How do you 'normally' shoot and process (and organise, if you like) your photos, etc?

my habit is s-curve, up the black point, using the 'shadow' slider to bring out shadow detail (in aperture), maybe bring down the highlights a little bit with the highlight slider...

yeah you don't have to get crazy and having a more or less uniform 'aesthetic' makes your portfolio more cohesive. I think the important adjustment is the s-curve since digital sensors return linear data. don't overcook your photos.

and yeah presets are definitely 'last mile' - you can't polish a turd.

I'm a terrible man for the presets (I just installed another 100 or so last night!); chiefly the "300" family that I discovered a couple of years ago. Addicted to their look on portraits. But, yeah, generally: deepen blacks, S-curve, little clarity/vibrance boosts, attend to any noise/colour temp/geometry issues (that last one is a cinch in LR3 with the lens profiles) and then *maybe* get into local adjustments.

My portfolio has no coherence whatsoever.

i've still never figured out how to fix noise/geometry (nor have i really looked into it)

Well, LR3 is very good on noise but it can get a bit...android-smooth if you overdo it. I just knock up the luminance fader a bit for ISO 1000-1250, a bit more for 1600, a lot more for 3200 (and the color fader too) - checking out the shadow areas at 1:1 - and dial back in a bit of detail if I feel it's losing too much definition.

For geometry, I rely entirely on lens profiles. I used to use a trial version of DxO Optics Pro, which was great, but the workflow with LR wasn't quite what I was after, so the introduction of lens profiles in LR3 was ideal. With portraiture it's sort of a peace-of-mind thing; I may not be able to tell that a headshot with the 28mm is a bit convex but I can immediately see that applying the lens profile flattens it like it's a 50mm shot, and I like that. (Also: chromatic aberration and vignetting disappears without having to fiddle manually). Even fancy L lenses like the 24-105mm need quite a bit of correction at the wide end.

Hello you,

Is there a thread where we talk about cheap home scanners and whatnot. I want to scan 120 and also 16mm movie negatives and I see this:

http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-4490-Photo-Scanner/dp/B000ALCJT4

It claims "Convenient film holders accommodate multiple 35mm slides and negatives, plus medium format film.". So what exactly are these holders and can I jerry-rig one for the 16mm?

the http://www.amazon.com/Epson-B11B189011-Epson-Perfection-V500-Photo-Scanner/dp/B000VG4AY0 is the more recent version

holders hold two strips of 6 negs at once (for a total of 12 frames) in 35mm

for 120, you can scan 3 frames at once w/ the included holder

you could probably scan 16mm in the 35mm slide

Cool,

what does this new version have over the old? I'm really a dabbler so was looking for something refurbed rather than the newest latest

You could DIY a 16mm holder with black matboard, most likely. That's the strategy people use with oddly-sized large-format film.

what's the refurb price? i believe epson also sells refurbs from their website.

dunno what the difference is but the price difference seems minimal! neither are 'new' - the v500 was released in 2003

how much film do you have to scan? I spent a year scanning negs for a paper, and the thought now makes me shudder; it's so laborious to get really good results. Next time I have a load of scanning I'll just get a lab to do it, I think.

i know nothing of film scanning but was looking into getting one and i guess some ppl find lab scans to be subpar?

Yeh, I think they are as well. There's a real trade off to be made, and it depends what you're doing. I mean, if you get your own scanner, and some compressed air, and hoover the place thoroughly, and get white gloves, and calibrate everything, and spend a fair amount of time post-processing everything, you can get some really stunning results from scanning film.

But that one shot takes hours, so if you're trying to get your entire neg archive into the computer, taking to the lab and quickly tweaking each scan is massively better than the alternative of putting them into a box and waiting until you retire so you can get around to it.

with a v700 it takes about 1 hour to do a roll of 38-39

What's the quality like? We used to have one that would do a 38 roll in about 20 minutes, but the results needed a lot of work

I've settled on scanning as a quick 'n' dirty way of getting negs digitized. I toyed around with the idea of getting a dedicated 35mm for getting a high quality version of negs that I really like. but I decided to set up a darkroom instead. if your main goal is to show on the web, I think scanning with default options and cooking your files a little afterwards in post is fine...

maybe if I had a decent printer...

the v700 is great for b&w - I wasn't so hot on it for color negs or slides, though. the konica-minolta dual iv dedicated I had, oh, about 6-7 years ago? was noticeably better for color. otoh, I never messed around with the settings for scanning color. people use vuescan with great results from the v700, or so I hear.

there is no question that scanning can be tedious. I do remember that one of the nikons had an attachment that would let you scan a whole strip of film, up to 36 frames, at once.

otoh a v700 is nice in that it does 24 at once - you set it, surf ILX, do other things, and replace the negs when done.

unfortunately the v700 I had always seemed to be on the verge of mechanical failure and a trip to the warranty shop did not fix things. I'd probably think twice about buying it again for fear of bearing shipping costs in the event of a warranty claim.

hmmm

all this is making me a little skeptical of getting a scanner/working in film

I use a V500 now which performs admirably in that it never returns a preview scan full of rubbish (which my v700 always did)

but yeah, there aren't many advances being made in the field of film scanning. most of the scanners we have now are from 5-10 years ago.

if the bottom on the film market really falls out, maybe I'll be able to pick up a norita or other lab scanner for cheap. ^_^

I mean, noritsu

gbx you can get a plus-tek which is a dedicated film scanner, offers really high quality scans from what I've seen. I think chinavision has one. downside is you can only scan one strip of 6 at a time before you have to change holders, I think. and it's slow.

you may also need to invest money in quality scanning software like vuescan, which is about $70. film is expensive! :[

i think i had a copy of vuescan that i deleted :(

Yeah I use a Plustek, which I like quite a bit, but it is indeed very slow. My trick is: I looove scanning negatives. it's like taking pictures, part 2. But also I a.) save so much money now and b.) don't have to worry about blown out highlights, oversharpening etc. from lab scans.
I do notice more color noise than I used to get from the lab. I don't know if that's because they pumped everything through extreme color noise reduction (in addition to the contrast boosting and insane sharpening) or if it's an actual technical downside to the scanner I'm using. I mean grain on color film is kind of "color noise" so it makes sense.

can you post an example of your color noise?

My portfolio has no coherence whatsoever.

― Michael Jones, Monday, September 12, 2011 10:20 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

outrageous lies!

The image:
http://www.altairnouveau.com/scaled.jpg

And the noise:
http://www.altairnouveau.com/fullsize.jpg

The noise sample is unprocessed. Usually I will do a little bit of chromatic noise reduction on each image when processing it (no "real" noise reduction though).

been a while since I went chroma-hunting but that doesn't look too bad at all

Guess that's what I was figuring. Like I say it's hard to compare to lab scans since they do so much EXTREME processing to begin with.

That looks like chroma noise on the scanner sensor - Lightroom/Adobe Camera Raw could take care of that pretty easily without degrading the image.

so ......................
a V500 is what i should get in terms of negative scanning, right?

for convenience, yeah, but if you don't scan that often maybe getting a 35mm dedicated would be better?

oh yeah for a dirt cheap one that produces decent results, a v500 is pretty good

i'm gonna be scanning like ... all the time, i think. i've been developing a lot over the last while & just checked my bank balance, & ... :/
i found one for a price i'm okay with, anyhow, so will probably go for it. i just want like ... pretty okay scans, for the most part. colour is the thing i'm fussy about, grain or detail barely really registering. ty for the guidance.

am belatedly looking forward to learning this stuff. it feels like a tangent from the whole consideration of what photos even are, what they look like, trying to work out what you're striving for with a digital image.

I have a V500 and it does the job just fine, usually less saturated than the basic lab scans but also less murky and with more detail. One or two shots in particular where I'd totally passed over the lab scan, but the V500 actually brought out an image. On the flip side, there's maybe a handful (at most) of images where I've not been able to recreate the colours of the lab scan.

I rarely use 120 film so I'm tempted to move on to a dedicated 35mm scanner, but it's probably unnecessary for now.

curled negatives

oh god

lol how long have they been curled for

I do the reverse curl and keep em in a canister for a day or two

i got a few sets of prints & a few sets of negatives back from the lab today, & they all came in the same envelope; those that were on the outside are curled, my god it is terrible; i've been trying to scan them by slamming the scanner lid down like a malcontent pianist. i'm trying to just get some reference scans so i can pick a few things to get printed, so i'm not even starting to worry about colours (bluish) or tones on the b/w stuff (blown out). this is basically my terrifying entrance to the world of negative scanning, the idea i am now the guy responsible for all of this process-ing is p harrowing.

reverse curl tip much appreciated btw

the more gentle way is to sleeve them and put them in between two giant pieces of lead granite

yeah. they're sleeved (the complicated folding of which feels like part of the cause/effect thing) & i'll find something to put them in between (currently, for the transport home: in the new & conveniently scaled charles burns book). it really feels like a whole other thing to be dealing with the delicacy of negatives, anyway. like i want to buy gloves; i feel so klutzy when i have the instinct to paw away dust. are you guys all like antiquers, with glasses perched on the edge of your nose & airbrushes within reach on your solid pine desks & mickey mouse gloves worn as soon as one enters the controlled environs in which photo handling takes place?

I don't wear gloves I handle them by the sprocket holes

You also have to be sure your monitor is adjusted properly. The differences you state, sound like light-temperature variances from location to location.

Once you learn the temperature of natural light (or even flash pics which most flashes correct for temperature variances), then it'll be easier for you to correct them.

If you have no idea what I mean by "temperature of light", then I can't help you any further.

cool new photo rabbit-holes to go down

looking at filmstrips is really awesome btw

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vTpsx3Bpv8k/UMmT5pY0pOI/AAAAAAAAAMc/fBRfklMt8gk/s912/2.jpg

Sandy destroyed my favorite photo developer (at least I doubt he'll be coming back) so I tried a new $3/roll place and they just *wrecked* my negatives. they came back unsleeved in a cardboard box and the chemicals must have been waaay off because the negs are super faint.
good thing I'm on a scanning hiatus atm

also reverse curl is all you need. the day I get negatives back they can be hard to scan, but within a couple days they generally lie pretty flat.

it sucks trying to find a quality developer in my ridiculous price range!

there's a place near me in Chinatown off of Bowery that does develop only for 3.75, haven't tried them yet tho

http://www.yelp.com/biz/yardley-photo-studio-new-york#query:photo

this is the place? what's kinda funny is that when I was going through my parents negs from the 80s I'm pretty sure they got some of them developed at the exact same place

they also do 120 and 220 for relatively cheap too

nb: don't know how the quality is