Scans Before Digital Darkroom-Show 'em!

[wjlapier]

OK, folks, I see alot fo great B+W photos but I wonder sometimes how some of you do it? I use a Coolscan V and Vuescan. I was wondering if some of you would care to share a before and after scan of a neg you developed yourself. And if you'd care to give some info on your developing and post scan workflow.

The reason I'd like to see before and after is to see how my developing is doing these days--I'm new to it and have done less than 20 rolls thus far.

I'll dig out one of mine and do some post and share my info, but maybe someone might have something to share before I do.

Thanx--Bill

 

[Gradskater]

I'll play along. Here are a couple of mine. Nothing special pictures I took while walking home today. Arista premium 400 in diafine. about 5 minutes for A and B, rinse with water, about 10 minutes in Arista fixer, rinse again, add some photoflo, squeegee and hang to dry. scan with a plustek 7300. import into iphoto, desaturate, and play with the contrast and the sliders under the histogram. thats about it. I am happy with the results, but now I want to start using some finer grained black and white film.

 

[Gradskater]

one more just for fun...

 

[Morca007]

Hm, sounds fun, here's one: original vs. finished

Some require more work than others, of course.

 

[Al Kaplan]

OMG, how do you ever get all those pieces of dust and hairs on your negatives? I prefer the look of a gelatin silver print and just scan the print.

 

[Morca007]

Well, that roll was processed in a dorm room sink, not quite ideal. ;-)

 

[Gradskater]

bump for this thread...I am really curious to see how your images come straight out of the scanner .

 

[wjlapier]

OK, I was working on these and remembered this thread. Probably not the ideal offerings. I was testing a Zeiss Opton 50/1.5 Sonnar on my M2. I use a VCII meter, but not sure why these seem over exposed.

Ilford Delta 400, Rodinal 1+50 for 11 minutes, and the usual stop, fix, rinse, and photoflo. Scanned as a jpeg using a Nikon Coolscan V and Vuescan with everything set to neutral. Finished in PSCS2.

Thanx for those who contributed. I was hoping to see more from those who have lots of B+W photos in their galleries.

 

[Phantomas]

Hmmm... are those really that overexposed or something else in the process? The original "white" scans look almost unnatural (unless it's some setting that does that on purpose).


edit: nice thread by the way! I love seeing before/after shots and see/learn/compare how people achieve their results.

 

[kaiyen]

they look like massive underexposed frames scanned as positives to me.

 

[wjlapier]

I'm not sure what happened. Like I said I use a VCII meter. I'm still learning Vuescan and it's a tough program. They are most likely overexposed, but as I mentioned I scan as neutral as possible.

I'll dig out one of my better exposed pics and show a before and after.

 

[Bob Michaels]

OK, folks, I see alot fo great B+W photos but I wonder sometimes how some of you do it? I use a Coolscan V and Vuescan. I was wondering if some of you would care to share a before and after scan of a neg you developed yourself. And if you'd care to give some info on your developing and post scan workflow.

The reason I'd like to see before and after is to see how my developing is doing these days--I'm new to it and have done less than 20 rolls thus far.
Thanx--Bill

I am more than happy to show you what my negs look like after development. But you will have to come by the house and look at them. I can't show you informative JPGs of them because that involves the analogue to digital conversion process which has some of my judgment (adjustment), by necessity, in that process.

Just understand I can make reasonably good looking digital files out of the scanner. Or, I can make files that look flat and crappy out of the scanner and then make them look their best after tweaking in Photoshop. Vuescan is great at this.

With that caveat, I always scan to obtain the maximum data in the file. That means no clipped ends of the histogram. Those files may look very flat and dull but provide what I need to best properly adjust them for a print.

In terms of exposure and development, I always slightly overexpose and slightly underdevelop compared to what most consider the norm. I end up with is thought of as a N minus 1 neg knowing I can put the contrast digitally where I think it needs to be.

You want the crude, quick and dirty parameters?
1) overexpose 50%
2) underdevelop 20%
3) use Vuescan defaults just making sure the ends of the histogram are not clipped.
4) use a S shaped curve with two (only) anchor points strategically placed in Photoshop. This is where the magic happens.

 

[aniMal]

Yes I agree, although I don´t pull my film myself... Have thought about now that getting colour developed to -1 or -2 is the same price as 0, and will probably try it out soon.

With the scanning, I have started turning off everything automatic, and applying am s-curve afterwards. It really does the trick, if I had my photos available here I would show some...

I find that it even pays off scanning negatives as positives, inverting and then subtracting the blue cast manually. It also makes you progress a lot with photoshop!

 

[Tim Gray]

I won't post before/after scans, but I will link to a write up I did on my process. There's an example in the write up.

Vuescan B&W scanning