Why Scan LF B&W Negatives?

[james mickelson]

It is precisely because working in the digital realm gives an artist so much variability that makes this platform so unique and different from the darkroom product. It makes your question seem odd at best to ask. I love the darkroom and it's quiet experience. Yet the same can be said of working at a computer. I love the smells associated with the wet process. Most would look at me as a lunatic too. I can't master or even get past the basics of working in the digital realm. No I'm certainly not stupid (hey! Down in front! Quit laughing!) but don't spend the requisite time learning this process. I do think that the digital platform is superior in so many respects to the traditional darkroom process that it is likely that the wet processes will be relagated to the trashheap of history. I was just looking at a short article about the wet collodian process and it seems to me that why would anyone want to work with such caustic and dangerous chemicals when the same can be made on a computer? Just look at any of the photography sites such as usefilm or photo.net and see what is now being created by formerly laymen who couldn't draw a straight line much less work in a darkroom for many reasons. Images are being created now that could never be made without this new platform. And images that could be created in the darkroom are now so much more easily created and in a shorter time and with much more control. Few people in 10 or 20 years will even remember the wet process, and troglidytes like me. The digital platform gives any artist so much more latitude and expressive avenues that it seems weird that not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Where the wet process has made many many legendary images, the new digital platform will unleash art as never before. It will enable tens of thousands of would be artists to finally release all the ideas that heretofore have languished for want of a way to express those ideas and visions. Just as photography was birthed and developed as a new art, so to has this digital art. Embrace it. Yes there is still the romance of the darkroom but look at the burgeoning digital realm as the future. I didn't believe it just a few years ago, but I now truly believe it will help unlease ideas and visions that have languished within and now will finally see the light of day.

[Kirk Gittings]

Digital darkroom is different, not necessarily better. It allows me to solve some problems and express certain nuances that I cannot do with an enlarged silver print, like alter tone and contrast in very small areas on a pixel level. Like Paul I have both darkrooms set up and running.

For the recent retrospective show I did many digital prints of images that were already in the museum collection as silver and Cibachrome versions (purchases from earlier shows). I did not compare the prints until a week before the show hung when we were making a final edit, because I wanted to push the ink print aesthetic as far as I could go and not try and imitate my earlier traditional prints. For me this was both a big test and risk as I had never hung a single ink print before at a public showing. Now with the most important show of my life at hand....I was full of self doubt.

In every case I prefered and hung the pigment ink prints. In addition the traditional prints that I did hang from the collection and the ink prints looked fabulous together, each with its own strenght and beauty. Responce to the show was phenomenal and the highlight of my career.

[David Luttmann]

I like Bruce's comments.

I'll add that I like the convenience of being able to apply different "looks" to the print without changing my process. I can output a high quality color print. Then I can go and do a B&W print, and on that B&W print give it a warmtone, cooltone, platinum tone, sepia tone, etc.

As well, the tonality, for me, is better than anything I dealt with in the darkroom. No more issues of compressed shadows or highlights with different papers, etc.

And if one more person mentions a piece of digital gear becoming "obsolete" just because a newer model comes out.....I'll scream!!! I have an old Canon D30 that works every bit as well as when I bought it years ago. It didn't stop working when a new model came out. I've got a fridge with a few hundred rolls of NPS & NPC. These films still look great even though Fuji has come out with their replacements. My old NPS is NOT rendered obsolete by the introduction of a newer version. So please, let's stop this silly obsolete red herring that is thrown out by people not understanding a new workflow.

Other than that, happy shooting!

[Jay W]

I used to do a lot of darkroom work, but I now find it hard to devote a weekend to printing. If I only go in the darkroom for 3-4 hours, I can only get 1-2 neg printed (B&W), so long hours in the darkroom is the way to be productive. (I.e, I'm washing one set of prints while I'm printing another set.) Color? Holy smokes, that's a "take vacation" affair. It's usually best to "make hay while the sun shines." (If things are printing well, keep printing.)

I also have difficulty getting a lot of work done on the computer, but it's much easier to work for a half hour and stop. Also, if you finish working on an image, you can print it in various sizes without having to do extra work. If you decide a week later that your print needs a little extra of this-or-that, say it should be 5% lighter, you can go back and print out a lighter version in a few minutes. Sometimes I'll have a print framed for a couple weeks and then decide I want something slightly different. It's time consuming to go in the darkroom and recreat a print, even when you have good notes. Even with fairly large volumes of developer, I find the developer drifts (get weaker) as I start running through a half dozen 11x14s.

One more point is that my wife likes having me "available" for conversation (during my computer work as compared to the darkroom work.)

One thing I've been considering, is trying to make internegs on the computer and then contact print in the darkroom. The big advantage of this for me would be in Pt/Pl printing.

Jay Wenner

[Steve Bell]

As I no longer have space for a darkroom, and even when I did, never for a 4x5 enlarger (Beseler 23c was all I could fit in), scanning and printing digitally brought me back to serious photography after a 20 year gap. And this isn't because Photoshop can make an image look nothing like the negative, I prefer to get the image right in the camera and 'photoshop it' as little as possible. I process my own B&W 4x5 film at home, mostly with chemicals that no longer smell. This caught me out once and I developed a tank of film with water. I do miss the darkroom smells. Scanners have got better, as has B&W inkjet printing technology, both with 'out of the box' solutions and via third party inks.

[Steven Barall]

The best system is the one that you are actually going to use. If you're affraid of the dark building a darkroom probably isn't the best choice for you so just go digital. If your VCR has been blinking 12:00 for the past ten years then maybe you need a darkroom. All of these things are just tools. Which tool is better, a hammer or a screwdriver?

If you live the old paradigm of Photography As Craft that's great but don't expect everyone else in the world to live the way you do. Any given photo has it's own requirements and if they can be satisfied in the dark well tha'ts great but maybe for some people a different kind of control is required so Photoshop is used instead. And don't even go to the argument that photos converted to ones and zeros loose their purity and reality. Photos have very little relation to reality anyway including and especially nature no matter how sharp your lens or how big your film.

Personally, I'm just interested in looking at photos and I don't care how they are made.

[Christopher Perez]

For the guys who love the digital process - how large can you go from a 4800dpi scanned 4x5 image and retain print resolution equal or apparently better than with silver processes?

[Alan Davenport]

What is the attraction to scanning LF negatives? LF films are attractive regardless of how they are processed, and regardless if they are negatives or transparencies.

Is a wet darkroom all that bad? Yes, it is. Thanks for asking. I spent 20 years doing my photography in wet darkrooms. This is so much nicer.

Do people prefer to sit on their butt when working? Does a bear....

Stay dry? And drink coffee while working!

Avoid chemistry? That's a big plus, alright.

Do you really know that the prints from scanning are better than wet work, and how are they better? No. Nor do folks who work exclusively in a wet environment, really know that they could not have achieved equal or better results via a digital workflow. They are simply different paths.

Variable contrast. Masking. Burning and dodging. Even substituting a dramatic sky for a featureless one. These are all things that were being done decades ago in the darkroom, and accepted. I submit that virtually everything that is done digitally, has a wet darkroom analogue. It's all photography, and I don't give a darn how someone gets to the end point.

[David Luttmann]

Christopher,

Are you referring to a "4800 dpi" scan from a consumer flatbed, or a true high end scan from an Imacon for example? A 2400 dpi scan from an Imacon will show more detail and have a greater dynamic range than a 4800 dpi scan from a consumer flatbed like that of the Epson 4990.

From an Epson, you are just as limited from lack of dynamic range as from its lack of resolving power. From a high end scan at say, 4000 dpi, you can have incredible 40x50 prints from a lightjet or inkjet printer.

[Ken Lee]

Because of digital sharpening (which can be done in selected areas, while leaving others along (clouds for example)) a scanned image, at the same size as an enlargement, can appear sharper than the original. Professor Evens has discussed this from time to time.

Once you resolve down to the size of the film grain (or dye clouds in color) there is little point in scanning at higher resolution. Somewhere between 2500 and 3000 ppi will get you there, depending on the film, in my humble experience with dedicated film scanners like Nikon and Minolta.

I went from inkjet prints, back to in-camera-negative contact printing, due to the longevity of the final print: Pt/Pd prints, in particular. However, a digitally scanned negative can certainly find its way to a platinum print, or a silver print, via the digital internegative method, mentioned by Chris. That may represent the best of "both" worlds.

Whatevver else, it will certainly keep workshop instructors busy !