How do you edit your films in 2013?

How do you edit your films in 2013?

  • Contact print -- the traditional way!

    Votes: 15 11.0%
  • Scan every exposure in Low Res

    Votes: 29 21.3%
  • Scan every exposure in High Res

    Votes: 52 38.2%
  • Look at negatives / slides in a light table or similar

    Votes: 39 28.7%
  • Scans are made by lab when film is developed

    Votes: 16 11.8%
  • Other (please explain!)

    Votes: 10 7.4%

  • Total voters
    136
I make a digital contact sheet by putting the negs into Clearfile transparent negative sheets, then scanning the whole lot in one go on a flatbed, add text via Photoshop and then print off an A4 physical copy.

How do you avoid the reflection off the sheets ? I've tried doing that but the scan was useless because there were always reflections on the sleeves
 
35mm workflow became much easier/faster lately due to a minilab scanner I picked up. WOW this thing is fast (5 minutes for the entire roll at highest res) and TIFFs are great, straight out of the scanner.

Develop (home)
Scan (home)
Import TIFFs to Aperture
Archive negs
 
35mm workflow became much easier/faster lately due to a minilab scanner I picked up. WOW this thing is fast (5 minutes for the entire roll at highest res) and TIFFs are great, straight out of the scanner.

Develop (home)
Scan (home)
Import TIFFs to Aperture
Archive negs

What did you get, an old Fuji Frontier?
 
How did you scan the film back in 1984 and get ALL the data off the film?

With a $200,000 film scanner I had access to for my job when I worked at NASA. I did a lot of testing. I also had a similar film recorder at my disposal, that made negatives out of digitally processed images. Used to take 11 hours to render one 1024x1024 8-bit RGB image when i started doing digital imaging work ... 🙂

Of course, I didn't start shredding negatives in 1984, however, and most of everything I scanned back then was re-scanned with more modern scanners in the late '90s and early 2000's, assuming I could still find the negatives. I started shredding the negs and slides in the latter 2000s when I realized there was no point to re-scanning all that old stuff: I had as much data as there was to be had out of it.

I've had three hard drive failures in the past decade. The first took me ten days to recover all my data, that's when I built my current archive and backup system (about 2006). The next two took me ten minutes to recover from. My image repository is multiply backed up, and lives both on my disk farm at home and off-site. It is FAR more secure than negatives sitting in a filing cabinet. 🙂

G
 
For 35mm, I simply load up 6 frames in the Plustek holder and preview scan them all one by one. If any of the 6 make the cut, I scan at 7200dpi, go make a coffee, and then come back 5 min later to finish the scan.

For 120, replace "Plustek" with "9000F" and "holder" with "flat on the scanner glass under some ANR glass".
 
NegatiNegatives are shredded.

Completely and absolutely insane to shred your negatives on so many levels. There is no pragmatic reason for doing this but I know you've got your own (misguided) ideas on it and knew you were going to get a reaction anyway.

You think they're sitting there "rotting away" and you've somehow obtained the highest level of quality but yet you now have no avenue to wet print them straight from the negative and you have no backup other than the digital scans (which is actually costing you more money in time and energy). You don't give enough credit to the medium - but hey it's your negs and your memories. Let the computer rule!
 
I scan everything at 4000 dpi using auto-exposure / auto-focus setting of my Coolscan 4000ED. All files are saved as jpg in highest quality and that`s it. Only editing I do is down-sizing for web, slightly USM and occasionally adding of a little contrast.
 
For 35mm color, process and CD from Costco, import into Lightroom. Medium format color & BW develop at home, proof negs, scan the important ones on my Microtek i900 import into Lightroom. File negatives. Digital prints with via Canon Pro 9000, mat, frame & exhibit. Works for me.
 
For 35mm, I simply load up 6 frames in the Plustek holder and preview scan them all one by one. If any of the 6 make the cut, I scan at 7200dpi, go make a coffee, and then come back 5 min later to finish the scan.

This, but after a check with a loupe/light table where I mark definite keepers/discards.
I number my films, and the file is named film number_frame number. I keep my negs in sleeves in a folder. I find I sometimes go back to see the frames around the one I initially decided to keep, so the file naming structure helps.

Michael
 
So now calling someone's ideas "misguided" is insulting, rude, and I'm calling you names? Seriously?

You're literally throwing away your own history and betting on technology to keep it alive - that's why you've gotten more than just a single reaction of disbelief. It costs you very little to preserve the negatives but it's going to cost you quite a bit more when technology fails you (trust me, it will).

Care to describe some of the "damage" you're seeing on your slides and negatives?
 
I currently develop at home, cut into 6 frame strips, and scan on either a Coolscan V or 5000. I'll scan everything in high res as I do all my editing and sorting digitally, and prefer to see everything at once. Sometimes negs that look good on the light table wont look good scanned, and I don't currently have a light table.

Strips are the filed in a Kenro paper sleeve, and tucked away somewhere. I love being able to hold on to the negs, and although I've never wet-printed, this is what I intend on learning next, and already have some images I'd like to enlarge. If I've gone through the trouble of a. shooting film, b. developing film, c. filing the film, it makes sense to d. continue in the "hard" based workflow and make silver prints. The negatives are essentially the culmination of the first half of all the hard work.

From a commercial perspective a silver print appeals much more to me as a than a digital inkjet print, and I'm sure many other buyers feel the same way and are willing to pay a premium for it.
 
So now calling someone's ideas "misguided" is insulting, rude, and I'm calling you names?

Yes, I think it's fair to say that that's insulting. You basically called him stupid. And "completely insane".

I personally would never destroy my negs and if you asked me if I thought it was a good idea I would say no. But Godfrey can do with his negs what he wants and it does in no way affect my, your or anybody elses life. He's an adult and I'm sure he can make decisions for himself. Negatives are just pieces of plastic with images on them. What worth we assign to them is up to us.
 
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