Sharpening Negative Scans-What is the Best Approach

[JPlomley]

I'm interested in hearing from the experts the approaches they use to sharpen their scanned negs with printing as the endpoint. Positives are no problem, but I find that grain emphasis is much more of a problem with negatives using techniques such as high pass sharpening, edge sharpening, or even luminance sharpening. Does anyone have a magic bullet?

[Ed Richards]

Color or black and white?

[JPlomley]

Ed,

Both.

Thanks,
Jeff

[David Luttmann]

I'm interested in hearing from the experts the approaches they use to sharpen their scanned negs with printing as the endpoint. Positives are no problem, but I find that grain emphasis is much more of a problem with negatives using techniques such as high pass sharpening, edge sharpening, or even luminance sharpening. Does anyone have a magic bullet?

The best you'll be able to do is to decrease your USM strength, Inrease the pixel width, and start with a higher threshold like 2-5 as opposed to 0 or 1. Depending on your print size though, grain from a neg shouldn't be a problem other than at 100% on your screen.

[Kirk Gittings]

Are we talking 4x5? How is it scanned? How large are you printing? Glossy or mat. All these things matter. Generally, what I do is....If you start with a small USM as David suggests followed by a High Pass Sharpen at the end of the workflow (In a separate layer where you can control its final application for different size prints) you can control grain amplificationa nd still get a good sharpening. With grainy films like Tri-x in HC1110, I can get a sharper appearing print (vs. traditional silver) with no more grain than is apparent than in a silver print at the same size.

[JPlomley]

Kirk,

Apologies for not clarifying. Film dimensions are 4x5 and 6x7. I print on an Epson 7800 and my portfolio dimensions are 20" on the short side. I have access to an Epson 9800 when I wish to print larger. Scans are performed on either an Imacon 949 or Cezanne Elite (am hoping to try the Creo IQ3 soon). Current paper choices are Harman Gloss FB Al for B&W and Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl for color work (although that may change in the near future). I will also print on 100% cotton canvas if the image warrants that artistic effect. In my experience the natural texture/weave of the canvas reduces the amount of sharpening required.

[JPlomley]

I might also add that I am scanning XP2 for the 6x7 work.

[Gary Beasley]

I find when scanning B&W the unsharp mask needs the radius set large enough to exceed the grain size a few times and then run the percent slider up till the masking effect just shows and back off a quarter of the way. I do this with the image at 100% size so I can see the effects easier.

[bob carnie]

For colour work and rgb black/white I sharpen in the L channel of Lab, seems to work real nice.
I use a very large setting and use the opacity slider to taste.

[Bob McCarthy]

If I'm working on scans, I use the PK Sharpener plugin in CS3 which is fairly automatic.

If I'm sharpening digital I sharpen using the raw converter (Raw Developer). I sharpen using Hybrid or DoG.

Bob