Re: Digital negative novice needs help.

From: Sandy King ^lt;sanking@clemson.edu>
Date: 04/19/06-08:55:31 PM Z
Message-id: <a06020410c06ca3944419@[192.168.2.3]>

Matt,

Etienne has a good response to your question and I agree almost
completely with his observations. I will just add a couple of more.

>
>Would it be reasonable to think that I could get good enough scans
>from my 5x7s on a good flatbed to make up to 12x17 negs, or do you
>really need imacon/drum scans?

In my opinion you do not need an Imacon or drum scan for 5X7
negatives if print size is limited to about 3X the original. An Epson
4870 or 4900 scanner is capable of about 40 lppm, so at 3X
magnification your are still at 10 lppm, which is beyond the
resolution of Epson inkjet printers.

>
>What level of resolution and apparent sharpness can be achieved from
>out putting on a high end epson ink-jet? Do the negs stand up well
>when compared to analog enlarged negs in this respect?

About 8-10 lppm. That is also about the limit of resolution of a
Pt./Pd. print on most of the popular papers used with this process.

>Any advice and description of people's process and equipment set-up
>would be greatly appreciated. I would be interested to how and what
>people are doing in this field.

I scan 5X7" negative with an Epson 4870 scanner. The scan is done at
3200 dpi, and I then down size for storage to 1600 dpi, which gives
an effective resolution of about 35 lppm. The maximum print size I
make from these scans is about 2.5X, which keeps resolution at 14
lppm or more, well beyond the threshold of resolution of the human
eye at the optimum viewing distance of 10-12".

Printing with Pt./Pd. digital negatives from the Epson 2200 give
results that can not be distinguished from in-camera negatives with
most papes. On some hard surface papers one might see a slight
advantage to an in-camera negative.

In contact printing with silver gelatin papers in-camera negatives
are definitely superior in most cases to inkjet negatives. With
carbon, it depends on the final surface, but on many papers an inkjet
negative gives results as good as an in-camera negative.

Sandy
Received on Wed Apr 19 20:55:47 2006

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