What do you darkroom guys think of this, digital photo of enlarger image?

[Vickko]

What do you darkroom guys think of this, digital photo of enlarger image?

He is taking a digital image of the projected enlarger image on the baseboard.

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00bJ1N?unified_p=1

I was wondering how good this could get, in either BW or colour.

Given that the film scanners are getting scarce, could this be better than flatbed scanners?

...Vick

 

[Mackinaw]

I've been using the same basic technique to photograph a bunch of 100 year old 4X5 glass-plate negatives I found. I put the negatives on a light table, grab my OM-D, put it in macro-mode, take a picture, import into Photoshop, invert, then play around with contrast and brightness. The resulting image is quite good. What the guy did in the photo.net link should work too.

Jim B.

 

[Vickko]

Thanks Mackinaw.
I like your photo album.
Yeah, I guess taking a picture of the enlarger image would be fine for web purposes.
I wonder if it would be good enough to be used instead of chemical printing.
For colour negatives, I bet it would be a whole lot easier. And doable, since I don't intend to chemically print colour.

 

[FrankS]

This question will expose my digital ignorance, but here goes: I know that photoshop can reverse a B&W neg into a positive. Can it also reverse colour neg into a colour positive?

 

[Jockos]

This question will expose my digital ignorance, but here goes: I know that photoshop can reverse a B&W neg into a positive. Can it also reverse colour neg into a colour positive?

I've heard good things about this one:
http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

But have not tried it myself.

 

[bigeye]

Perhaps you can mount the DSLR pointed up toward the enlarger head in a way similar to this: http://babryce.com/slidedigitizer.html

Else, a macro 105 and one of the tube slide/neg duplicators (e.g. Kaiser).

-Charlie

 

[sevo]

Even back when we used enlargers for everything, rephotographing base board projections was not part of any sane-minded workflow. Macro photography of negatives/slides works perfectly well, why complicate it?

 

[Noll]

Even back when we used enlargers for everything, rephotographing base board projections was not part of any sane-minded workflow. Macro photography of negatives/slides works perfectly well, why complicate it?

Exactly. The op's method might be useful for those without the benefit of a decent macro lens, but several models of macro lens can be found relatively cheaply these days.

 

[FrankS]

This method does make it possible to rephotograph the negative (projection) with an iPhone.

 

[FrankS]

I have an iPad app called filter storm. It can convert a colour positive image to a black and white image, giving independent control over 3 colour channels. I'm guessing that by tweaking these independent channels, I could "filter out" the orange mask of an enlarger projected colour negative to give me an acceptable black and white positive. Need to try that.

 

[FrankS]

Colour neg projected with enlarger, photgraphed with iphone, icloud transfer to ipad. Image opened with filterstorm app. I got the colour neg converted to a B&W neg. that's all. From here I'd have to email it to myself, open the image on my pc laptop where I've got ps elements which can convert neg to positive. I wish there was a way to do this all on iPad. Anyone know?

 

[shadowfox]

I wonder if the OP (at pnet) tilted the baseboard, it would allow him to compensate for the skewing (caused by the camera being next to the lens)? That way he didn't have to do it using software.

 

[FrankS]

I have another photo edit app called Pic Shop that does have a negative filter, and I got this poor result:

 

[ibcrewin]

As soon as my negatives are finished drying I lay them out and cut them on the light table. Then I take my phone out and set the camera effect to negative. I use it to glance over my negs for a preliminary look. Quick and dirty way to check out your work.

 

[user237428934]

How can this work? If the camera is not on the same axis as the enlarger head then the image is distorted.