Characteristics of various films diminished at scan time

[newindustar]

I have been mulling over the thought that differentations between say NPC or NPH

or VC etc become less significant at scan time. I am assuming the whole exposure

fits within the scanner histogram and the film is scanned to preserve the whole

range and then brought into PS. There is so much the film can be manipulated

digitally. I confess to my experience being almost all hybrid, i.e. all scanned.

I would expect the characteristics of various negs to be more evident when

exposed conventionally.

 

Please share your thoughts on this concept. One reason is could make it less

critical when one is scrounging up outdated film and snagging what ever is cheap.

 

Professionally, say for a weddding photographer who hands off the film to a lab,

this would not fly on any level, but for the person who scans everything and

pushes it around to his personal taste, what then?

 

Cases in point I scanned some outdated 2002 NPC in 120 and when the levels were

manually adjusted in Epson scan to just meet the boundries of the histogram the

film appeared quite flat but after working with it in PS it became a whole

different beast as colorful and saturated as one might want and still preserving

highlights and naturalness. By the time it was all over some may have not even

been sure if it started out as slide or neg.

 

If that same film were printed conventionally it would give a completely

different look right?

[Uhooru]

Why don't you try it and find out? It is true that once scanned, the characteristics of the film can be changed, you bump up or take off of saturation, individually balance colors, change the temperature even. So it does tend to do away with some of the differences between the NC's and VC, UC's etc. However, certain films do a better job with, let's say skin tones, those differences in my experience, do make a difference when scanned. YMMV.

[newindustar]

Well I have done a ton of scanning 35 and 120 film and I do push it around a lot. The part I haven't done is hand off much 120 film films to pro labs for printing to know what the difference is between typical optical results of a given film vs what I get out of it scanning and correcting. I know I rarely if ever achieve my scanned and corrected quality from 35mm with a non-pro minilab doing the printing from the film as they are not optimized for optical results any more. As well I am not likely to be able to spend the money for pro lab printing experimentation as well as understanding they introduce a lot of their own variables into the mix. At least at a pro lab they could generally exhibit the natural optical characteristics of a given film. So my question is to ask from other who have worked it from both sides if their scanning and correcting results depart much from their conventional results.

[roger_smith4]

I think that's basically right but within limits.

 

A high-contrast print film will take a lot more work to yield subtle muted colors and might require a few selective saturation adjustments and still not quite look right at the end of the process. A film that is inherently grainier (Kodak Max 800 vs Fuji NPZ) may be tamed by a noise reduction program, but the detail that was masked by grain will be turned to mush in the process.

 

Because of this I settled on portrait neg films as it's easier to jack up contrast and saturation than to reduce it.

[newindustar]

In my experience using the technique of manually setting each channels sliders individually just to the limits of what the scanner saw in the scanners histogram, probably does give some indication of the DR and color cast characteristics of a given film.

 

It is interesting that using this technique in Nikon Scan with a dedicated film 35mm scanner results in a file that when brought into PS is basically already auto leveled. However the same manual level adjustment technique at scan time in Epson scan with 120 negs results with a file in PS that needs additional leveling (sliders are not at the limits of the histogram) to remove the cast and purify the colors.

 

I was surprised at how much color came out of NPC after leveling in PS compared to the flat casted response the scanner gave initially.

 

I have some NPH in the same camera now it will be interesting to compare it to the NPC and old Portra 160 VC I recently worked with. If I recall the VC came to its corrected state more closely by leveleing at Epson Scan time than did the NPC. I think Velvia was more where it should be at scan time as well. Probably as you scan the low contrast films are recognized as such by the scanner histogram but after that in PS there is a lot that can be done.

 

I guess what I am missing is the opportunity to see more conventional results in the hand. I did shoot one wedding on NPH 35mm and gave the film to A&I was was rather amazed at the natural but colorful results. Since then it's all been film digitial hybrid.

[dale_strumpell]

In my experience, color negatives produce their best color when they have been printed

onto color paper. I believe that the color and exposure of negative film has been tuned to

perform well with the same manufacterer's line of paper (if you shoot kodak film, print on

kodak paper). The negative/paper combination also brings out the unique characteristics

of each film type. I agree with you that the characteristic "look" of different film types is

all but lost when scanning negatives. I have scanned many color negatives using

NikonScan, Vuescan, Silverfast and Minolta's software but have been unable to match the

colors on the print. I can get good colors scanning, but not the same as the print, and to

my taste, not as good as the print. I have not shot negative film in a while, but the next

time I do I will have prints made which I will scan on a flatbed, rather than scan the

negatives.

[newindustar]

It would be great to be able to see some quality optical work on real paper vs inkjet but I don't have the option without asking a lab to show me examples or spending money for my own work. Maybe at some point on either count. One couldn't judge them well digitized for the web.

 

On the other hand my hybrid workflow has many advantages and includes a fully color managed environment with Epson 9800, HP Vivera ink proofers, and a 40 Heidelberg sheetfed press. I can push the scanned film around and come up with looks unique to my vision which digital cameras can't do in the same way. But hybrid or pure digital will always be different than optical film on fiber paper.

 

I can usually always do better scanning my film and using color management from there on even if the eventual printer is the mini-lab at Costco which is color managed and accurate to a calibrated monitor, so I have full control of the color and the look once I didgtize the film and can choose mini-lab prints or inkjet. I also read they are doing digital onto fiber at some labs which may be a great solution. I do think the absence of real optical labs screws up the equation though. If they are just doing bad non-optical scans on the Frontier or Noritsu what's the point?

 

Are your good prints coming from pro or consumer labs? I think this would be the critical difference.

 

Scanneing the print I always condsiered taboo but I think this would have the effect of reducing grain without losing too much detail. One issue might be increasing the contrast at print scan time which would be be a loss of range.