How much does the scan take away from the Negative?

[Findingmyway4ever]

I haven't studied this one much, but given one has a top flight scan of a well exposed neg, how much of that neg gets taken away from the scanning/processing of it into a file? In other words, say we look at the neg on light table...how much of the color/tones/shadows/information/etc. gets lost in the scanning process "and" does the scan actually make the neg look more "digitized" and not as "realistic" as the neg does?

[Ken Lee]

It's part Quantitative and part Qualitative. Not just a one-sided coin.

Some say that enlarging is a destructive step - so they make contact prints. They're right to an extent. The question is, how big is that extent ?

Some will opine that there is no substitute for an analog image - just as some will say that no recording can capture the sound of a musical instrument. Ultimately, they are right, but Life is rarely ultimate :)

For the rest of us, the advantages of digitization and the subsequent adjustments that it affords, outweigh the minimal loss incurred.

[Frank Petronio]

Every process, analog or digital, is going to remove some of negative's information. But photo paper or inkjet can only reproduce a fraction of what is in the negative anyway so it's a moot point. The question is how to best distribute the tones that you can retain, most people can't do that well.

[Gem Singer]

There's so much information in a negative that loosing a little of it in the digital or optical printing process is hardly noticeable.

The larger the negative, the more information it contains, and it can be enlarged, either by scanning or enlarging optically, to a much larger size.

Some people are skilled at determining whether a negative has been printed optically or digitally when examining a mounted print. Unless it was done badly, I cannot tell the difference.

[Gary Tarbert]

Every process, analog or digital, is going to remove some of negative's information. But photo paper or inkjet can only reproduce a fraction of what is in the negative anyway so it's a moot point. The question is how to best distribute the tones that you can retain, most people can't do that well.Frank why do i always find myself agreeing with you , Ditto what he said (i just wish i had said it first);) . Cheers Gary

[MIke Sherck]

Steals its soul.

[Bob McCarthy]

My experience tell me it goes both ways. Some high frequency detail can be lost though that is usually only apparent with more than 3-4X enlargement.

On the other hand, digital editing can be much more precise than analog editing (basically waving a hand or a piece of card stock under the enlarger) and can provide much greater control of the distribution of tones.

Not "take away", but digital scanning is sensibly "different" than enlarging and better in some ways.

bob

[engl]

Nothing is taken away from the negative, not by darkroom printing and not by scanning.

In both cases, something else is created from the negative. No reproduction is perfect, and if it was, you'd be right back where you started with a small negative with silver (or dyes) on film base.

It only makes sense to compare real uses and real final results, discussing abstractly only turns it into a game of defining what "information", "colors", "tones", "detail" etc. means. If you are not scanning, what do you would you do instead? Darkroom prints, projected slides, or is "looking on the light table" the final intended use?

[John Jarosz]

It doesn't matter.

Are wesupposed to look at the print or the negative? Look at prints. If the prints are what you intended, then they are good. If they are not, keep trying and experimenting until they are. Sorta what Fred Picker and Paul Strand said.

[Sirius Glass]

A scan cannot cover the complete color gamut, only a small portion. Film covers the complete color gamut and more, therefore the use of Skylight 1A, Skylight 1B and Haze filters.

Other than that scans cannot reproduce the resolution of the film grain molecules.

So if color and resolution are not important to you, then scanning is the way to go.

Steve

[Lenny Eiger]

A scan cannot cover the complete color gamut, only a small portion. Film covers the complete color gamut and more, therefore the use of Skylight 1A, Skylight 1B and Haze filters.

Other than that scans cannot reproduce the resolution of the film grain molecules.

So if color and resolution are not important to you, then scanning is the way to go.

Steve

Steve,

Your post is argumentative and incorrect. You obviously don't know what a scan can and can not do. Further, there are other parts of the printing process, film is not the end result. The gamut of digital printing is more controllable and wider and longer than any darkroom paper - about double.

Some people like the look and feel of darkroom papers, whether it be b&w or color. They should be free to use those and not be told it isn't very good. In the right hands its amazing.

However, by the same token, those who have chosen to print digitally shouldn't be told that its less, because in the right hands it is also amazing.

Personally, I can't imagine printing on silver paper - it offers so much less than what I have now. I might do platinum, carbon and or gravure again, but I certainly wouldn't go back to the darkroom, as the quality I look for ins't there. That's the key point - its very subjective.

Telling me that the scan can't cover the complete gamut, however, is patently ridiculous... it covers far more than any traditional process can....

Lenny

[cyrus]

Personally, I love the fact that each step of the process leaves an impact on the result. Sometimes the result is better for it (maybe its just my photography?) I'm not one of those who insists that every grain in the neg has to be reproduced perfectly in the print. "happy accidents" are good!

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Incidentally, I currently have a 32x48" digital print of a mountain lion on exhibit at a local museum, a print that the public can walk up on nose-to-print. I knew I'd need a really good scan and sought Lenny out because the original is on Astia 100F-- in 35mm.

There is texture in the tips of the fur down to the grain level; it's world's better than any of the other 3 scans I've had done (2 of them professional drum scans, one ostensibly at 10K dpi on a Tango that doesn't cut the mustard).

Lenny Eiger knows whereof he speaks.

[Sirius Glass]

The gamut of digital printing is more controllable and wider and longer than any darkroom paper - about double.

Scanning has the resolution to get to the molecular level?
Controllable? Maybe
Large than chemical process? No
Double? What are you smoking or snorting? Either send it to me or site your sources
Scanning has the resolution to get to the molecular level? What are you smoking or snorting? Either send it to me or site your sources

[Peter De Smidt]

Can optically made prints get to the molecular level?

Both digital and optical, IME, can do a pretty good job of reproducing the spaces between grain clumps, the stuff that most people mean when they say "photographic grain". That's what we see as "grain" in a print.

[Asher Kelman]

Scanning has the resolution to get to the molecular level?
Controllable? Maybe
Large than chemical process? No
Double? What are you smoking or snorting? Either send it to me or site your sources
Scanning has the resolution to get to the molecular level? What are you smoking or snorting? Either send it to me or site your sources

Emotionally, I feel that bond you have with the analog film and all those original grains deposited at the onset of its creation. I also empathize with the sense of purity when one uses this original to attempt to present us with a real genuine photograph. However, already, the print has to lose a major part of the original because so many distortions must occur in the process by scattering of light. It certainly isn't a pure negative representation, molecule, for molecule!

In the most careful hands, the scan is adjusted to the size of the grain. There's no reason why the scan shouldn't give us the most elegant representation possible. Also it is a fact that the print made digitally can present to us a far greater range of tones and with color, hues too.

Asher

[Ivan J. Eberle]

This is LFF, not APUG. The ad hominem attack is uncalled for.

[Photomagica]

Ivan is correct - in both his posts.
Every time image information is transferred there is some level of "generation loss". I learned this years ago when I first saw the studio master print of a motion picture, the one made directly from the master negative. What a difference compared to a theatre release made print from a sub-master, which is typically two generations or more down the chain.

The idea is to minimize data loss when going through generations. Today a studio master negative is scanned and the master positives are made from that. This has dramatically increased the quality of theatre release prints.

Similarly in still photography scanning of the very highest quality, a 16 bit wet drum scan performed by a master operator is the method that will extract the maximum amount of information from a negative. It might be possible to come close in resolution by making a wet gate print in an optical enlarger with the very highest quality lens, with the paper on a vacuum easel. I have not seen a large (>20x) optical print that will match a print from a masterful scan in resolution.

Tonality and surface issues are more subjective, however with current wide gamut printers, and an amazing array of papers, a master printer can do remarkable things with a good digital file. I notice that even pretty diehard analogue enthusiasts are embracing digitally made C-prints which have fine structure, gamut and surface qualities which some find very appealing.

So to answer your question in reverse, there is no other way than a great scan to get as much information as you can from a negative. To get a great scan - find a great scanner operator. The operator is MUCH more important than the the scanner model or technology.

If your prefer the particular qualities of an optical print, then don't worry about the difference in generation loss and glory in these qualities you like. After all this is ART.

Cheers,
Bill Peters

[Findingmyway4ever]

Well said Bill and everyone else with a point of view. I did not intend nor mean for this to turn into a digital vs. analog type of affair. I should have included "optically" along with digitally when I posed the question since we have to get the negative onto paper through whatever process is out there.

Maybe a better question would be followed by an example=Take an extremely dynamic scene, such as an intense array of colors from a spectacular sunset. Are there times when regardless of using the very best to get the negative into the print, the print is incapable of showing the true dynamicism of the sunset as the seen on the negative?

[Asher Kelman]

This is LFF, not APUG. The ad hominem attack is uncalled for.

Ivan,

Which is the post you refer to?

Asher

[Brian Ellis]

A scan cannot cover the complete color gamut, only a small portion. Film covers the complete color gamut and more, therefore the use of Skylight 1A, Skylight 1B and Haze filters.

Other than that scans cannot reproduce the resolution of the film grain molecules.

So if color and resolution are not important to you, then scanning is the way to go.

Steve

"The complete color gamut?" What's that?

[Leonard Evens]

This is a complicated question.

When you scan, you are adding a step which has a certain resolution attached to it, You can translate from ppi or dpi (pixels or dots per inch) to lp/mm (line pairs per mm) by dividing by two. (Each line pair requires two piixels.) But every other step in the process also has an associated resolution. Combining different steps results in a LOWER resolution than any individual step.

To calculate the combined resolution, you have to compose MTF functions, which is hard to do. Most people use one of two rules of thumb. The most commonly used rule is to sum the reciprocals of the individual resolutions to get the reciprocal of the combination. Another rule used by some people is to sum the reciprocals of the squares of the individual resolutions to get the reciprocal of the square of the combination.

When you take a picture, the lens has a certain resolution and the film also has a resolution. The film resolution is determined in part by the coarseness of the grains, but other factors also play a role. The net result for modern large format lenses on typical films is unlikely to be greater than 60 lpm. When you scan, even with the best scanner, you are going to reduce that further. If you then print, that will reduce the resolution further.

You have to compare that to enlarging and printing or contact printing, which also has a resolution.

Since there are so many factors to compare, one is unlikely to be able outside a laboratory to be able to measure all these factors and get an accurate result for the final resolution. So it is best to judge the results you get by eye to see if you can see any difference. But if you do so, keep in mind that each print should be viewed at the proper distance, depending on its size. Looking at a 16 x 20 print from a few inches away is going to show defects no matter how you go about it.

My experience is that I can make up to 16 x 20 prints by scanning, which viewed from about two feet, are indistinguishable from prints I made years ago with an enlarger.

As to color, my experience is that scanning and massaging the image in a photoeditor is much superior to using an enlarger and printing on color paper. I even had a color head and an expensive color analyzer, and I never got anything that I found completely satisfactory. In particular the state of the solutions used in processing the print plays a role. A photo processing lab can do a reasonable job keeping those constant, but typically there is some variation. If you are willing to spend enough, you can get good results, but rou tine printing is not up to the same standards. Printing on a good inkjet printer, in my experience, is more likely to produce consistent results. In addition modern inkjet printers and printing papers resist fading better than conventional printing papers.

One thing to keep in mind is that transparency films have a limited latitude. One is usually much better off using color negative films if one wants a large range of colors.

[Sirius Glass]

"The complete color gamut?" What's that?

The complete color gamut is what the eye sees. See reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut

Digital camera and digital scanning of the color gamut:

http://dx.sheridan.com/advisor/cmyk_color.html
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://powerelectronics.com/power_management/led_drivers/Fig-3-color-gamut.jpg&imgrefurl=http://powerelectronics.com/power_management/led_drivers/led-backlighting-lcd-power-efficiency-0512/&h=730&w=550&sz=92&tbnid=jdBRB1ULf-_3MM:&tbnh=141&tbnw=106&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcolor%2Bgamut%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=color+gamut&usg=__XAkSJFU7CM6pvktzJrKr73Mg4TM=&sa=X&ei=FXLlTbqNOobW0QGWzrSOBw&ved=0CEcQ9QEwBA

Once the information is lost, no printing process can bring it back. Example: take a black & white photograph on film. The color information is lost. Printing it on color paper or using a digital photographic printer will will not bring back the colors.

The point is that color information is lost by using a digital camera or scanning film and it at cannot be brought back once lost. The OP asked:
I haven't studied this one much, but given one has a top flight scan of a well exposed neg, how much of that neg gets taken away from the scanning/processing of it into a file? In other words, say we look at the neg on light table...how much of the color/tones/shadows/information/etc. gets lost in the scanning process "and" does the scan actually make the neg look more "digitized" and not as "realistic" as the neg does?

The answer is that there are quantifiable losses. The question is Are these losses acceptable?

Steve

[Lenny Eiger]

The point is that color information is lost by using a digital camera or scanning film and it at cannot be brought back once lost. The OP asked:

The answer is that there are quantifiable losses. The question is Are these losses acceptable?
Steve

Steve,
I am flabbergasted by your complete lack of understanding on this topic - and your propensity to post repeatedly about it. I went to all your references. They often referenced unrelated topics like the CMYK space, I had to work to find any reference to scanning. None of them showed related information about the color gamut of PMT's.

The answer is that the loss is in the category of "almost none". It is not like photographing a b&w print. PMT's can suck the marrow out of a piece of film. My clients constantly send me thank you notes and emails.

You really ought to get out and see some good prints.

Lenny

[Nathan Potter]

As Leonard Evens has intimated quantifying any comparison between digital scanning and optical printing could be a bit of a mathematical Tour de Force. But thinking about it a bit does help.

Both flatbed scanners and optical enlargers can transfer image information via a lens or in the case of a PMT based scanner by a beam of illumination that can sample a potentially very small section of the film.

The flatbed scanner and optical enlarger can be essentially identical, visually, if the optics of both are of comparable resolution (typically in the 5 to 10 um airy disc resolution limit for white light. There is obviously some quantization with a flatbed due to the discrete nature of the sensors and optical distortion associated with each individual pixel as replicated in the digital data stream. But the nature of the distortion is not so materially different than occurs within the resolution limit of a broad area enlarging lens of equivalent resolving power. Both will produce a sort of Gaussian intensity profile within the resolution limit but the intensity profile is lost in the flatbed in going from sensor through the A to D conversion process.

A PMT (Photo Multiplier Tube) based scanner is potentially a different beastie. The very best of these are capable of very small spot sizes (say about 3 um diameter) as a sampling area. Such a small aperture can sample almost the smallest grains and even yield information about the edge of grains. High DMax values are possible due to the high electron multiplication in the PMT (gains in excess of 100,000 can be had which leads to high contrast at the micro scale as well as high contrast at larger apertures. The crispness of a PMT based scan, well executed, can be a visually significant departure from the average flatbed or optical enlarger based gear.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[bensonga]

If he is true to his principles, Steve (Sirius Glass) never prints, he only looks at negatives and transparencies.....otherwise, some "information is lost".

Come to think of it.....I doubt that ANY photographic process can capture the full gamut of visual impressions that a properly functioning human eye can see, so perhaps Steve should just dispense with the camera all together and leave it to photographers who live in the real world, whether digital or analog.

I don't think I've ever read more idiotic statements than these Steve: "Example: take a black & white photograph on film. The color information is lost. Printing it on color paper or using a digital photographic printer will will not bring back the colors. The point is that color information is lost by using a digital camera or scanning film and it at cannot be brought back once lost."

No wonder I was having so much trouble making a color print from my B&W negatives! Who would have guessed that the digital images displayed on my monitor, printed on my printer and which by all accounts APPEARED to be color, were in fact something else......good grief.

[sanking]

No wonder I was having so much trouble making a color print from my B&W negatives!

Gee, that happened to me once. Real bummer -- was looking for a nice green tone and all I got was Zone V gray tone. I realize now that the real problem was that my optical system could not capture detail at the molecular level.

And now I have having the same problem with scanners. They just all seem incapable of giving a good RGB scan from a B&W negative.

Sandy

[Sirius Glass]

If he is true to his principles, Steve (Sirius Glass) never prints, he only looks at negatives and transparencies.....otherwise, some "information is lost".

No, not true. I print color and black & white in my darkroom up to 16"x20". For any larger that there are several all optical photo labs in Los Angeles that I used. I rarely take slides anymore thought.

Steve

[JohnnyV]

Tyler Boley's article should shed some light on the subject. Look at the first row of images. Compare the film scan to the silver contact... lots of lost detail.

http://www.custom-digital.com/2008/09/bw-print-quality/

[Nathan Potter]

Tyler Boley's article should shed some light on the subject. Look at the first row of images. Compare the film scan to the silver contact... lots of lost detail.

http://www.custom-digital.com/2008/09/bw-print-quality/

That was a very fine comparison Tyler did. I really appreciated the creaminess of the silver print example along with more nuanced detail.

The silver detail can be tweaked considerably however by different enlarging lenses and even much much more by going from a diffusion source to a condenser large aperture source then to a small aperture source and finally approaching a point source using a variable aperture in the light source. Essentially that is altering the f/no of the light source. As that source f/no. increases the contrast in the projected image increases as does the acuity of detail, but the inter-grain modulation that yields creaminess decreases.

How one chooses to treat the projected analogue image is just a function of ones' artistic intent; as is the scanning conditions and subsequent digital manipulation.

I was curious about the parameters used for the silver image he showed - enlarger lens, and lamphouse particularly.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Lenny Eiger]

I was curious about the parameters used for the silver image he showed - enlarger lens, and lamphouse particularly.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

That was a contact print in the example. No example was given of an enlargement....

[tgtaylor]

While I am nowhere near as educated in this topic as the posters above, it has always been my intuition that the silver negative/print is superior to its digital counterpart because:

1. The silver particles are distributed randomly across the recording medium and are arranged in a manner determined solely by the impinging electromagnetic wave (i.e., the “picture” or “reality” coming in thru the lens) whereas the pixels in the digital counterpart are in fixed arrays of rows and columns.

2. The clumps of silver vary in size from very small to very large depending on the properties of the electromagnetic wave striking them whereas their digital counterparts are rigid in size. Note the difference in the fixed dot scans and variable dot scans in the Tyler Boley study linked to above.

Is my intuition correct?
Thomas

[Lenny Eiger]

While I am nowhere near as educated in this topic as the posters above, it has always been my intuition that the silver negative/print is superior to its digital counterpart because:

1. The silver particles are distributed randomly across the recording medium and are arranged in a manner determined solely by the impinging electromagnetic wave (i.e., the “picture” or “reality” coming in thru the lens) whereas the pixels in the digital counterpart are in fixed arrays of rows and columns.


No, there is something called a dithering pattern that creates a very random look to the dots...


2. The clumps of silver vary in size from very small to very large depending on the properties of the electromagnetic wave striking them whereas their digital counterparts are rigid in size.
Is my intuition correct?
Thomas

Simply not true...
Further, you are not taking into consideration the fact that digital prints have a far longer tonal range than silver prints, similar to alternative processes like carbon and platinum, which gives them a huge advantage.

Finally, I think we should not start this conversation again, as to which is better, digital or darkroom. It's been beat to death....

Lenny

[Kuzano]

I tried to have this very discussion with a buyer who walked into my Gallery.

He instantly glazed over, but before he left he bought one of my Digital prints, scanned from film, and one of my enlarged prints, printed from film. He was happy with both.

OK so I don't have a gallery, but the point is still made. I did what I intended with my photography... I sold them.

Leaving now to go capture some images.

[tgtaylor]

Tyler Boley's article should shed some light on the subject. Look at the first row of images. Compare the film scan to the silver contact... lots of lost detail.

http://www.custom-digital.com/2008/09/bw-print-quality/

Great link JohnnyV! However those images do not answer the OP's question: How much does the scan take away from the Negative? It only shows how much detail was lost in the printing process and not in the scanning process which would be difficult to measure. However since the scan is a generation removed from the negative it would seem likely that it would not contain all the information and detail that the negative has.

That said it is enlightening to note the differences between the digital and analogue outputs. Which is truer to it's input? Tyler Boley's conclusion is that the analogue output is superior. If that is indeed the case, then would the analogue input also be superior?

Thomas

[bob carnie]

Back in the old days, 80's we made thousands of internegs for printing from colour slides in the various labs I worked at.. A contact interneg always was the best , but we always concurred that we lost a generation(sharpness) by going this intermediate route.

When I first started with digital, and scanning we would warn our clients of this loss.
Basically because I figured this would the case since the scan was an intermediate step and I did not have the PS chops I have painfully learned today , therefore a loss.

Years later, I am not so sure, I think as some point out here or in other threads about scanning, if you have a competent system, and a good handle on how to scan and prep the file for printing the difference is minimal.

What you may lose by it being a intermediate step, you can gain back by good Photoshop Image management.
Comparing a 4x5 negative contacted onto paper - to a scan and print I would say is the toughest challenge.
the contact will be very precise , and you will get what the negative provides you.
the scan/print can be manipulated much more and maybe give a more interesting print.

I have gone on this dual journey* keeping a enlarger lab , and a digital lambda lab using the same output materials* for about 6 years now and have looked at countless prints worked both ways and am still not able to give a definite answer as to what is better, and I get asked this all the time by my clients still shooting film.

I do know this, There are many ways to sharpen a scan or digital capture, and you do need to do so, and your ability to give good sharpening and when is critical to this whole discussion.
Sharpening in our workflow is the most critial step and I am always thinking of when , how and where to place the sharpening.

[rdenney]

So many times these discussions turn into contention between the defenders of one type of distortion and the defenders of a different type of distortion, with nostalgia playing a big role. Yawn.

If you want your sunset to have the same color dynamism of the transparency, you will have to display a backlit transparency. No print paper is bright enough, even with optical brighteners.

Rick "who lives with and manages distortion" Denney

[neil poulsen]

For me, the biggest loss in scanning film can occur with color negatives and getting rid of the orange mask. I have some negatives I've tried to scan, and it just doesn't look the same as when the image has been printed using an enlarger. So with these images, there's a substantial loss.

For this reason, I like using Silverfast, since this software technology makes adjustments for specific color negative films.

[Lenny Eiger]

I have some negatives I've tried to scan, and it just doesn't look the same as when the image has been printed using an enlarger. So with these images, there's a substantial loss.

Neil, I can't agree. I sincerely don't want to appear self-serving here, but I have no issue with scanning negs... They have a wonderful range of color... in many cases I prefer them. Especially that new Ektacolor...

Lenny

[paulr]

Great link JohnnyV! However those images do not answer the OP's question: How much does the scan take away from the Negative? It only shows how much detail was lost in the printing process and not in the scanning process which would be difficult to measure.

Well, the first example shows a direct comparison between a negative scan and a contact print on silver paper. The difference there is enormous. The scan pulls much more detail and tonal information than the contact printing process.

And no, this tells you nothing about what the scan didn't recover. But it's a good comparison with what's traditionally been the best way to recover information from the negative. I don't know how you'd know what you're missing, besides comparing with ... a better scan.

[Tyler Boley]

A negative is not yet anything in and of itself, unless you make the bizarre choice to exhibit backlit original negatives. It is only a step along the way to a final... something. Attempting to determine loss from that neg is a path requiring much more careful criteria. I'd think you have to decide what you want your final manifestation to be then study the best route to get there from the neg... it's called mastering your craft. Every option entails some kind of potential compromise I suppose, and you want a result that moves beyond calling attention to them. Many of the most beautiful processes we have throw something away during progress toward final.
The post I put up some years back showing those comparisons was done for very specific reasons, none of them to make judgment unless on very strict and stated criteria. They have often been used for unintended purposes and many have criticized them based on their own agendas, but I hope they have been useful occasionally, they are losing relevance as technology progresses. But Paul is right, their relevance in this thread is minimal, without comparing to a "better" scan, or something that represents the unadulterated quality of the neg... and how can we do that without scanning it? The only peripheral relevance is that amongst the processes shown, scanned or not, there is loss amongst them all on paper, for what that's worth.
Tyler

[tgtaylor]

Well, the first example shows a direct comparison between a negative scan and a contact print on silver paper. The difference there is enormous. The scan pulls much more detail and tonal information than the contact printing process.

And no, this tells you nothing about what the scan didn't recover. But it's a good comparison with what's traditionally been the best way to recover information from the negative. I don't know how you'd know what you're missing, besides comparing with ... a better scan.

Wrong!

The first example is stated to be simply a "film scan" and not the output onto paper as is other examples are. A film scan is simply an enormous file of zeros and ones stored on a computer disk and would prove to be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to compare with the actual negative which is a physical entity that you can hold up to the light, put on a light table, and analyze it with a loop or microscope. You can't do that with the scan of the negative. You have to first output it to some medium - paper or screen - to analyze it. Does the first example show "... much more detail and tonal information..." than the negative? You can't answer that without viewing the actual negative itself and not a scan of it outputted to another medium.

What the examples do show is that the scan of the negative outputted to the analogue medium (the contact print) is superior to those digitally outputted. Does the scan of the contact print show "... much more detail and tonal information..." than those digitally outputted? You bet it does and the articles author clearly affirms that it does.

Finally, a "scan" of an object (in this case a negative) cannot, be definition, be "better" than the original object itself. At it's best, a scan can only capture that what is there and nothing else. If it does, then you can be assured that it is artifact and not present on the original.

Thomas

[paulr]

There's actually one way in which a succession of better scans can be definitive. You need a series of scans (at least two), using equipment or methods that demonstrably differ in resolution, dynamic range, and gamut. If you get to a point where two of the scans show no difference in recoverable image information, you can assume that for all practical purposes you got everything ... unless mining more of the film structure and noise (grain, etc.) is for some reason important to you.

[Tyler Boley]

the only point in this any more is to make insure the thread contains enough info for later reference from beginning to end. There is no conclusion to draw or further convincing possible. I think we're done?
Tyler

[Jim Noel]

I haven't studied this one much, but given one has a top flight scan of a well exposed neg, how much of that neg gets taken away from the scanning/processing of it into a file? In other words, say we look at the neg on light table...how much of the color/tones/shadows/information/etc. gets lost in the scanning process "and" does the scan actually make the neg look more "digitized" and not as "realistic" as the neg does?

Too much!