digital to film

[radu_fizesan1]

hello

Can someone tell me if there is a way to trasfer digital files on negative film?

let's say that I take a panorama with a digital, and have 10 frames of enough

quality.

Or.. what i have in mind, because I don't know much about clasic darkroom

retouching, I would like to at least clone my white spots out and then trasfer

it back to film again for enlargement.

[tobiasfeltus]

The idea of going from neg to digital and back, purely to get rid of dust spots is not a good

one. I think you should either use the digital intermediate for spotting, then use a digital

printer, like the Epsilon, Lamda or some other digital to photochemical printer, which is the

way that the world is inclined anyways... or get yourself a set of spotting inks and a loupe. It

is not hard to spot a print with a fine brush and spotting inks. in fact, once you get into it, it

is rather fun.

 

t

[obakesan]

Hi

 

there are 'film writers' out there, they expose the film with lasers. I'm not sure if they work with negative

 

why?

 

you can print onto colour paper using the digital image using a laser based process such as Durst Epsilon or Fuji frontier and get better images using real color wet chemistry type paper.

 

beats enlargers in every possible way IMHO.

 

I only use my enlarger as a light source for contact prints of 4x5 and occasional black and whit 35mm film proofing.

[ronald_moravec1]

Either print retouched files with the lazer printer or inkjet or retouch with a brush from

traditional enlarging.

[lwg]

Look for a lab with a Lightjet 2080 or an LVT film recorder. They will be able to write out your file to a 4x5 or 8x10 sheet of film.

[garydem]

if you have got the panorama made, why are you transfering to film? you can get the white spots out in digital by using any one of a number of postprocessing programs, such as pe6 or csx.

 

then simply change the format to jpeg(if it is not not jpeg now) and send it to jumbogiant.com for printing. jumbo does excellent work and prints to 24X80 in a panorama. the largest i have gotten from them is 16x36 which was done very nice.

[jeffrey_blake_adams]

film recorder. Buy one for $2k or so, or use www.imagers.com etc, J

[radu_fizesan1]

thanks for the replyes.

first. to respond to more of you. i don't want to scan and go to a durst lambda printing. Manual processed paper (especialy FB) will last a lot longer than Frontier prints. Plus they look different. Plus, i want to do huge prints myself.

 

I don't know how to manually paint the white spots on the print.. I guess I could learn. It shouldn't be hard. But what do i do if I have bigger white spots in the film grain zone? How do the brushes do to keep the grain effect?

 

Second reason why I wanted to try this was that after I would process everithing digital.. spots, contrast, shadow details, etc i would print again on film and not have to do anything in the darkroom, cause the negative would pe perfectly exposed.

 

Ronald, I did not understand you. print what? a negative with a laser printer? on a negative?

 

LG, I don't think we have a Lightjet 2080 in my country :))

 

Jeffrey. I have looked on the site and didn't find anything. I wrote them an email for further information.

[photography by a.f. smith]

I would learn to retouch in the darkroom if you really want to print from film.

 

When you change from film to digital or digital to film you are forced to work with the limitations of both. Fortuneately both mediums are forgiving enough that you do not experience a HUGE quality drop when going from one to the other. Going there and back again could introduce a noticable difference though. Can't really say without trying.

 

I am willing to accept that I lose some quality when scanning my film because of the convience/control the "digital darkroom" offers. I don't imagine I would do it just to clean up some spots however.

[radu_fizesan1]

From what i heard manual correcting in the darkroom with the brushes and paint does not last for very long.

Also.. if there is noticeable film grain in a white spot area.. how does the paint cover the grain? the intensity and contrast? etc.