Imacon 848 technique

[Kirk Gittings]

I haven't tried this workflow yet, and won't till I get back to Chicago where we have two Flextight X5's, but I consider this to be an excellent potential workflow.

[Stephen Best]

I haven't tried this workflow yet, and won't till I get back to Chicago where we have two Flextight X5's, but I consider this to be an excellent potential workflow.

I'm not sure it offers any advantages over the 3F plug-in workflow I outlined above. In many respects, scanner software (another than to initiate the physical scan) is an anachronism. It's working on exactly the same 16-bit data as available to Photoshop.

[joolsb]

Just to be clear on this, if I open a 3F file in PS then this will essentially be the basic scanner output with no settings applied, won't it? Or does PS recognise the special tags in the 3F file and apply some processing of its own?

I've just tried comparing a 3F scan from an X5 with its associated TIFF in PS at 300% and there seemed to be some evidence of sharpening in the 3F but not nearly as strong as in the TIFF.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

[Kirk Gittings]

I'm not sure it offers any advantages over the 3F plug-in workflow I outlined above. In many respects, scanner software (another than to initiate the physical scan) is an anachronism. It's working on exactly the same 16-bit data as available to Photoshop.

Isn't that what we are talking about?

On the second part of you statement, There is more than a fair bit of debate about that. Certainly an 8 bit workflow shows tremendous advantages to using the scanner software for major adjustments, whether this is meaningfull in a 16 bit workflow is debated. I think it is on scans that have a fair amount of noise ie prosumer flatbeds, making major adjustments in the scanner in 16 bit translates to less noise enhancement compared to the same adjustments in PS.

[Stephen Best]

Isn't that what we are talking about?

There's two ways to handle the previously captured 3F file:

1. Open the 3F file in FlexColor then proceed as you would with a normal scan (set black/white point etc). When you save the file, these settings will be applied and the result opened in Photoshop (if you've set it up to do so).

2. Open the 3F file directly in Photoshop with the 3F plug-in. No settings will be applied.

[Stephen Best]

I've just tried comparing a 3F scan from an X5 with its associated TIFF in PS at 300% and there seemed to be some evidence of sharpening in the 3F but not nearly as strong as in the TIFF.

I'll have to do more testing but it would appear that there's a difference in the application of sharpening settings if you're doing a normal scan or opening the 3F file in FlexColor then saving it.

[Darren Kruger]

There's two ways to handle the previously captured 3F file:

2. Open the 3F file directly in Photoshop with the 3F plug-in. No settings will be applied.

Do you where to get this plugin and if it is available to people who don't own an Imacon? School has one I can use but I would like to use the scanned 3f files at home. I can open the 3f files I have as tiffs, but an looking to see I can get better results by using an official Imacon program/converter.

-Darren

[thompsonkirk]

Excuse me for bringing such an old thread back to life, but I have a question:

I can rent time on an 848 & want to use the 3f technique.

My previous workflow has been to save 16-bit scans as .tifs & open them in LR/ACR. Can I continue to do this with 3f scans, or do I have to convert via FlexColor to 8-bit .tifs?

Since I don't have a FlexColor license, apparently I'd have to use the rental studio's FlexColor plug-in to convert to .tif. But could I keep the original 16-bit 'raw' scan to convert in LR/ACR, or would FlexColor necessarily change the .tiffs to 8-bit?

Kirk

(PS on why I want to stay in 16-bit if I can: I use a wide-format Canon printer that will send 16-bit 600 ppi files to the printer via PS plug-in, bypassing the printer driver. I've invested in the memory it takes, & the necessary patience, to work with this size of file.)

[Kirk Gittings]

As it turns out there is nothing special about 3f files. Hassy was going to develop it as a raw format but never did. It is just a tiff even if it says .fff. You can simply edit the file name and change it to .tiff and it makes absolutely no difference. Save it in 16 bit and work on it in 16 bit.

[thompsonkirk]

Hi Kirk,

I gave it a try, but didn't get the results I expected! If I set the film type as color negative for Portra & re-tag the .fff's as .tiffs, they open as negatives.

Perhaps this is what's supposed to happen – as might be desired by folks who like to scan negatives as postives? (I remember learning this technique from Ian Lyons' Computer Darkroom site about 10 yeas ago.)

Kirk T.