Mike: I also bought Dan's book, and am beginning to work with making
digital negs for pt/pd printing. Although I have not been able to make
Dan's methods work for me as yet, hope springs eternal. I am reading an
interesting paper and would suggest you get it. It is another approach to
digital negs, by David Fokos, and you can get a copy at
www.bostick-sullivan.com. Regarding inversion, I am using Adobe Photoshop
4 and this is not a problem. Whether the image is scanned as a positive or
negative, you can invert it. The biggest problem I have had so far is
finding a pre-press agency with an adequate imagesetter and skill to
produce the negs. The investment in trial and error $ and learning curve is
steep!
My experience so far indicates that the drum scanner (service bureau) is
the way to go, although I am not crazy about someone else handling my
negatives. It is yet another reason for having multiple negs. With 120
film you could drum scan or scan from a Linotype-Hell 2000 ppi flatbed. I
have scanned 35mm negs and slides with the Polaroid Sprintscan+ and it is
good, though not as good as the drum scanner. I have scanned from prints
with very good results in printing on the Epson ESC800, but...a print will
not be as sharp as a negative due to limitations of the paper, thus
introducing a problem in a process that is already at the edge.
About time to get serious with this, given the creative possibilities with
Photoshop. I have also been enlarging negs onto FP4, but compared to
Photoshop's _potential_ it is really no contest. I plan to go with David
Fokos' method, bite the bullet on drum scans and hopefully establish a
relationship with someone local with a 3600 dpi imagesetter in good repair.
Ironically, I began this venture with the thought that I could ditch my
8x10 camera and use a 35mm. I think David's film negs begin as 8 x
10...Whatever. The portability issue has now taken a lower priority.
--Ken Carney
Regards,
--Ken Carney