Plus-X and Diafine?

[wlewisiii]

Well, I'm still trying to learn the art of negative scanning, but here's the first one from the Plus-X roll. EI400 in my Iskra. Diafine and then scanned. Any hints tips or suggestions on the scanning or post scanning process gratefully accepted.

William

 

[Doug]

Hi, William -- What do you think of this picture yourself?

I'd just say it looks like the focus is off and that things at about the same distance from the camera as her right knee are more nearly in the plane of focus than closer parts. Could it be operator error, or perhaps the camera's RF is out of calibration?

And on the scan, I downloaded a copy of the pic, and I see in the histogram that the data is biased toward the lighter tones (as can also be seen in the post), and some of the lightest tones are "clipped"; that is, off the scale. The darkest tones are not black, but dark grey. Given this, I'd suggest the scanning exposure could be reduced a bit to push the data down toward the dark end a little. Your job wasn't too far off, though!

Then, in post-scan work, you might optimize the tones by bringing the end sliders of the histogram to the top and bottom points of the scan to ensure the darkest tone is black and the lightest tone is white... This compression adds a little contrast and brings up some sparkle to the result. Here's an example of what I'd do...

 

[wlewisiii]

Hi, William -- What do you think of this picture yourself?

Quite a bit better. Thanks for the tips; I'll give them a try when I scan a bit more in. I really have never done much post processing of scans and I've only now got a scanner that can do negs, so I'm still very much at the bottom of the learning curve.

As for focus, I was within the minimum distance for the camera and was trying to see if the DOF at f16 would pull it off. I thought it came out acceptably given that. She just looked up and even though I knew I was too close, I turned the ring all the way and gave it a try.

William

 

[T_om]

Here is my take on it. I agree with the previous poster that there are either some focus or movement issues and the shot is not extremely sharp.

Also, as was pointed out, there was no true black in the shot. I downloaded the file and read it into Photoshop. I opened a 'Threshold' layer and ran the slider all the way to the left. No black. I then did a 'Levels' adjustment to actually produce some true black in the shadow areas and boosted the contrast a bit with a "curves" adjustment.

Unless you can produce a scale with actual black on it somewhere, photos tend to look flat and lifeless.

I have seen this described as "Bleak & White".

Hope this helps.

Tom

 

[wlewisiii]

Interesting that there was no actual black. I really need to learn more about working with the histograms. Thank you for your time and comments; I appreciate it.

William