RAW vs. Film Scan

[navilluspm]

I just recently learned how to develop and enlarge B&Ws from school, and I bought an SRT-101, and now Im just trying to decide if I can still do the same editing I used to do with my dad's 30d, with color negatives.

The simple answer to your question is: yes, you can - even in JPG.

Just test it out yourself, and you will see! Just shoot a roll, get a cd scanned at a local store. Convert the JPG's to TIFF, pay around with them. When You are done, save them to JPG's and print them up. I highly doubt that you will see any loss of quaility, even in prints as large as an 8 by 10.

 

[einolu]

So do you have your own scanner or not?

The quality from a DSLR would be miles ahead of anything you can get from a drugstore scan of 35mm, and you would have a more flexible file to boot.

And if you have a top of the line scanner (Nikon or Minolta or, something better?) there is still no closure because you have just begun the endless film vs. digital debate.

Choosing film in this age, or era, if you will, is kind of philosophical choice that shouldn't really be based on pure technical quality of an image.

 

[rogue_designer]

Choosing film in this age, or era, if you will, is kind of philosophical choice that shouldn't really be based on pure technical quality of an image.

I would classify it an artistic choice... not a philosophical one. And, depending on quantity, and your output needs, can still be an economical choice too.

 

[jvr]

For digitalising negatives and slides, I am working on a different route.
As I am not the lucky (?) owner of an decent scanner, but still have my BOWENS ILLUMITRAN 3S slide duplicator, fit wit a Rodagon 60 mm and a K bayonet adaptor, I wondered If I could not use this wonderful device for duplicating like in the 'old' days, but with the K10D instead.
By this, I can 'duplicate' in RAW (16 bit, +/- 28,5 Mb) all sizes from 35 mm to 4"x5" and work on them like on a RAW camera file in P.S., to be continued...

Yep, you can. I do (almost) this all the time with my Nikon D80 and a PB-5 Bellows, a PS-5 slide copier holder, an inverting ring and my "old" Rodagon 80/4 enlarger lens, reversed (ok, I also use an adapter ring between the 40.5 thread of the lens and the 52 of the inverting ring).

Quality is very good. For B&W it rivals my LS-4000ED (no ICE, no BIG advantage), on slides it's a fast way of getting a lot of very acceptable "scans" in almost no time, in color neg, color balancing is delicate, especially with old ones. On color negs, my LS4000ED and Vuescan easily beat the D80 "rig" (not because of resolution but because of color accuracy).

I posted here on the subject, describing the rig, some months ago. I'll try to find it out...

 

[fgianni]

For those of us who don't use photoshop, VueScan works really well

Why only for those who don't use photoshop? I use CS2 and VueScan.

 

[jvr]

For digitalising negatives and slides, I am working on a different route.
As I am not the lucky (?) owner of an decent scanner, but still have my BOWENS ILLUMITRAN 3S slide duplicator, fit wit a Rodagon 60 mm and a K bayonet adaptor, I wondered If I could not use this wonderful device for duplicating like in the 'old' days, but with the K10D instead.
By this, I can 'duplicate' in RAW (16 bit, +/- 28,5 Mb) all sizes from 35 mm to 4"x5" and work on them like on a RAW camera file in P.S., to be continued...

Here is the thread I mentioned: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39738

 

[Dektol Dan]

All the Time in the World

All the Time in the World

If you have a high quality jpeg that's usally good enough.
I've spent hours messing around with RAW, it's often slower than a wet lab.
If you get it right the first time and you have a high quality jpeg you can still work wonders in Photoshop. RAW is folks with too much time on their hands and don't believe in the algorithms the manufacture of the camera or scanner came up with in the first place. Just because one can do somethng doesn't mean one must.
I think folks who tout RAW are trying to impress someone with their tech speak. It ain't me!

I've heard all the 'RAW saved my bacon' stories. I still only by a lottery ticket when I hear of a friend winning. I apply that same logic to when to use RAW.

 

[Thardy]

I've heard that many wedding photographers shoot RAW because of extreme lighting /exposure conditions. They say they can salvage shots using RAW that would be lost using Jpeg.

They gave a detailed explanation how it helped them. What they said made sense at the time.

 

[patrickhh]

Nothing really. I just have Adobe Lightroom, and my taste in pictures usually involves tinting my white-balance way off from the natural white-balance I shot with.

(...)

Im just trying to decide if I can still do the same editing I used to do with my dad's 30d, with color negatives.

scan to 16-bit TIFF, that is virtually the same as a RAW file.
If you do WB correction, extensive contrast changes etc. a high bit depth will be beneficial. JPG only has 8 bit per channel, which will lead to posterization if you do extreme gradation changes. It's a matter of how much postprocessing you do.

Most scanning software doesn't generate RAWs, because scanners don't have a Bayer sensor and therefore don't require demosaicing. I heard that some Vuescan versions generate DNG but I would guess that it's comparable to a 16 bit TIFF.

BTW: You can import Tiffs and even JPGs in Lightroom for editing, just like you would do with RAW files.

 

[DavidH]

If you have a high quality jpeg that's usally good enough.
I've spent hours messing around with RAW, it's often slower than a wet lab.
If you get it right the first time and you have a high quality jpeg you can still work wonders in Photoshop. RAW is folks with too much time on their hands and don't believe in the algorithms the manufacture of the camera or scanner came up with in the first place. Just because one can do somethng doesn't mean one must.
I think folks who tout RAW are trying to impress someone with their tech speak. It ain't me!

I've heard all the 'RAW saved my bacon' stories. I still only by a lottery ticket when I hear of a friend winning. I apply that same logic to when to use RAW.

Wow - that's pretty offensive! Just because it doesn't work for you...
RAW workflow in digital is an excellent way of working, allows considerable manipulation and takes just seconds with a package like Capture One which can even batch process with a particular config (taking even less time) and easily allows you to bypass a further stage in Photoshop or whatever else unless you have some specific tweaking.

And no, I'm not trying to impress anyone with tech speak... 😉

 

[PHOTOEIL]

Thank you JVR, it is good to feel that one is not alone on the world doing slightly different things than ...
Besides, it is a waste to threw good devises in the basement and 'forget' them.
And thank you for the link to your thread, I must have missed that one.

 

[jvr]

Thank you JVR, it is good to feel that one is not alone on the world doing slightly different things than ...
Besides, it is a waste to threw good devises in the basement and 'forget' them.
And thank you for the link to your thread, I must have missed that one.

Well, the SLR+copier has served me very, very well! As I say in the thread, I started using it because of speed and decided to use my LS4000ED for the "best" shots. But I haven't, yet, needed to scan again. With the RAW file from the D80, even hard negatives can easily be printed. I have A3 enlargements I doubt would be better if I used the dedicated scanner.

Again, on slides or color negs, it's another story. Color balancing can be a big problem, especially on older slides/negs.

I'm in the middle of scanning my color neg collection (more than 150 rolls) and the SLR+copier route is tougher (although much quicker!!). Subtracting the negative mask is easy (just photograph a blank frame and use this as White Balance), balancing colors is another issue completely. Each negative has it's own signature and, worse of all, that signature evolves (ie, degrades... 🙂) in time. I'm scanning some 20 yr/old negs and no automatic method is available (the best is Auto Colors in Photoshop but it only gets you as far). The problem is that color in each film layer shifts with time and unfortunately not in the same way for shadows, midtones or highlights. So, color correcting an old, shifted color neg can be a nightmare.

Software like Nikon Scan or Vuescan, do an incredible job restoring colors in old negs. Nikon claims they can identify the type of neg by color+IR signature and can apply the correct shifts. I don't know if that's true, but the fact of the matter is that even after 7 years of LS4000ED ownership, I still feel impressed by what it can do with an old shifted negative...

Vuescan is almost as good in this regard and much better than Nikon Scan for batch jobs.

Unfortunately, shooting RAW on the D80 and using Vuescan to "develop" it (a workflow that works wonders for B&W negs!!) has yet to prove itself useful for older color negatives. Even using the restoration filters and indicating the brand and model of the film (and Vuescan's database is huge), color accuracy is not comparable to what I get from Vuescan directly operating the LS4000ED.

My best results until now (ie, using the D80 rig) were obtained by shooting the negs in JPG, after color balancing using a blank frame, and then inverting in Photoshop, Auto Contrast and Auto Colors (plain Auto Levels can induce very strange colors on heavily shifted negs). Even then, on "bad" rolls, a lot of hand tweaking has to be done and even after that, a plain scan from the LS4000ED stills looks much better and natural-colored.

If this subject interests you, you can PM me, to get this off the air. I think there are still a lot of people who don't buy this method, because it sound REALLY weird: "if film is better than digital, then why the hell shouldn't we be using a dedicated scanner for it? It must be better than a DSLR, right?"

Well, by my experience, wrong.

By the time I posted the original thread, I had a Epson 3200 Photo for medium format. I exchanged it by a Epson V700. The V700 is miles better than the 3200 (it even surprised me by how much!). But even with the V700, the D80+copier gives better results in B&W, regarding "pure" quality (both resolution and tones). And it takes less than 1s per negative... For C-41 B&W negs, the LS4000ED still has the edge (because of ICE). But on normal B&W films, I prefer the D80, because of it's much better tolerance to grain and scracthes/dust (the LS4000ED is terrible in this regard, I understand why Nikon engineers had to develop ICE for slides and C41 negatives!!!! 🙂).

All the best!

 

[jvr]

scan to 16-bit TIFF, that is virtually the same as a RAW file.
If you do WB correction, extensive contrast changes etc. a high bit depth will be beneficial. JPG only has 8 bit per channel, which will lead to posterization if you do extreme gradation changes. It's a matter of how much postprocessing you do.

Most scanning software doesn't generate RAWs, because scanners don't have a Bayer sensor and therefore don't require demosaicing. I heard that some Vuescan versions generate DNG but I would guess that it's comparable to a 16 bit TIFF.

BTW: You can import Tiffs and even JPGs in Lightroom for editing, just like you would do with RAW files.

What Vuescan calls "RAW" files (and can really be saved in DNG format) are in fact equivalent to TIFF files (one layer per channel). They may be whatever bit-depth your scanner produces.

They are "RAW" because they are what the scanner gives out, without any gamma/colour/film type/profile/whatever processing. The idea is to scan once and process several times, with new profiles, for new needs or whatever (sparing your precious negatives or slides). BTW, RAW files from Vuescan are almost useless without further processing. Try to open one in Photoshop and you'll understand why... 🙂 (BTW, it's instructing to do it: LS4000ED "raw" files look completely different from, say, an Epson V700 "raw" files and would not say that after processing...)

Lightroom will open DNG files from Vuescan but does not use correctly all the info, such as the infrared channel (see below).

Nevertheless, I would say RAW files from Vuescan are probably not exactly equivalent to a "normal" TIFF file and are definitely more flexible. Atfer applying gamma correction and a scanner profile (and all scanner software does!), it will be probably very hard to get back to the original file and apply another (better?) scanner profile, for instance. I give you an example: Vuescan carries a default profile for LS4000ED but better results can be obtained by creating a profile using IT8 targets for a specific film. I have created profiles for Velvia and Provia (films I use/d a lot) and the difference is clear. Because I save RAW, I can "re-apply" the new profile (seconds!) without scanning (minutes...) and easily generate new JPGs.

More than that, RAW files from Vuescan also include additional information the scanner generates: I own a Nikon LS4000ED and RAW files also include a 4th layer with the Infrared scan (so that dust/scratch/film recognition algorithms can afterwards be applied). This is one example where saving a RAW file makes sense: the next version of Vuescan can (and probably will... 🙂) have better algorithms for dusting/color correction and I would just "re-generate" my JPGs (using the option "Scan from file").

Not to mention that Vuescan RAW files are very fast to save (Vuescan even allows to save them _while_ scanning, and time impact is minimal), because no processing occurs, especially processing that the requires the _whole_ image to be analysed (like a simple White-Balance + JPG save, that can take more than 15s with a full-rez 4000dpi scan, even on a fast PC). This may sound as nitpicking, but when scanning thousands of slides (and I used Vuescan to scan more than 10k old slides), it adds up... I just scan and save as RAW (when using film strips, I have to manually feed one every six frames), and after I collect a large number of files (let's say, ten rolls), I will generate the JPGs from the RAW (inspecting a few to check for color accuracy and so on) in batch, letting the computer run during the night. Global time is more or less the same but _free_ time for me is larger this way... 🙂

Of course, this only makes sense for large batches (as in hundreds) of photos.

To tell the truth, I don't keep all the RAW Vuescan files, just from the "best" slides/negs, as they take up a lot of room (the same as TIFF). And a full-range, full-resolution, gentle-encoded JPG will probably take less than 10% of the space while meeting 99% of my needs... 🙂

 

[shadowfox]

Choosing film in this age, or era, if you will, is kind of philosophical choice that shouldn't really be based on pure technical quality of an image.

Agree with Rogue Designer, artistic, not philosophical. Manual focus vs AF, now that's philosophical 😛