Better Scanning with Rick Drawbridge

Phew! Thanks, Rick!

 

I've re-scanned a few of my first 4x5s using your instructions, and the results are superior. Photos first ..... full processing / scanning / photoshop flow next.

 

PHOTOS:

Sherars Falls, Deschutes River, OR

 

 

 

 

Church, Grass Valley, OR

 

 

 

 

Graveyard, Dufur, OR

 

 

 

Bridge of the Gods, Washington / Oregon Border

 

FULL PROCESS

 

In Camera

Calumet CC-401

Caltar 215mm f/6.3 set at f/32

Agfa APX 100

Development

D-76 full strength

9 minutes

4 sheets in the "Taco Method" with hair bands in a daylight development tank

 

Scanning

Epson V800

Silverfast SE

Transparency / Negative / 16->8 Bit

3200 DPI

Unsharp Masking: OFF

Dust and Scratch Removal: OFF

Picture Settings: 0 / 0 / 0

Negafix Generally: Exposure set from 0 down to -3, depending on the negative involved; some needed the darkening

Negafix Version 1: Ilford, Pan F, Plus 50 (this setting is good for a neutral negative)

Negafix Version 2: Kodak, Tri-X, 320 6x6 (this setting makes things darker for a too-bright negative)

CCR: OFF

Auto Adjust: Use on one of the four; Three didn't need it. Auto adjust seems to have turned up the mid-tones on the Sherars Falls image.

 

Photoshop

I suck. I may have used it to improve contrast and darken "Dufur Graveyard."

 

Microsoft "Photos" software

Dust and scratch removal

 

I would be happy to learn anything else folks have used to improve their whole flow. Thanks!

One of the most amazing things about these shots is the tremendous dynamic range and detail available in the scanned negative.

 

For example, in the Church shot, I can zoom into the round window of the church, and that black hole isn't really black. You can see the rafters and beams inside that room. Wow. For the logs on the bottom left, you can almost make out the annual growth rings of the tree .....

Here are Rick's original instructions that I largely followed:

 

scanning

Aha, another bit: I tested the carrier height, and found that the lowest level was poor, the highest level was very good, but the second highest level gave me the best scan of the 3. So, the scanner's focus seems to have a sweet spot.

A couple more shots, re-scanned:

 

Chehalis Barn

 

 

 

White River Falls, OR

 

 

As Bill Bowes pointed out originally, the Falls is a shot where the negative held all the values from *Nearly* blown out on the right to *Nearly* blacked out on the left. But they held detail. Jeepers, there's some dynamic range in there. That was an 11:00 A.M. shot in late October in full sun.

Lastly, Abandoned Farmhouse, Shaniko, OR. Developed by Blue Moon, Portland, OR. Scanned per the above.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by bradleycloven

Hello Bradley

Those are MUCH better.

You said that the second highest height setting was best, is that second from lowest or second from top?

Thanks

Don

Hello Bradley

Those are MUCH better.

You said that the second highest height setting was best, is that second from lowest or second from top?

Thanks

Don

Thanks, Don.

 

That setting was second from the top. I didn't try the middle setting; so I haven't conclusively figured it out. YMMV.

For comparison, here's my less-than-competent earlier version, before Mr. D. showed me the ropes:

 

They're looking good, Brad, and I reckon you've earned your "Scanner, First Class" stripes. Anything you might want to adjust is easily managed in Photoshop, at this point. I've never used "Auto-Adjust" in monochrome; I must try it! Also, scanning 5x4 sheets at 3200 DPI seems a little excessive if you're only going to display your images on the internet; you must have created some very large files. 2400 or even 1200 DPI might suffice, and I wouldn't mind betting that, at the size you're posting here, you'd have trouble telling one from the other. Makes me hunger for a a view camera, once again....

Also, scanning 5x4 sheets at 3200 DPI seems a little excessive if you're only going to display your images on the internet; you must have created some very large files. ....

 

Why have a terabyte hard drive if you can't scan 150MB .TIF files? ;-) I'm an unreformed pixel peeper.

There is something so fine about large format images.

 

Well done!

It is Soooo much fun seeing an adult behaving like a hormone driven teen. . . Go Brad Go !!!

Apart from the scanning part, I just love the very first image - it's got great atmosphere. Lovely work.

Apart from the scanning part, I just love the very first image - it's got great atmosphere. Lovely work.

Early morning down river fog, a falls' mist, wet camera on a basalt outcropping, and craggedy old Native American men plunking for steelhead next to me .....

This is awesome timing. I got my new scanner set up yesterday, and now I know where to go for expert advice on using it. Don't tell Rick, but I scanned some 35mm negatives at 9600. :-)

 

Really lovely shots. I'm glad you were able to get worthy scans of them.

This is awesome timing. I got my new scanner set up yesterday, and now I know where to go for expert advice on using it. Don't tell Rick, but I scanned some 35mm negatives at 9600.

 

Wow ! It will be interesting to see if you can see much difference between scans at that DPI and scans at about 2400 DPI, Dave. I assume you're using a Plustec or Reflecta or somesuch... Don't be too optimistic about actually getting results at the 9600 level, though; most scanners perform at much lower levels than the indicated output. The Epson V700 and V800 that I'm familiar with achieve only about 40% of the 6400 they are claimed to be capable of, as shown in several independent tests. This is pretty typical for most prosumer scanners.

 

I make no claim to scanner expertise! I've learned by the much-fumbling-in-the-dark method...Have fun, and good luck with the new scanner.

Wow ! It will be interesting to see if you can see much difference between scans at that DPI and scans at about 2400 DPI, Dave. I assume you're using a Plustec or Reflecta or somesuch... Don't be too optimistic about actually getting results at the 9600 level, though; most scanners perform at much lower levels than the indicated output. The Epson V700 and V800 that I'm familiar with achieve only about 40% of the 6400 they are claimed to be capable of, as shown in several independent tests. This is pretty typical for most prosumer scanners.

 

I make no claim to scanner expertise! I've learned by the much-fumbling-in-the-dark method...Have fun, and good luck with the new scanner.

Hi, Rick! Well, you're right, of course. If you're only viewing them onscreen, there is no visible difference once you exceed the capability of the screen. That used to be 72 PPI (pixels per inch) for Macs and 96 PPI for Windows, but is now around 100-105 PPI for both. Of course, then you get into all the conversion madness, because PPI is not the same as DPI (dots per inch, which is for printing, even though it's commonly used in scanning software), and neither PPI nor DPI is the same as SPI (samples per inch, which is really what scanners use).

 

So, no, I can't see much difference between 2400 and 4800 onscreen, even when zoomed in. I can see a difference between either of those and 9600 when zoomed in to 300%. It's still useless for onscreen use, but it should be visible when printed large enough at 300 DPI or more. Of course, my printer died, so that may be a moot point, too.

 

But, I'm with Bradley; when it comes to data, more is better. :-) And I've got redundant 2 Terabyte drives, so I'm okay with the 300MB files generated by scanning at 9600 DPI/SPI for images I may want to print big. But, I'll probably dial it down for most scans, if only to save time. 2400 SPI (DPI) is roughly the equivalent of 100 PPI when you do the math, so it's perfectly adequate for the largest screen displays.

 

I only included all that in case anyone else is interested, and because I've recently been refreshing my memory on the topic. It doesn't actually help produce better scans, just larger or smaller files. But, no, I don't have a Plustec. It's just a lowly Epson V370 Photo flatbed scanner, but its maximum (claimed) rate is 12800 DPI (SPI). I suspect a lot of the higher resolutions may be software interpolations, though. I'm not sure how useful that is. As you said, it may be mostly marketing hooey, and I might get equal or superior results by scanning at a lower resolution and letting Photoshop upsample the results as needed.

 

I still need to figure out what to do about the graininess/noise I'm getting. Suggestions are welcome.

Bradley, the pictures have come alive, well done!

A good résumé of the technicalities, Dave.

 

I still need to figure out what to do about the graininess/noise I'm getting. Suggestions are welcome.

 

I guess the evidence of grain is unavoidable, if your scanner is correctly focused. Some films just have more obvious grain than others! As for "noise", the only time I've come across anything of this ilk is when I have negatives with very poor shadow detail, and the scanner has done it's best by using some sort of interpolation to create a texture in the thin part of the negs. If one wants pure blacks this can be annoying, and while one can increase overall contrast in an attempt to defeat it, this is not always desirable. Someone out there may have an answer...

 

A good résumé of the technicalities, Dave.

Thanks, Rick!

 

I guess the evidence of grain is unavoidable, if your scanner is correctly focused....

Yeah, I should have said that I need to figure out what to do, if anything, about the graininess. It may be that no action is needed. I've never liked grain in color photos, though. It seems appropriate for photojournalism and grunge-style art photography, but seems out of place in a clear blue sky. To me.

Hi guys! I have a question about scanning and I think I can post it here, instead of opening a new thread.

 

I have Epson v500 and I am scanning 35mm.

My goal is to have digital images for later potential printing. I thought of the size ~ 11x17inches.

Here are parameters that I input:

Image type: 48-bit

Resolution: here I put 400dpi.

Target size: here I put 11''x17''

Output format: TIFF

 

As a result with these settings, I get an image that is 171MB, 6803x4402 pixels, 400dpi.

 

But then I read in forums that you should scan with as much dpi as possible. But when i set, e.g. 600 dpi (and leave all the other parameters as they are in my example), I get a file that is ~650MB and I cannot even open it... :confused: So I guess one should choose 'Original' in target size, then if one chooses e.g. 1200 dpi, the size will be ok, is that right? But here is where I m getting confused! My scanned images seem to look pretty good in terms of quality (at least on the screen). Am I doing it wrong? Are my scans in bad quality? And how to do it right? Please help with advise and some clarification!!!

Hi guys! I have a question about scanning and I think I can post it here, instead of opening a new thread

 

I'm really no expert, and I can speak only from my own experience. Essentially, you're commanding the scanner to make a low resolution scan of a large area, when you should be requesting a high resolution scan of a very small area. Start with a resolution of 2400 or more, and check "original" in the target size. At an output resolution of 2400 you should end up with a file size of around 21 MB. It looks as if you're using Epson software; you'll observe that "Document Size" will vary with the size of your marquee, but you can ignore this if you've selected original size as a target.

 

Select 48 bit only if you want to print, as your monitor can display only 24 bit, so doubling your file size achieves nothing if the image is for display electronically only.

 

Save the image as a TIFF. I always create a duplicate of my scans to ensure the original stays that way; you can then work on the duplicate and, when you are ready to print, save the image or artwork at the usual printer resolution of 300 DPI.

 

I hope this is of some use; some more knowledgeable member might like to add something more definitive!

Edited April 9, 2018 by rick_drawbridge