RF-Addict]

Do not under expose regluar silver film - you will have golf ball sized grain when you scan them. If in doubt - over expose.

 

[40oz]

I use my scanner for "contact sheets," and sharing, but use my enlarger for printing. I've found that exposing and developing for printing gives me negatives that scan well. Consider that when scanning negatives, the highlights are shadows to the scanner - they are the dark areas of the film, and this is where digital sensors show the most noise. That said, I don't really have any issues with that.

The key is to expose the negative to capture the shadow details you want, and if that means the highlights get blown a bit, well, that's the choice you make when taking the shot. The scanner is not going to be able to pull any data from the negative that wasn't captured during exposure and brought out during development. No amount of developing is going to return details to the shadows if the exposure didn't capture them.

The bottom line is that the reason people say "expose for shadows" is because no matter the end use of the negative, you will not be able to see detail in the shadows if you didn't give enough exposure. It's just not going to be recorded on the negative, and no amount of developing is going to make it show up. So ideally, you expose to capture as much shadow as you wish, and develop long enough to bring it out without blowing the highlights - "develop for the highlights."

It's about getting the information on the negative, regardless of scanning or wet printing. IMHO.

That said, by all means use your scans to inform changes to exposure and dev times. Your scans can be adjusted for contrast, and most likely will always need some minor tweaking just because film isn't perfectly clear - you will never get a histogram that shows data from pure black to pure white. So to get a "black" black and a "white" white, you will pretty much always need to bump something in post-processing. I just try to get the histogram as broad as possible - use as much of the useable "space" of the negative as I can. (Not in every shot of course, just as a basic concept.)

 

[charjohncarter]

I think the key is to move the histogram as far to the right as possible without blocking the high lights.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I find that when exposing the new T-Max 400 for scanning I get the best results if I expose about 1/3 stop less than for wet printing and develop 5-10% less.

More exposure with a conventional film ALWAYS means bigger grain and less sharpness so the trick is to give the minimum exposure that gives the shadow detail and tonality that you want.

With XP2 you still get reduced sharpness with overexposure but grain actually becomes finer; it is probably the best B+W film for scanning.

The actual speed you set on your meter will depend very greatly on your metering techique. With a spot meter and I.R.E. 1 or the shadow index you can often use box speed; with a through-lens meter on a sunny day, if you don't favour the shadows, you may need half box speed.

True ISO is also affected by developer choice. Thus with HP5+ in DD-X (true ISO 650+) I will set 400-500 on a spot meter or 250-320 on the meter in my MP. With Perceptol (true ISO maybe 250) I'll halve those figures.

Cheers,

R.

 

[charjohncarter]

Thanks Rodger.

 

[Henk]

Thanks for the feedback ! Indeed the highlights are the "shadows" for the scanner
and would produce the most noise. So it seems adequate to continue metering for
the shadows. It may seem strange, but I get better results with 100TMAX than with XP2.

Cheers

 

[charjohncarter]

My experience too. But I had Costco do my scans.

 

[Keith]

Some of my scans coming out of my Epson V700 of late have not pleased me at all ... flat with low contrast ... recoverable in post processing but too much work! 😛

I do a lot of rainforest walking and tend to take a camera with me most of the time ... and the flat light in the rainforest on an overcast day is a recipe for exactly what I have described above. Yesterday I went out on a mission on a bight but overcast day to see if I could learn something. I should do it more because it taught me lot ... I carefully bracketed every shot and later when I scanned the film I was surprised at which exposures scanned the best. The shots with the least amount of exposure were by far the best straight out of the scanner. I think scanners do a better job with a thin negative that to the eye looks a little underexposed.

The three images below are straight scans with no adjustments. The first is the exposure chosen by the camera's meter (Hexar RF) confirmed with a hand held. The other two are a stop either side ... the overexposed example (second) is quite flat and would require a lot of adjustments while the underexposure (third) is perfect for my tastes! I know this just may be symptomatic of the unique light under the forest canopy but it indicates to me that of late I have been tending to overexpose my film slightly causing me to wonder if the low contrast results were a result of other influences .... my developing technique or chemical choice or maybe scanner settings? My conclusion is that scanners, (maybe just the Epson) don't really deal with a slightly overexposed negative well at all!

 

[patrickhh]

Henk,

if you have Vuescan, use multi-pass scanning (to reduce scanner noise) and/or multi-exposure (to increase details in highlights, when scanning negatives)
scan to 16 bit TIFF or raw files and adjust the tonality later.
scan at maximum dpi resolution and use the "Tiff size reduction" feature.

 

[patrickhh]

Keith,

just out of curiosity: what sort of film holder do you use with your V700 to get so much area of the perforated film border in your scan?
I also have a V700 and I would like to include the perforation in some of my scans too.

 

[Keith]

Keith,

just out of curiosity: what sort of film holder do you use with your V700 to get so much area of the perforated film border in your scan?
I also have a V700 and I would like to include the perforation in some of my scans too.

Hi Patrick,

Just the standard holders carefully enlarged by a few millimeters. It was a fiddly job but it's made scanning a little easier ... I create scanning frames maually at 26mm by 37.2mm then crop back to 24 x 36 in post processsing ... or not as the case may be! It doesn't appear to have compromised the rigidety of the frames too much!

Some pics look quite cool with a line of sprocket holes running along the long sides. Someone else here did it recently and explained how he did it ... I couldn't resist! 😛

I quite like the look of the characteristic 'Hexar Notch' in the top right part of the frame too. 🙂

 

[patrickhh]

Thanks for the info.

I'm thinking about building a film holder myself out of cardboard or something.
Then I could scan the whole border with the whole perforation included.
Film flatness should still be OK when both ends are strongly glued to the holder.