U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: OT: digital proofing of negatives

Re: OT: digital proofing of negatives



sam wang wrote:

> Now that I can finally make good scans of negatives, I need to wade 
> through huge boxes of negatives of various sizes and density ranges
> to  see which ones might be worth the time to scan. Has anyone rigged
> up  something to do that?
>
> I know some of the low end digital cameras include effects such as 
> "negative". Putting such a camera on a copy stand over a light box 
> seems to be the way to quickly go over a lot of images. Has anyone 
> done that? Which cameras could do that well?
>
> Or are there software to invert the image on the monitor if a camera 
> is tethered to the computer?
>
> By the way, batch scanning is out of the question because of the 
> differences between the negatives: size, density, etc.
>
> Thanks.
> Sam

I wonder if something as simple as a USB web camera could be used?  If
all you want to do is measure the density range - the low resolution of
these cameras would not be an issue.  I know most of these allow you to
capture a still image - It would just be a matter of finding the
appropriate software - I assume you use a Mac Sam - You may be able to
use ImageMagik to invert a folder full of images.

Gord