Comments on how to make analog a digital photo?

Does somebody do this? I would appreciate sharing your experiences and techniques.

Thanks!

Generally it is called "scanning" a photo. So a search and you'll find lots of suggestions on how to proceed.

Actually SCL, I believe the OP is trying to do the opposite. Make a digital photo analog. Seems to just be a non-native speaker getting the word order a little mixed up.

 

But, it needs to be clarified. What are you trying to do ana_negri? Do you want to obtain a negative (for printing) for an image originally taken with a digital camera? Or maybe obtain a slide for projection? Please clarify.

As you know, digital photography images the outside world by fragmenting the optical image into an arrangement of tiny picture elements. Each tiny picture element is the smallest possible fraction of the vista that can carry intelligent. This intelligence is in the form of a numerical value. We humans learn to count on or fingers. Fingers are “digits” (Latin for finger). Thus the technique is to breakdown the image into a series of pixels (short for picture element). Each pixel is assigned a value that specifies it intensity. In color photography, a pixel is sub-divided into three pixels, one representing the red content, one for the green content and one for the blue content. Red, green and blue are the three “additive” primary colors. Additive primaries work for TV and computer screens but fail when the image is printed on paper. For these applications we use “subtractive” primaries, cyan (green + blue), magenta (red + blue), and yellow.

 

There are many ways to convert a digital image to an analog image. Photo printers project the digital image onto light sensitive (analog) photo paper. A modified digital projector can do this trick. Software presents only the red pixels to the projector. These are projected onto photo paper. Next software terminates this red exposure and presents only the green pixels exposing the paper to the green image. Next the blue image is projected. At the end of this tri-exposure, the photo paper has received all thee additive primary exposures. The paper is then developed to reveal a full color picture. The same technique can substitute film for paper. The result will be a color negative or slide.

 

The tri-color exposure method can be made using three laser light sources. A red, green and blue lasers play on the color photo paper or film. The lasers are stationary however they are directed at moving mirrors that cause the laser light to paint the entire surface of the photo material. Several color printers uses this method.

 

A tri-color exposure can be made using an array of fiber optics. Each projects an exposure onto film or paper. The project pixel is has the correct color and intensity to expose film or paper making an analog image.

 

A digital chip covered with tiny moving mirrors is also used. This Texas Instrument chip projects a digital image consisting of red, green and blue pixels onto a screen or onto film or paper. Several photo printers are based on this technology.

 

Lastly, your inkjet color printer receives a digital file that gives the numerical values for the color and intensity of the final image. The digital color printer convers this data into sprayed colored ink. The three subtractive colors plus black are sprayed onto inkjet paper.

 

Again many ways to convert digital to analog or visa versa.

By "analog" for you mean film or print? For clarity I would suggest that you do not use the word "analog". There are several meanings of that and not all having to do with photography

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, printing an image on overhead projector transparency film can give anything from workable to terrible results.

 

If you need something in the form of a negative or slide, the best option I can think of is to make a print as large as possible and photograph with a camera containing the desired type and size of film. There are fixtures called "copy stands" specifically meant for doing this sort of work. Back in the old days, you even had convenient pre-packaged film for specialty work like this-as an example Kodak made "title slide film(I forget what exactly it's called-I have a few rolls stashed back) that was basically a high contrast B&W film meant to be used to photograph a title page then mounted in a slide mount and projected at the start of a slide show.

By "analog" for you mean film or print? For clarity I would suggest that you do not use the word "analog". There are several meanings of that and not all having to do with photography

@ James Dennis --

 

The word “analog” is a variant of “analogue”. Language evolves. An analog watch displays time with pointers rather than numbers. A radio or TV transmission using varying signal strength to convey inelegance. A image of objects that is produced using chemical based technology as opposed to digital technology.

Hello everybody and many thanks.

Indeed, I meant converting a photo made with a digital camera into film to be printed.

Very illuminating answers from [uSER=4774668]@alan_marcus|2[/uSER] and @ben_hutcherson, many thanks for that.

Software? if you want to transmit a digital image the analog way, you can convert your TIFF or JPEG into audio data to use common radio gear and established formats like weather fax, Robot 8 and the various Scotty & Martin codexes. - Link to a site listing programs

 

I'm planning to make B&W prints by inserting 5x7" paper into the film holders of my view camera and shooting a 4K screen displaying an inverted image.

This company does what you want. Scroll to 'Film Recording':

 

Digital Slides

 

These two companies also offer film recording services:

 

FILM RECORDING / FILM RECORDER / DIGITAL TO FILM OUTPUT/ DIGITAL SLIDES

 

Film Output Services by PrePress Express Durst LVT Rhino 8x10 and 4x5 Polaroid 35mm, 6x7 and 4x5

I believe De Vere makes an enlarger that projects a digital file for "silver" printing.

I'd do as Ben touched upon - you can get transparancies for inktjet printers, this way you can basically print your own negatives. Personally, I have no idea how such prints would hold up in an enlarger, but for use with older processes (contact prints, for example classic cyanotypes), it will sure work.

To make your digital image into a negative, you will sure need some sort of image editor, to invert the image (so black becomes white and vice versa) and to apply a curves, so that you can get printed negatives with usable densities for whatever process you're using.

 

The transparancies for printing can be found on Amazon and the like, and do not need to cost a whole lot, so this method won't cost much, apart from time experimenting.

 

If you want to do this to create "normal" prints, assuming you have a good enough printer, there is little reason to add all this complexity, though - but it may be worth it to invest in higher quality inkjet papers to get a more refined look to your prints. There are excellent inkjet papers available that will yield great results.

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, printing an image on overhead projector transparency film can give anything from workable to terrible results.

Indeed. - There was a time when they tried to cheap out on silver film to copy offset plates from by digital printing on foil. - It never really worked out: The ink lacked the opacity to cover the printing parts of the plates well enough against the UV light destroying the coating over non printing parts. - Plate exposure ended being a huge compromise that included a lot of work cleaning out coating residues on the non printing parts by hand and partially missing printing parts. The entire thing suffered from low printer resolution 600dpi vs about 2400dpi in a film writer too. - Different processes should have different needs.

An interesting option that you can do is print a digital photo on a Polaroid. There is a device by The Impossible Project called the instant lab that lets you turn photos on your phone into real polaroids. Not sure if that is of interest but just thought I would share. :)

I suspect that there are some transforms that would make a digital image look more like film of old.

 

For one, there are effects from the imperfect absorption spectra of the dyes in film, and some related to processing.

I believe those could be done with a matrix on the digital image data.

 

For black and white, there is actual grain. For color, there are dye clouds generated by developed grains.

Both have an effect on the image that could likely be simulated from a digital image, though you need enough

resolution to resolve them.

 

Next, there is dust and scratches on negatives, which could also be added to digital images.

Why do you want to go via film to a print?

Digital images can be directly printed to photographic paper via a Lightjet printer, or they can be printed using dye-sublimation, which gives results virtually identical to photographic prints. Those are the colour options.

 

B&W is a bit more difficult, since AFAIK there are no lightjet printers that use silver-gelatine paper.

 

Maybe the easiest option in that case would be to 'project' the image on a 4K TV/Monitor and re-photograph it on film - in a darkened room to avoid screen reflections.

Analogue media to digital printing (prints) is called hybrid printing.

You can scan the negatives/transparencies yourself and forward them to a lab who will, if requested by you, run colourimetrics and profiling to match the printer output (be it RA-4 or inkjet -- either have different profiling characteristics).

 

Chapter and verse could be written about the technicalities of scanning, and the scanners themselves (flatbed, bypass, wet/dry drum scanners [usually the most expensive but also superior in quality of results].

 

B&W images are best prepared for inkjet printing on baryta-impregnated stock (of which there are hundreds of types) -- many of these stocks are gaining a hand in archival permanence comparable to traditional silver gelatin prints. Resin-coated inkjet stock is even better. Digital prints to inkjet, vs analogue-digital prints to inkjet or RA-4 (predominantly colour work) have different characteristics and therefore require different profiling to match the printer and the media.

The photo department of my university has recently started offering a service (using a LaserGraphics machine, I think?) to put digital images onto 35mm film - for darkroom prints. I've had three test films made this way but still have to get them developed - very old family photograph scans onto Tmax, ordinary digital camera pictures onto ColorPlus and various non-standard heavily post-processed digital images and film scans onto CT Precisa for possible cross-process.

 

The first two films would be used in the darkroom and the third is purely for my own curiosity as some of the film images were originally cross-processed and now I would in effect be doing that again. It will also be interesting to see what changes there are to the textures of all the pictures.

 

I had to supply the films and a memory stick with clearly labelled folders each containing the 36 images needed for whichever film. What I forgot to do was rotate any of the portrait orientation pictures back to landscape - I am uncertain if this was done automatically by the machine's software, or if the developed film will show them squashed or truncated.

There are ways to print a negative (in digital form) onto a clear medium, and then use that "negative" for contact prints, etc.

 

This is done for making platinum prints, for example. Photographers' Formulary (LINK, LINK) has offered workshops on this.

Years ago, about 20 years ago, the lab I worked with had a LaserGraphics machine.

 

As well as I remember, we never got it to work long enough to get one roll through it.

 

I believe that there is no laser, but that is has a CRT and color filter wheel.

It opens the shutter, scans the image on the CRT with the appropriate filter,

successive scans for each color, then closes the shutter and goes to the

next frame. That was when talks were given using a tray of slides, which we

were supposed to be able to make.

There used to be a lab I went to that would put your digital images on film and then develop it. I am not sure how they did it though.

No longer able to edit my previous post to add this in, but got two of the LaserGraphic films back from the lab today - all vertical orientation photos were automatically rotated to horizontal.

As said above, there used to be film recorders for this. And there was an even cruder solution. When I was a student in High School in the 70s, we took prints (8x10 usually) which had no negatives (for various reasons) and used copy stands to take new pictures of them to create a negative. Depending on the quality of the print, that worked out well or not so well. It does work and copy stands may still be available, especially for film cameras (and you want film right?). But that would require you print high quality 8x10s of the images and then use a film camera to take pictures of those prints. It probably wouldn't be high quality.

 

Note that in the days when digital was new and the photo club I was a member of wasn't capable to displaying digital images, there were some members who were looking to solve this same problem by using their digital images to create slides they could use to enter the competition. Ultimately I think most of them gave up and just printed their work instead.

 

I hope you find a good solution.

"ana_negri was last seen: Jun 11, 2018"

 

- So maybe we should stop wasting time posting to someone who obviously has no further interest in the question?

The original question doesn't really make sense to me. The only thing I can relate to is scanning of an analogue (film) image, the usual work flow to an end-file (jpg, png, tif, etc.) and rewriting to analogue (recording film). This process was followed for about a year and a bit (early-2000s) when Ilfochrome Classic printing was offered from digital files and photographers asked for analogue (film) outputs additional to digital.

 

Having said that, I agree with the comment in post #24. I see this sort of annoying squat-and-swoop a lot on various fora, some people referring back to threads more than a decade old and the OP long since gone!! o_O