Why scan 8x10 at all?

CXC made a point in the 8x10 scanning thread - why scan 8x10 at all? It is total overkill for almost any form of digital reproduction, other than contact printing, or traditional enlargements. Same goes for other ULF sizes (unless you are that guy trying to make the world's largest scan, and get publicity in the NY Times...)

I think the last commercial 8x10 job I did was for a wrapper that went around a CorningWare package - it was 4/c 24 inches x 96 inches, one shot, of a panoramic still life of plates and casseroles. That was in the mid-1990s. It became too expensive to do, and most packaging is now one or two color screened images printed directly on the cardboard.

I also did a 30x40 poster with 8x10 in the pre-digital era (it was drum-scanned, but this was before Photoshop - early 1990s). I really doubt that you could see the difference between it and a 4x5 version, as similar posters done with 4x5 look just as detailed.

I do see a difference between 4x5 and 8x10 in traditional C-prints and Ilfochromes, but when you can scan a 4x5 to 300mb, why would you want an even bigger file?

Some of us can only afford one format so if I were shooting exclusively 8X10, ( hey, It could happen) and printing B&W traditionally or contact printing, I might occasionally feel like doing some colour work. For colour digital seems the way to go, so scanning 8X10 transparencies would not be unreasonable. I wouldn't get better results than a 4X5 but I wouldn't have a 4X5 either. Does that argument make any sense Frank?

I routinely scan negatives in sizes from 5X7" to 7X17" and even 12X20" for printing with alternative processes such as carbon, kallitype and palladium. There are several reasons I sometimes chose to scan and print with a digital negative rather than directly with the in-camera negative, including: 1) printing at a size, either smaller or larger, than the in-camera negative, 2) doing all of the tonal corrections neeced in Photoshop so none are necessary in printing, and 3) correcting for minor flaws in the original negative, such as dust spots in cloud areas, etc. And finally , negatives that are slightly over-exposed take a long time to print with UV sensitive processes. Digital negatives made from scans always print at about the same time and contrast so one can develolp a better work flow than when printing with in-camera negatives that tend to vary a lot in density and contrast.

I can see the attraction for those who want the look of classic lenses and selective focus in 8x10". A 14.5" Verito on 8x10" just looks different from a 7.5" Verito on 4x5", for instance.

You scan film, from Minox to ULF, because it's part of the workflow to get you to the final print. For example, if I needed a 1.5x1.88 m print from an 8x10 negative, I'd scan it and get it printed on an inkjet printer.

Otherwise, what Sandy says.

At the tech magazine I used to work for, we used 8x10 for the cover shots of the high-end computer gear we were reviewing each month. Even when "dumbed down" to 266 DPI output in the scanning, the 8x10 original provided richly-detailed images which became one of the magazine's hallmarks. Our covers looked better than everyone else's, and the gear took on a certain sexiness as a result. Additionally, 8x10 was just easier to work with at the cover shoot and during production, as we could actually see everything. No surprises at press time due to having missed something with the loupe on a 4x5.

Personally, I now use 8x10 B&W to make contact prints, but don't have an 8x10 enlarger. So, I often scan the 8x10 negs on my old Epson Expression 800 Pro (800 DPI max optical resolution) to make small digital enlargements with an Epson 2200, taking advantage of the ease of digital retouching of dust spots and such. If I wanted to make large digital prints, I'd likely have individual negs drum scanned by a service. But, I haven't actually done that yet, and would have to upgrade my computer to handle the larger scan files.

I thought that the real reason why commerical work used to be done on larger formats was so that lazy or half-blind art directors could edit the film easier, and sloppy people in the pre-press room had a huge margin of error to cover their mistakes. The classic example is the typical 4x5 catalog shot that needed to be REDUCED for reproduction.

So, is anyone scanning 8x10 film to make really super huge digital prints that are clearly better than 4x5?

The root question is, will a 200mb 4x5 scan equal (the same file size) 200mb 8x10 scan? Simply because you scan something to be a 1GB plus file, does that mean that you'd really want to deal with working on it or printing it?

Frank, according to WCI a 200mb 8X10 scan will produce a better image than a 200mb 4X5 scan.


http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/images/formatcompare.jpg

I've been using 8X10 format for 35+ years, so I have many negatives filed away. Over time I have also accumulated a fair sized collection of 5x7 and 8x10 glass negatives, the c. 100 year old work of other photographers who died many years ago.

The images were produced looong before digital was an option. I cannot go back and reproduce the images. If I want digital copies (for the usual reasons), I suppose I could photograph the old negatives and plates with 4x5, but scanning the originals seems to be simpler.

"So, is anyone scanning 8x10 film to make really super huge digital prints that are clearly better than 4x5? "

Chris Jordan? Maybe Thomas Struth? Gursky uses 5x7, which shows in the prints sometimes from the dozen or so I've seen. Burtynsky (I think he's basically dropped 8x10 because it's just such a pain to travel witht hese days)

"I do see a difference between 4x5 and 8x10 in traditional C-prints and Ilfochromes, but when you can scan a 4x5 to 300mb, why would you want an even bigger file? "

In my case, such bigger file sizes when occasionally needed, to make prints 60" or 70" wide printed @ 300dpi - four or five such prints scheduled for this spring

"It's simple. Once you put it into Photoshop... it is Art. The ads say so &
we know those guys don't lie."

always such useful and well informed contributions

Frank, When scanning transparencies for output to the Epson 9600 color printer, WCI told me some time back that they scan and manipulate the image at 240DPI (print size resolution), and only upres to 360DPI (to prevent the printer from doing its own rasterization) at print time. Their testing showed that workshop participants staring at prints with the naked eye saw no benefit to scanning above 180 DPI, although with a loupe additional benefits could be seen up to 240DPI.

Depending upon the subject, I start seeing artifacts of overenlargement (fuzzy pine needles on nearby pine trees, etc.) in my 4x5 landscape transparency work in print sizes above 24x30, even with Tango scans printed as mentioned above. I have recently added 8x10 for my arsenal (for a variety of reasons, including contact prints) and expect to see improved results (vs. 4x5) in some subjects with color prints above 24x30, and most subjects above 30x40. So far I've done only limited testing so I can't yet generally say how much improvement will be seen under what circumstances. One major challenge I've encountered is stabilizing the 8x10 camera (rigid tripod, using an umbrella to deflect the wind, etc.); in less than perfect conditions, I'm often better off using the 4x5 due to its smaller wind profile.

Frank,

I just wrote a bunch for a sister thread here:


http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/500423.html

that might help a bit. Or it might just confuse things. I'm not sure anymore ;-)

Much of what you want to know is effected by things outside of scanning - such as how big you are going to print it, what printing process, how you will display it, how you will light the display...

Someone good, who is trying to get the most out of the film and show it on the print, can indeed get more out of the 8x10 film than they can out of the 4x5 film. And yes, you'd be scanning at pretty large file sizes.

Right now, with micro$oft and therefore Adobe dragging their feet on 64 bit computing, we can't handle more than 2GB files IIRC. And there's more than 2GB of information in a piece of 8x10 film IMHO.

I worked with 4x5 transparencies for 10 years, drum scanning and making digital prints. Now I use 8x10, and I can clearly see the difference even in a 16x20" digital print. It's really just the same issue as printing the images in a darkroom-- making a 16x20 for example, the 8x10 has to be enlarged by four times, and the 4x5 has to be enlarged by sixteen times. It's not about the filesize alone (you could make a 2 GB scan from a 35mm original if you wanted); it's about the amount of detail in the file. A 300MB scan from an 8x10 original is significantly sharper and more detailed than a 300MB scan from a 4x5 original. Of course the difference becomes really visible in large prints; it is possible to make grainless 44x60" prints from scanned 8x10 originals, which couldn't be done from 4x5.

For all my LF friends, best wishes for happy holidays and a wonderful 2005,

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com

why scan 10x8? I don't have a 10x8 enlarger. Next question?

"Making the 16x20 for example, the 8x10 has to be enlarged by 4 times and the 4x5 has to be enlarged by 16 times. "

O.K., I'll bite. Why is a 16x20 print from a 4x5 negative an enlargement of 16 times and the same print from an 8x10 negative an enlargement of 4 times?. I thought a 16x20 print from a 4x5 negative was a 4x enlargement and from an 8x10 negative was a 2x enlargement.

But apart from that, Mark hit the nail on the head - you scan an 8x10 negative because you want to make a print larger than 8x10 and you don't havean 8x10 enlarger.

" O.K., I'll bite. Why is a 16x20 print from a 4x5 negative an enlargement of 16 times and the same print from an 8x10 negative an enlargement of 4 times?"



Perhaps what Chris was referring to the area of the print: a 4x5 print has 20 square inches. A 16x20 has 320 square inches, 16 times the area.

While most of us would consider a 16x20 to be a 4x enlargement from a 4x5, it is also true that the area is 16 times as large.

Why do you ask, Frank? It won't make your 4x6 Walmart prints any better!