Hhaha. Thank you buzzardkid, I really appreciate it. My old Pentax lens is far from magic, it's kind of more like wacky. I'm learning to use the summicron, just in a different way. Thanks for the comment!
Chris, thanks for the rendition. Email me high res at
anitasanger@gmail.com if you'd like so I can see it better. I have Photoshop elements, but don't know how to do anything but spot heal. I hate messing with images in photoshop because to me it feels like I'm taking something away from the photo. But I'm willing to try if indeed the scanner is robbing me of tonal properties. Do you care to give me a short explanation of what I should be doing to my negatives after I scan? thanks,
Luke
Luke,
Tell me what version of Elements you have. The older versions don't support curves, so you wouldnt be able to see what I've done to the file, but version 7, 8, and 9 do support the curves adjustment command. If I know what version you have, I can write you instructions for using elements for tonal adjustments.
Please totally forget the idea that a photo should not be adjusted. That idea will stand like a brick wall in the path of any success you wish to have as a photographer. Seriously.
ALL photographs are adjusted in processing, even film printed in the darkroom. They HAVE to be. In the darkroom, we adjust contrast, density (lightness of the image), we dodge and burn (selectively lightening or darkening some parts of the print without affecting the rest). These are all done by professional artists and photographers who do black and white darkroom printing on EVERY image because a negative never prints perfect as a 'straight' unmanipulated image, no matter how perfect your exposure and developing.
The computer is your darkroom when you scan, and tonal adjustments are even more important in the computer because film scanners are designed to scan the high density range of a color slide. That means when you scan a BW negative, with its low density range compared to a slide, the scan is flat and lifeless. I see it constantly on Flickr and here on RFF, people uploading straight scans that lack microcontrast and tonal definition because the photographer had let someone put the silly and absolutely false idea in his/her head that Photoshop is EVIL and should never be used.
Adjusting the tonality of a scan is not the same as removing something from the image or pasting in something that was not there. Not that there is anything wrong with that, because if you're producing art, there isn't. If you're a journalist or documentarian, then altering the CONTENT of the image is unacceptable, but altering the tonality of a scan to make it look right is not only acceptable, it is standard professional practice.
Look
here for examples of raw scans and the final images, you'll see what i mean, and let me know what version of Elements you have and I'll email you your photo and the instructions on how to do the tonal work in the version you have.
