Flatbed for web: Negs or prints ?

[Bertram2]

Hi to all,

Just curious what the owners of a flatbed do when it comes to web presentation:

Do you prefer to scan negs for the web galleries , and if so which print size and res works best for you ?

Or do you prefer negs, for 35mm and/or MF ?

What are the scanning experiences related to the differences of B&W, colour, 35mm and MF ?

I ask because I just found out that a 13X18 cm colour print @ 600dpi, resized to 700X500 looks better than the neg scanned @4800 and resized to the same size.

Haven't checked a 13X13 MF print yet against the 6X6 neg.

Best,

Bertram

 

[JoeFriday]

it could be that the scan you get from the print looks better because the print shop tweaked it.. often they'll pump up the color to make the prints more vibrant.. whereas you're getting a more accurate scan from the negative, but it doesn't have the artificially created pop that your prints show

same thing will be true when you have the developers scan to disc for you.. I've compared a few of my "scan to disc" images versus my own dedicated scanner images, and there is often a huge difference.. even tho I'd clearly say my scans were more accurate

in my experience, the detail you get from scanning negs or slides is unmatched by scanning a print

 

[Bertram2]

in my experience, the detail you get from scanning negs or slides is unmatched by scanning a print

Joe,
I found this confirmed for MF by my own (humble) experiences . But some 13X18cm prints did better than the negs, not the res but the colour reproduction is closer to the truth somehow. I scan always without any additional scanner settings, the postprocessing is done in PS completely.

Regards,
Bertram

 

[Andy K]

I scan my finished prints. I used to scan negs, but when I compare neg scans with scans of the prints, the print scans are better.

 

[markinlondon]

Like Andy, I find the prints scan better. Also, once I've decided to print something I don't enjoy going through the whole post-processing thing all over again with a negative scan.

Mark

 

[Nikon Bob]

My only use for the flat bed scanner I have is to scan prints. I don't think flat beds handle 35mm negs or slides well but med format negs/slides might be a different matter. For web use a scan of a print on a flat bed should be good enough. A dedicated 35mm film scanner is another story.

 

[Bertram2]

Like Andy, I find the prints scan better. Also, once I've decided to print something I don't enjoy going through the whole post-processing thing all over again with a negative scan.

Mark

Mark,

especially when it comes to colour prints my scanner's ouput is not what could be compared directly with the print and so for the web presentation there is alway a bit tuning necessary too 'til print and monitor pic have a at least comparable look.

My experience is that at least MF looks better (i.e. closer to the print) on the monitor as a scanned neg.
On the other hand I've seen scanned MF B&W prints which seem hard to beat .
Maybe it depends all on the quality of the source, 1st class neg or print ALWAYS scans fine 😉
Regards,
Bertram

 

[aad]

Hmm-I only scanned 1print, and didn't like it. I'll try more tonight. The slides look better than they did, but lack compared to slide scans from my lab. Also more tonight.

 

[Richard Black]

My experience is that I routinely scan 35mm prints and 120 negatives. I have an Epson 3170 and am pleased with it. The 35mm negatives scan acceptably, but they are a bit difficult to handle. I scanned a negative from a Moskva V and that blew me away.

 

[Bertram2]

I scanned a negative from a Moskva V and that blew me away.

Which resolution do you use for the MF negs colour and BW ?

bertram

 

[aad]

I just did a comparison of a neg, print, and "commercial" scan of the same (slr) Fuji picture. The color was further out on the neg at first, but it came back in PS. I still think the negative had more detail.

 

[markinlondon]

Mark,

especially when it comes to colour prints my scanner's ouput is not what could be compared directly with the print and so for the web presentation there is alway a bit tuning necessary too 'til print and monitor pic have a at least comparable look.

Same results here, Bertram. A little contrast correction and re-sharpening is always needed to get it back to the original. My worst results are from toned prints (as close as I get to colour) which invariably need a bit of fine tweaking to get anywhere near the hue of the print.

So my workflow goes:

1. scan 150dpi @ 50% size for a 10x8 print, 100% for 7x5
2. Open in PSE
3. Rotate and straighten if needed
4. crop slightly to lose excess or wonky borders
5. set white point to border (unless using MGIV WT)
6. tweak colour if toned OR remove colour if untoned
7. size to 700p on the long side
8. slight USM, usually 20-30%
9. save for web.

Mark

 

[Bertram2]

I just did a comparison of a neg, print, and "commercial" scan of the same (slr) Fuji picture. The color was further out on the neg at first, but it came back in PS. I still think the negative had more detail.

100% congruent with my results, details at B&W better too from the neg ! What I haven't done yet is the comparison of C41B&W and silver B&W. Knowing that C41 scans better than silver I expect the advantage of the neg rather to get bigger.
bertram

 

[Bertram2]

Same results here, Bertram.
So my workflow goes:
1. scan 150dpi @ 50% size for a 10x8 print, 100% for 7x5
2
Mark

Mark.
interesting, a bit different what I do with prints. The upper limit is only the file size my PC can handle fast enuff, it's getting boring from 350 MB on, at 500 MB the trouble begins. 🙂

So I scan a 10X15cm print with about 600dpi and resize that file later to about 600X400 for the web .
As long as sombody can prove the opposite I believe that it makes more sense to scan as high as possible and to resize it at PS later then scanning at lower res and have less resizing later in PS. Depends on the size of the print too, a 13X18cm colour print makes a pretty fat file at 600dpi ?

This is 13X18cm @ 300dpi, worked better for the colors than the neg scan, the colours came out better and the softness works well for the issue:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=22882&cat=5521


Regards,
Bertram

 

[Richard Black]

Bertram,
I use the same setting for color and b&w negatives. I scan at 1200dpi on the negatives and save them in tiff format. This gives me a large file to work with in photoshop elements that I use for post processing. I don't like this software that much and am contemplating trying something new. Suggestions on software?

 

[Andy K]

When I scan prints I scan them at 1200dpi. I find the scanner captures much more detail from a print than from a negative, simply because the print is a much larger image to scan.

 

[markinlondon]

Bertram,

I find scanning at a lower resolution perfectly OK for web use and have no need to store high-res files of prints I've already made. I used to scan negatives at 2720 dpi, but then realised I was storing a negative, a high-res .tiff, a low-res jpeg AND any prints I'd made. Just another of those decluttering exercises. Also using these scanner settings (determined empirically, of course) means I spend less time throwing away data to get the picture down to a suitable size for posting here or on pgallery.

As ever, it's down to preference and mine is more time in the darkroom and less at the PC.

Mark

 

[Bertram2]

Bertram,
I use the same setting for color and b&w negatives. I scan at 1200dpi on the negatives and save them in tiff format. This gives me a large file to work with in photoshop elements that I use for post processing. I don't like this software that much and am contemplating trying something new. Suggestions on software?

No suggestion for software, Richard, I am sorry. I know PS only and I am still in the learning process with it and glad to control now at least 50% of it's features .

What I have heard tho is that PSP (Picture Shop Pro ?) is easier and not so fat as PS. Hearsay only tho.

I scan negs at 4800 as TIFF btw, downsize it to a TIFF of 750X500 and throw the monster file away., keeping the small TIFF only as an source for further web use.

Regards,
Bertram

 

[Richard Black]

I've attached a photo below that shows a resized scan of a print made with C-41 Kodak B&W film. This event was a weird happening in N.W. Ok., it is frozen fog. Yes, frozen fog. We don't see that very often. I can't think of more than two to three times in my 59 years that it has happened. The photo was taken with a Canon AE-1 (don't slap me-it was all I had with me at the time) and a Canon 50mm lens. Scanned at 600 dpi and saved in TIFF followed by resizing in ps to 1000 on the longest side at 72dpi. I can't see much loss of detail in the smaller scan.

 

[Bertram2]

I can't see much loss of detail in the smaller scan.

Actually the resizing of PS work quite good, no artefacts and a bit loss of sharpness can be balanced by USM easily.

When I started to post pics in web galleries I worked with 1100X1600 lab scans (jpeg) and a freeware viewer (IRFANVIEW) which has all the basic functions for postprocessing, but sometimes it was almost impossible to get anything acceptable for the web this way. Especially C41 B&W was too badly scanned and converted very often. All far below under the flatbed level, not to speak of a film scanner.

Regards,
bertram