How do I scan Tri-X and Rodinal to look like this.

[e. s.]

I'm experimenting with Tri-X 400, Rodinal and a Minolta Dimage Scan

Dual III.

 

I've just started out with B/W photography. The first roll I developed

was TMax 100 with Rodinal 1+50 exposed in India three years ago. Many

of those shot's came out really nice. Since then I've been out shootin

Tri-X. So far I've developed 6 rolls shot at ISO 400, 200, 800 and

1600 under diffrent conditions. They all look terribly grey, dull and

boring straight from the scanner.

 

I've used times, temperatures and dilutions from the massive dev.

chart and I think I agitate ok (10 inversions for 30 sek in the

beginning followed by 4 inversions for 10-12 seks every 60 sec). I've

also developed one roll of TMax 400. That one also looked pretty dull

but it had been exposed 5 years ago so it was quite old.

 

I would like to get pleasing images straight from the scanner. Is that

at all possible with Tri-X or are they supposed too look gray and

dull? If not what am I doing wrong?

 

I have no other means of checking my negatives than with my scanner.

So my question is how do I know where the problem is? Should I develop

differently, learn how to salvage my photos in photoshop or aim for a

slower film (problem is I have a lot of tri-x and rodinal)?

 

This is an example of Tri-X and Rodinal that I think look nice. The

fence is blown out but still, it looks much nicer than anything that

I've been near so far (except for my first TMax roll).

 

http://www.photosensitive.ca/?image=Tri-X-Rodinal-001

 

How did this shot look straight from the scanner? And what kind of

post scan adjustments has he/she probably made? Does anyone have

examples of Tri-X that shows how a good developed negative should look

straight from the scanner and how it can look when you've tweaked it

in PS?

 

I would really appreciate it.<div></div>

[e. s.]

Just to clarify. The attached image is a typical "boring" scan of mine. I don't know how to put it but it has no "edge" and no "punch". It's just gray. I would like to get results in the neighbourhood of the one at the site I've linked to. I guess a good start would be too shoot in better light but besides from that...

[jonathan_traupman]

Black and white film will record a wider range of brighteness than what you often need for a print. It will compress these brightnesses such that a one stop difference in brightness in the scene will be about a 1/2 stop difference on the negative. Long story short, negatives will look very flat right out the scanner -- they'll look like you printed them on a low contrast paper.

 

You'll have to adjust the contrast in Photoshop to get the look you want -- sort of like choosing a paper grade in the darkroom but with a lot more fine control. Learn to use the "Curves" control to dial in exactly how much contrast you want in different tonal ranges. For example, attached is your image with the following curve applied:

 

(0,0), (103,48), (193,206), (255,255)

 

Of course, you'll have to experiment to find the tonal curve that works for you.

 

-Jon<div></div>

[kaiyen]

I agree that it's pretty rare to get perfect results straight out of the scanner. I mean, you can get more contrast, but at the expense of control. Not all scenes have full blacks in them (your shadow detail area (Zone III if you know that) might be the darkest spots in your composition). You could therefore underexpose to block up your shadows to get really deep blacks. You could then overdevelop a bit to blow out your highlights, resulting in a very contrasty negative and, subsequently, scan.

 

Personally, I prefer to get a flatter (but not _flat_) negative, and adjust slightly in PS. It's a very simple adjustment - takes less than 2 minutes to get into the right ballpark.

 

allan

[lars_mo.]

IMHO one cannot expect to get good looking images straight from the scanner when scanning negs.

 

For me, it's always necessary to adjust a bit. Your shot looks quite fine to me; I would tweak the gradation curve a bit to get more contrast.

 

Best regards

Lars

[yeffe]

I have also been disappointed with my results from a 35mm scanner. Even manipulation in

PS does not give me the luminosity that one expects on photo paper from a well-exposed

and properly developed negative. My short-form explanation is that the scanner seems to

need to read all the grain in the image, where, in the darkroom, judicious use of paper

contrast and development allows one to use the minimum amount of grain exposure

needed to

make the image. Perhaps there is also a certain obsfucation, or harmonization that is an

attractive part of the image loss one experiences through a second optical system (the

enlarger) that one does not get with the scanner.

[e. s.]

With the curves adjusted it does look much better. So do I understand it correct if i assume that the above Tri-X negative has been developed and scanned without any big errors? Would this mean that my TMax 100 roll has been underexposed and over developed since it has much more contrast? In my opinion it looks much better straight from the scanner and I actually doubt that I'll ever get my Tri-X to look like this no matter how long I work those curves.<div></div>

[kaiyen]

You can certainly get your TXT in Rodinal to look the same, but you have to tweak your process. Everything from your EI to your metering method to your exposure to developer choice, developer dilution, agitation method and, finally, scanning software and method will affect your end result.

 

I can get those kinds of deep blacks with most films if I use one of the Vuescan film/dev/contrast profiles that push the histogram to the left. I can then get the highlights nice and bright like that by boosting them with a curve. In that case, I have properly exposed and developed, I'm just manipulating things when scanning.

 

allan

[tim_hardin]

If you are going to adjust your scans curves in Photoshop, then you may find it easier to set your photo to lab mode. The reason behind this is that the fist point 25% up the line is 25% in real life (not the number associated with colors in Photoshop), half way up is 50%, and so on. Play with your scan in lab mode, and you will get a little better starting point

 

When you get it looking the way you like, then go back to the mode that was the original scan; b+w, color, grayscale?whatever you scan was originally.

 

Additionally, I find that scanning in color gives you a better scan, but most important it gives you more control over your image. In addition, the last thing you will want to do is to desaturate (image/adjustment/desaturate) your color scan [even though it is a b+w image], and that will take all the color out of the image for a better print, or digital presentation.

 

Good luck, and practice, practice, practice. The more you do this, the better you will begin to understand it.

 

Tim

 

PS There is an action on the Adobe web site that converts color photos to black and white, and if you scan your b+w negative in color, then you will have a color image, and the action may give you the look you like. Just try to remember that there is more than one way to skin a cat?

[lars_mo.]

Erik,

 

I would assume that your Tri-X has been developed within the standards.

 

Probably you should also consider the different characteristics of TMax and Tri-X. IIRC TMax has a very straight gradation curve whereas most other films have a more S-shaped one.

 

I both scanned an image a couple of days ago. You can see it, a zebra, within my pictures here on photo.net. The original unmanipulated scan looked completely dull. After adjusting the gradation curve I'm quite satisfied with it.

 

One has to take into account the de that scanning negs will always produce files that look dull. It is related to the gamma value of the medium that is scanned. B/W negs are normally devoloped to have a gamma value of 0.55-0.65 whereas slides e. g. have a gamma value of around 1.5. That's why they look so crispy and contrasty compared to negs and why you need to tweak a bit.

[david_beal___richmond_hts.]

I think you've got two problems. There are a lot of posts on this forum claiming that silver based negatives don't scan as well as dye based negatives. I'll defer to their wisdom.

 

The other problem is that Rodinal is not a good developer for Tri-X, much less Tri-X shot at 400. Reduce the working speed of Tri-X to 250, and develop it in D-76 1:1, or ID-11. If you want to increase the speed, use stock D-76 for a push to 800, and Xtol or DDX above that.

 

Rodinal is a good developer for high contrast, low speed films such as PanF, FP4 or PlusX. It is outstanding with Delta 100 shot at 50. It can give interesting results diluted 1:100 and used with stand development. But it isn't the developer of choice for low contrast (i.e., high speed) film.

 

If you want better results with scanned b/w images, shoot Ilford XP2 Super. You can get it processed at any drug store lab, it doesn't have silver, and you can print it onto conventional b/w paper, since it doesn't have the annoying orange color of Kodak chromogenic films. Admittedly, the dynamic range is less than silver film, but you may like it.

 

Good shooting.

 

/s/ David Beal ** Memories Preserved Photography, LLC

[e. s.]

I was sort of hoping to find a workflow that allowed me to do the creative part in the exposure and development and then just pop the negs in the scanner and get some nice jpgs to publish on the net. Eventually I would also like to start printing in the darkroom so I also want to produce negatives that would print ok. Maybee that's hard to achieve in practice. Since I work with computers most of the day I'd prefer a more analog approach to photography...

 

I have 10 more 36 rolls of Tri-X so I will bracket them in every direction, split them in two and apply diffrent times, dilution and agitation to each half, scan as to my best knowledge and see what i can shake out in photoshop. If nothing works I will buy something else than Tri-X to go with my Rodinal the next time. At least I know what I'll be doing this summer..

 

Now I have confidence that a dull scan can become a nice picture (or in my case at least a less dull picture). Pushing the histogram to the left did improve my scans though I'm far from satisfied. I must admit that I haven't fully mastered the curves yet but I will keep practicing until I gain understanding. The S-shape seems to do wonders in any case...

 

Thank you all!

[alexis_neel]

If you will notice, the link, http://www.photosensitive.ca/?image=Tri-X-Rodinal-001, is done from a print. It has always been my contention that you get better results scanning prints rather than negs, at least in B&W.

 

And I REALLY differ from the above opinion that Tri-X at 400 in Rodinal isn't a good combination. Thats just not true.

 

Alexis

 

www.alexisneel.com

[ace_fury]

<I>It has always been my contention that you get better results scanning prints rather than

negs, at least in B&W.</I><P>That has to the most absurd comment I have seen on

Photo.net, and that is saying something. Get better results by adding a second generation to

a workflow? yea, right.

[ronald_moravec1]

My negs are developed to print on #2 paper with a condenser enlarger.

Scanning them with my Minolta 54 gives me results that match with Minolta software. If you don`t like the scan, adjust yur development time or establish what contrast -curve shape changes please you and program the software to make those changes on every scan. There should then be less manipulation post scaning.

 

Sort of like if you develope to print on #3 paper, don`t do your first tests on something else, change to #3, and then reprint.

 

I think you should not use rodinal either for tri x. Try EI 400 and undiluted D76 for 5 minutes, or 250 for less. You can get all the contrast you want.

 

My 4x5 negs are developed to print the same way on a condenser enlarger. I scan them with an Epson flat bed 4870 and they look good as scanned.

 

I really recommend you work with the development process.

[jtk]

Rodinal is a SUPERB developer for TriX IF you want its look. If you don't want the look, don't use Rodinal.

 

I happen to love it with fast film because I like sharp grain and the famous Rodinal "edge effect." But for the same reason I avoid it when I don't actively want ultimate grain sharpness :-)

 

The nice thing about scanning and inkjet is that you can do miracles if you play a little. It adds to the range of possibilities that exist(ed) with silver paper and IMO beats silver paper in everything except semi-gloss...and I've not bothered to explore the options there.

[Aoresteen]

Erik,

 

Your Tri-X looks underexposed to me. I'd shoot a roll at EI 200 and develop as before.

 

Consider using HC110-B for your developer. Where are you located?

[jordan_w.]

Hi Erik and everyone,<p>

 

The photo Erik linked to in his post is from my site (www.photosensitive.ca). I took it near my apartment in Cambridge, MA, when I was living there. I was using my Nikon F90 with a rented 24mm AF Nikkor (nice lens!). I just fetched out the Print-File page: the roll is from August 2003, the combo was indeed Tri-X rated at EI 250, using the F90's matrix metering, and was developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 6 minutes at 22C. The negs have good shadow detail and are very crisp-looking.<p>

 

That roll is one of only two that I have tried with the Tri-X/Rodinal combination. The inspiration to try it came from all the Salgado books I had been reading at the time -- the crisp, clear graininess of his images really appealed to me. (Apparently he uses, or once used, this combo.)<p>

 

Anyway, while most of the B&W work on my site is scanned directly from the film with my Minolta Scan Dual II, I had a really hard time getting a decent neg scan out of those Tri-X/Rodinal negs. The scans looked incredibly grainy. Film scanning can sometimes seem to "amplify" the grain in an image -- this may be due to the collimation of the scanner's light source, or "grain aliasing", or whatever -- what makes matters worse is that we're often looking at our scanned images on the monitor with 100% zoom, equivalent to looking at a print with a powerful loupe (not a realistic situation). I think we may end up deluding ourselves at least some of the time because of this.<p>

 

After my attempts at scanning the Tri-X/Rodinal negs ended in disaster, I filed them away for a while. I dug them out again only last fall and made some conventional prints in a rental darkroom here in Toronto. I scanned the prints, tweaked Levels and Curves a bit, and the result is what you see on my website.<p>

 

My workflow for B&W is generally this: <p>

<ol><li>I develop the negs myself at home, trying to use fairly fine-grained combinations (i.e. I now avoid Rodinal for scanning purposes) and conservative development. <br><li>I scan them with Vuescan in my Scan Dual II in the "Colour image" mode (meant for slides) with no clipping or modifications of any kind (except rotation, cropping, etc.) I use the "16-bit grayscale" output option as I've found that saving as a colour grayscale makes no difference. 16-bit is definitely preferable to 8-bit, though. <br><li>In PS or GIMP I invert the file to a positive, adjust the Levels sliders so that the image histogram fills the space between them, and then use Curves liberally to get the tonal "rendition" I want. <br><li>Then I convert the file to 8-bit and use Layers to do dodging/burning type operations, sharpening, etc.</ol><p>

 

Most of this workflow comes from reading many posts here, on rec.photo.darkroom, and tips on Scantips and Norman Koren's website. Chromogenic films like XP2 scan really well with fine apparent "grain" (I love XP2 for both scanning and darkroom printing) but I also think it's very possible to get really good scans out of conventional B&W film. For me the key points have been to keep development conservative (to avoid high-density highlights that the scanner has a hard time "reading through") and to avoid the more coarse-grained developers like Rodinal. As much as I like Rodinal for conventional printing, I've found it to be too much trouble for scanning. Developers that have worked well for me in scanning negs include HC-110 (with a wide variety of films), Perceptol (works well with HP5+) and Diafine. Finer-grained combinations are generally better. Another trick is to be very careful with sharpening -- I don't do an all-over Unsharp Mask but rather follow a process where I first find and then select the edges before sharpening.<p>

 

Anyway, I hope I've answered Erik's questions, and thanks for reading...<p>

[alexis_neel]

"That has to the most absurd comment I have seen on Photo.net, and that is saying something. Get better results by adding a second generation to a workflow? yea, right"

 

The second generation has nothing to do with it. Its the tonality of the print that helps the scan.

 

I don't expect you to understand though so its ok.

[e. s.]

Wow, this was unexpected. How did you find this discussion? Anyway, your answer definitely answered all my questions and more. I don't suppose that I could get a better answer. Thank you both for your reply and inspiring photography.

 

I've been away for a couple of days so I haven't had time to do any more experimenting but as soon as I get some time and money I will. I have a lot of information to digest. In any case it seems to be quite obvious that tri-x and rodinal isn't the best combination when negatives are to be scanned.

 

While I'm at it I would like to chare a little "trick" that can be worth trying when scanning. I haven't had a chance to try it with Tri-X yet but I found a tip in another discussion about using what someone called the "advanced workflow" in Vuescan. You scan a piece of clear filmstrip, lock the exposure and then scan your negative.

 

I did this with a very very old roll of Kodak Verichrome pan developed in Rodinal (I'm still trying to find out when the film was exposed but it was in a 12 exposure instamatic cassette so it was definitely a while ago).

 

The negatives were almost completely black when not viewed against a bright light. I could hardly make out anything after my first scan but using the advanced workflow I actually got a pretty decent picture. So it seems like it can make a big difference in some cases...

[jordan_w.]

Erik, you can check my posting history here -- I'm usually all over photo.net but had been away from it for a few days due to a holiday before I found your thread. Anyway, I don't think it's impossible to get good scans from Tri-X in Rodinal, but on the other hand I don't recall seeing anyone tout this combination as one that's good for scanning.

 

If you can, get a hold of some HC-110 and try developing your Tri-X in that. It has given me reliable negs for scanning. (I would avoid Dilution B, the 1+31 mix -- instead, dilute the HC-110 at a ratio of 1+63 and develop the Tri-X for 9.5 mins at 24C -- this works well). If you can't get HC-110, any reasonably fine-grained developer should do the job -- Xtol, or ID-11/D76, Ilford DD-X, etc.

 

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any more questions.

[dealy663]

I've found that you can get some really nice scans from Tri-X, or Tmax-100 or Delta 100 provided that you take the time to scan the negative properly. Below is a link to a folder of images I just scanned. They were all shot on a Nikon F100 using Tri-X at 400, and developed in D-76 1:1. I used an Epson 4990 flatbed to scan them.

<p>

When I scan I make sure that I'm not clipping the highlights. Occasionally I will allow for minor clipping of shadows to get better black density. But as you can see in the two photos of my daughter, I have really held back the amount of black clipping I was willing to do.

<p>

Generally B/W neg scans should come out of the scanner a little flat. So far I find it much more convenient to make the mid-tone adjustments afterwards in PS. As others have mentioned it can be helpful to scan as color positive and then invert in PS later. This causes the scanning software to apply a different algorithm to its interpretation of the hi and low values, and will occasionally get you closer to your desired final goal for the image than a normal negative scan.

<p>

I don't think I've managed to scan any film at all yet (color or B/W) that hasn't required post scanning work in PS. You should also remember that if you really prefer those hi-contrast kinds of images, that you will be making less work for yourself if you originally expose your film with that in mind (shoot in hi-contrast lighting).

<p>

<a href="http://www2.grandprixsw.com:8000/photography/pub/June%202005/061605/index.html">My latest Tri-X folder</a>

<p>

Derek

[artoartarrt]

If you'll also notice, the picture referred to by this link

http://www.photosensitive.ca/?image=Tri-X-Rodinal-001

was made on Efke 25 film. Good luck getting Tri-X to look like that with ANY developer.

[jordan_w.]

Clam, the link you posted is invalid and is just taking you to the most recent picture in my photo-blog (which was just posted on July 1st and was indeed taken on Efke). I've re-arranged my blog software and so the original link doesn't work. The picture Erik was referring to can be found at http://www.photosensitive.ca/index.php/image/Tri-X-Rodinal-001/

 

Jordan (www.photosensitive.ca)

[john carter]

I have trouble with 35mm scans, but it might be my old scanner. But I use unexposed but developed color negative film between the light source and the negative. Sometimes this improves the contrast, etc. I wish I could find neutral density film base of different shades to experiment. I know it sounds stupid, but it works (a little) for me on thin negatives.

 

John Carter