Conventional darkroom print vs. digital darkroom print

[jespdj]

I have a colour negative that I've scanned on a Minolta Scan Duall

III film scanner and printed on an Epson Stylus Photo 950 printer

(using Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper and original Epson inks).

The scan was done with VueScan (version 7.6.64) with the highest

quality settings (2820 dpi). The print is approximately A5 size (15

x 21 cm; 6 x 8.3 inches), printed with the printer at 1440 dpi, in

colour.

<p>Tonight I made a black and white print of the same negative in a

conventional darkroom (at about the same size as the inkjet print).

I can easily see that the conventional darkroom print is a lot

sharper than the inkjet print. Why is the digital print so soft?

<p>Is the Minolta Scan Dual III just not good enough? Do better

scanners (Minolta 5400, Canon FS4000 etc.) give much better results

than the Scan Dual III and how do they compare to conventional

prints?

<p>What can I do to maximize the quality (sharpness) of my digital

scans and prints?

[johann_fuller]

At A5 there must be something very wrong if you can observe a true difference in actual resolution. Are you sure it's not contrast that is lacking in the digital print that is giving the illusion of softness? I find Vuescan gives very low contrast images straight out of the scanner (which is a good thing) and these need 'working up' in Photoshop to get the required contrast.

[ilkka_nissila]

I think the intrinsic resolution of inkjet prints is not comparable with that of conventional papers. At larger print sizes, this doesn't matter since the image resolution becomes dominant but at small sizes, especially 4x6 inch, well-made conventional colour and black and white prints are a lot sharper than inkjet prints. We just have to get used to this, and make larger prints which lets us see the details!

[qtluong]

At some point, digital prints are just pixels. They can be readily

seen with a lupe (granted, usually that's not a way to look at prints :-)). People with a great vision can see that the digital prints are

not continuous tone even with the naked eye.

On the other hand, the continuous nature of traditional media

doesn't break down until you get down to grain. Grain on film is

easily seen when enlarging. But grain on paper can barely be seen with

a lupe that reveals the pixels in digital prints. A contact print observed under a lupe will reveal almost the same amount of information as a 8x10 print observed with the naked eye. A digital

print under a lupe will show pixels. Tuan <a href = "http://www.terragalleria.com">Terra Galleria Stock Photography</a>

[majid]

I am not sure how you managed to get that result. I did a test with a 8x10 from a 35mm negative (Fuji Neopan 1600, scanned at 2900dpi on a Nikon Coolscan IVED), printed in a wet darkroom using both RC and FB papers, on a Lightjet using Fuji Crystal Archive pro, and on a HP 7660 using the No. 59 cartridge and HP Premium Plus Photo paper (both glossy and matte). The difference is more in color neutrality and subtle shadow and highlight detail, not sharpness per se.

[scott_eaton]

Digital prints made of "pixels"?

 

Last time I looked close at a *properly made* LightJet print or an 8x10 off my Epson from a film scan I didn't see pixels.

 

This past year I had a former co-worker make a bunch of custom B/W 8x10's from half a dozen medium format (6x7) B/W negs of mine. The resulting prints on glossy RC paper were inferior in terms of tonal range and appearant sharpness compared to 8x10 matte prints I made off my Epson 820. I regret now throwing the RC prints in the trash because I could do a side by side scan and show you just how sharp properly made ink-jet prints are compared to optical prints.

 

I'd really like to see a 1:1 crop of one of Jesper's scans to see what the problem is.

[hil3]

Did you process after scanning, or did you just print from Vuescan?

[jim_strutz]

Did you use unsharp mask?

 

I've never seen a digital scan that didn't look better with sharpening of some sort.

[jespdj]

Some more info: I used the clone brush to edit away dust etc. (the Scan Dual III has no ICE) and adjusted the curves a bit, but that's about it. I'm using Picture Window Pro, and printed it from there. The film I used was Kodak Portra 160 NC.

<p>What about the difference between the Scan Dual III and higher end scanners such as the Minolta Elite 5400, Canon FS4000, Nikon Coolscan scanners: how much better are these than the Scan Dual III? Do they blow the Scan Dual III away?

[navarra]

Maybe you need to apply the unsharp mask filter, give it a try!

[m_.]

I am not sure how Minilta scanner works - I use a Nikon LS-2000. A few things can contribute to your sharpness problem:

 

1) did you put the negative in to your scanner with the right side up according to minolta recommendation? It does make difference as the image of negative actually sits on one side of the film (emulsion side) so you want your scanner to focus on that side.

 

2) do you have any manual focus control in your scanner. Sometimes the scanner doesn't get enough coffee and falls to speed when focusing.

 

3) Is the negative flat on the holder? This will show on print with some parts of print sharper than other parts.

 

But after all, a straight comparison of a wet print with a inkjet print will reveal slightly sharper image from a wet print, for sure. That's why I say over and over that digital still got a way to go...

[m_.]

and your ICE application is to ask the computer do the editing for you which will for sure soften the image sharpness. try a clean negative without using ICE. the feature is only good for old and dirty negatives, but not a prefered solution.

[mendel_leisk]

Hi Jesper,

 

A couple of sites of interest. The first has a variety of sharpening tips, for viewing, or for printing. The consensus seems to be that preparing an image for printing requires heavier sharpening than for viewer. Here's the sharpening site:

 

http://www.wfu.edu/users/bennettk/sharp.html

 

Another tutorial I found helpful concerned dual toning black and white images. Buried a ways into this one is some very useful step by step instruction on the subject. I found dual toned images look much better, coming out a colour inkjet.

 

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/tutorials/tutorial_2_1.htm

 

I'm totally baby steps on the subject, and one time before when I mentioned dual tone improving print output of black and white, I got accused of trolling (do some users just hang around waiting for troll pointing ops.?). Anyway, looks good to me.

 

If I'm going to print something, I'll generate a fresh copy from my raw, with the clipping cranked up to 2~3 percent (vs usual .02%), then, in photoshop, sharpen it quite heavily, per Ken Bennet's tutorial, then run a dual toning action per Ian Lyon's Computer Darkroom tutorial. I save the result in a separate print directory, and keep a text format log file in the same directory, documenting what settings I used for clipping and sharpening.

 

Here's a crop from a prepped for print image. I know, getting pretty grainy, but I like it:<div></div>

[mendel_leisk]

And here same image, just output from Vuescan with VERY light clipping:<div></div>

[scott_eaton]

Having printed virtually every film format in existence on every type of enlarger built by man I can tell you will full confidence that an ink-jet printer will mop the floor with an optical enlarger in terms of consistent sharpness.

 

If you can't get a sharp scan with proper contrast, and that sounds like the problem here, then it't not the fault of the ink-jet printer. A film scan should just be like a properly made 8x10 custom print from 35mm; The grain should be sharp, and well defined. Not fuzzy balls of mush. Do you focus on the grain of the neg before making a scan like you do making a conventional dark room print? Probably not, because most scanners don't give you this capability. You then can't assume the scanner is in the right plane of focus either.

[beauh44]

From what I've read many inkjet printers are capable of printing "pixels" the size of human blood cells. If you can see them with a loupe, you've got a better loupe than I. FWIW, my color prints smoke my lab's color prints with my Epson 2200. The B&W prints aren't quite as nice due to metamarism (sometimes), but I've had a few successes there too. I've not had good luck with my printer and Epson's Premium Glossy paper, but I suspect the 950 does better since it's not pigment-based. There are so many variables with B&W digital darkroom prints - for example, you can scan the negative as a positive and invert it later. You can tell the scanner it's B&W or lie to it and tell it it's a color negative. In Photoshop, I've had good luck desaturating the image and printing it using the Colormatch RGB profile instead of my paper's profile. In other words, you will likely need to experiment quite a bit. Best wishes . . .

[majid]

I don't have an Epson 2200, but on my latest generation HP 7660, the dots are readily apparent with a $15 Peak 10x loupe, whereas they are not on Fuji Frontier prints. The 7660 makes better black and white prints than the Fuji, however, provided you use the HP No. 59 ink cartridge and let it "break in" (the first half dozen prints have blue-purple color casts).

[elliot_n]

'Is the Minolta Scan Dual III just not good enough?'

 

It's an entry level scanner. When combined with an Epson printer it can make a

decent print. But not as good as a well-made darkroom print.

[kennethbowen]

<p><i>It's an entry level scanner. When combined with an Epson printer it can make a decent print. But not as good as a well-made darkroom print.</i></p>

<p>

I don't think this is true. But, to the original question, to maximize sharpness of the scan, you might try messing around with single-pass multi-scanning. Also, for printing, you should try one of the matte or lustre papers. I like Epson HW Matte paper, and it's affordable. The glossy photo paper you using didn't work for me at all.

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