Is printing scanned film better than printing optically?

[brandan]

The suposed is:

 

You have a 35mm colour neg/slide. You scan it with a good scanner. Then, you print it at

a pro lab.

 

Is there any quality loss in the process?

 

Do digital scanning match "traditional developing" in quality.

 

Of course I am not talking about the advantages of using photoshop between scanning

and printing, which are obvious.

 

I just want to know where the edge is.

 

Thanks

[godfrey]

A scanner is a device for acquiring image data into a digital form. Digital image data

requires processing to prepare it for printing, just like a film image, which is what is being

done to a film image when a photofinisher is printing it through the color filtration and

exposure adjustments.

 

So the notion of your "test" schema is not valid. You are making the assumption that the

scanner's application software can do the job of preparing a negative for printing to match

a photofinisher's printing process for a film image. Sometimes, with some negatives and

some software packages used with some scanners, the answer can be "yes" ... But most

often, it is not a valid assumption.

 

I have been doing photography for 40+ years, and obviously spent a good bit of that time

working with film and darkroom processes to produce prints. I feel that I am now getting

the best quality prints using scanned film and digital capture, Photoshop and a high-

quality printer like the Epson R2400.

 

Godfrey

[steve_swinehart]

You have a 35mm neg/slide. You put it in an enlarger. Is there any loss of quality due to: enlarger lens, flare, enlarger alignment, etc.?

 

"I just want to know where the edge is."

 

In order to ascertain the edge, one must first know the answer to the question "What is yellow and dangerous?"

[ilkka_nissila]

Generally with film scanners you do get more information out of the film, more detail, more grain. But does it look better? That's another question not easily answered.

 

My answer is for slides: yes, definitely you can get better results using a film scanner than conventional methods. For color negatives, the answer is a lot less clear but with the appropriate post-processing, yes, again the results can be better using the digital method. But this is more gray area. I like conventional prints and like to know that they're produced using an enlarger.

[fanta]

I agree with Ilkka. My experience was that scanning slides I could then fix colors and get results far superior to what I got from a lab. I could also remove dust and scratches before printing. Scanning negs is a headache instead, because of the orange mask and inverted colors, I found it much easier to get consistent and credible colors from a lab print.

[david_henderson]

It depends on the film, the capability of the scanner, the size of the print, the machine and paper used for printing, whether you're talking colour or black & white and above all on the skills and attitudes of the person making the print. It depends on a lot of other things too.

 

But your contention is right more often than it is wrong, especially for colour. Scanning and printing digitally will often produce a better print than optical printing.

 

The best prints I've ever seen from my transparencies have been drum scanned on a Tango the file adjusted to my brief, and then printed on a LightJet or Chromira.

[jtk]

I find scanning color negatives just as easy as scanning slides because I don't assume slides are finished visions. I want to render what I saw, not what the film claims I saw.

 

That said, optical printing and its restrictions have their charms. The problem with comparing digital to optical labs is that few of the latter have ever been capable of work as fine as has actually been possible.

 

One spin on the question is that it's like asking which is better, home cooking or restaurant food. I'm a better cook than most restaurant cooks, but you may not be :-)

 

Digital technology marketing suckers people into forgetting the human element, allowing them to think that they can buy skills that are actually only available with practice.

 

Would you rather learn something or patronize a retail clerk?

[mark u]

Whilst this question is about better results from scanning and image processing prior to printing vs. direct optical printing, I'll add a qualification for the benefit of those who encounter this thread puzzling over the poor quality of their commercially produced 6x4 digitally scanned prints. Such prints are typically scanned at a very low resolution (which allows machine throughput to be maximised) - and output to no more than about 2MP, way below the resolution achievable optically at this print size. The low resolution scans can also result in very noisy reproduction of shadow areas. The good news is that with better scanning or optical printing, a much better result can be achieved. The bad news is that 6x4 prints are often not worth paying for, even as proofs, these days.

[klaus.sailer]

I got some good results with big enlargements that would have been unlikely with optical enlargement.

 

I scanned the negative with Minolta DSE 5400 full res and did some color adjustments, scratch removal and grain reduction. As long as you get the grain to be visible in the scan, the resolution should be good enough to match the optical print.

 

IMO, going the digital route, you can get by with inferior printing labs as the expertise required for printing a properly processed digital file is less than making really good enlargements of a negative (how to get the colours to match what I want, etc.)

 

I know that you can mess up the colours in the digital printing step too, but I haven't experienced much of a problem with the labs I tried.

[brandan]

Thanks a lot. Your comments were very enrichment!

 

Another trouble I see in digital scanning is the DOF issue. Do your scanners behave badly and

unsharp images because the film is a bit bended?

 

Excuse my english.

 

Thanks again

[Tim_Lookingbill]

If you're making quality judgements on the print as to whether

optical is better than digitaly scanned media, the method of

capture really isn't the issue. It's what the print/processing does

to pixels or how it affects light passing through film for properly

exposed paper. That's where quality can go bad.

 

Nowadays almost everything is digital. Even the traditional

optical minilabs have gone digital by using high quality scanners

rather than exposing directly film media to photographic paper.

 

My local one hour lab about a year ago traded their Noritsu

optical enlarger for a scanner and the image quality and the

ability to control printed output has greatly improved.

 

Before with optical, I handed them a roll of neg film for

processing/prints and crossed my fingers on how they'ld turn

out. Now I don't worry as much.

 

DOF? I haven't seen it from the minilab scans.

[roger_smith4]

"Do your scanners behave badly and unsharp images because the film is a bit bended?"

 

Absolutely not when it comes to the minlabs I've used, and no in the case of my own scanner. If you want to see fuzzy and unsharp, B&W work I had done optically by a lab was far worse than either.

[jean_g1]

It must be ME! I HATE the results I am now getting from labs when they print from negatives. Something definitely is lost when being scanned. I really wish there was a local lab that still had an optical printer for those of us who still like film. I have a canon d60 digi camera, and to be honest I really don't like it. It isn't as user-friendly as my film cameras. When using my Metz flash, it never seems to give consistant results (color, depth, etc.). Photos just look flat... I have so much invested in beautiful Nikon gear....nice, sharp fixed lenses...85mm portrait, etc. and now when I get the prints, they look as unsharp as the digi prints. I have tried multiple so-called pro labs...not just going to the local drugstore or walmart. This is very disheartening. So sad that people are willing to put up with inferior results just to save a little time.?

I think we are kidding ourselves anyway...a good lab always gave a good print, if the photo was shot correctly. Now WE spend hours in front of our computers trying to correct what the digi camera didn't get right in the first place.

 

Any thoughts? Suggestions on printing negs?

 

Thanks for letting me 'vent'.