Re: 35 mm b&w neg by SprintScan

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From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 10/30/01-11:21:52 PM Z


On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 FDanB@aol.com wrote:

> First off, bite the bullet and download Polacolor 4.5. Then burn the
> download onto a CDR in case the software disappears from the web in
> months to come.

I will, I really will -- as soon as I get my new computer with the CDR
burner...

> If memory serves, the SprintScan Plus, though a 12 bit scanner, can only
> send 8 bits to Photoshop. This means you should indeed try to make as
> many tonality adjustments as possible in the Polacolor dialog boxes.
> (With scanners that support exporting 10, 12, 14 or more bits to
> Photoshop, there are real advantages to doing unadjusted scans and just
> taking all the raw data to Photoshop where you can bend tones with
> abandon with little fear of posterization.)

I've found the software so clunky, I make ALL adjustments in Photoshop,
without any problems until this latest.

> Make SURE you have all sharpening turned off in Polacolor. When you were

I never did any sharpening in Polacolor at all, so unless it's there by
default, that's not the problem... (I also often don't sharpen for what
will be a neg of my own -- as opposed to repro of another image which I
always sharpen -- though I guess that's different discussion.)

> scanning slides, any sharpening would have been gentler on the dye clouds
> in the color material. Now that you're scanning b/w negs, the software
> will see your silver grains as important detail and try to amplify
> it...exactly what you don't want.

Could it be doing that anyway, on its own initiative ?

> Polacolor 4.5 does provide for scanning in b/w, though as others have
> pointed out, there are advantages to scanning in RGB and then examining
> the color channels in Photoshop to see which one(s) are the least noisy.
> Yes, it's a little bit more technical to scan in RGB and then use the
> Channel Mixer but you will witness better quality if you take the time to
> learn this technique.

> I found (with the 4.5 version of Polacolor on a SprintScan 4000) that the
> Raw Color Negative setting worked best when scanning Tri-X and similar
> emulsions. Because the scanner is expecting an orange mask color with
> this setting, you should go to the Color tab in the Polacolor software
> and remove the cast with the eyedropper tool.

In other words, something like that could be affecting my scan in "color
negative" mode -- removing a mask that isn't there being in effect
"sharpening"?

> Hope this helps,

Actually it does, as have other advisories onlist & off. Thanks to all for
excellent suggestions, for not deriding my primitive methods more than
appropriate, and for implicit assurance that one can indeed make good
digital negs from 35 mm tri-x.

I'll add by the way that when I printed various versions of this scan on
various vellums they looked much less worse than the view on screen --
still not candidates for platinum, but I think the combo of dotgain in the
vellum and what will be paper texture in the gum print may make them
printable, as I will test as soon as the chaos in the atelier subsides to
mere pother...

Judy


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