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Thread: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

  1. #21
    Steven Ruttenberg's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Quote Originally Posted by Alan9940 View Post
    Don't know about Mr. Lee, but this sounds a lot like the "Guide File Workflow" that West Coast Imaging outlined some 10-15 years ago. The only real restriction to working this way is that all layers must be adjustment layers, only; you cannot have any pixel-based layer. Once you've finished your edit, you simply copy all the adjustment layers to the full resolution file, then complete for final output. I would guess that nowadays, with all the desktop computing power we enjoy, this workflow is not needed so much.
    I just remember getting the info from his site. He may have provided a link to a you tube file (It think he did) yes, you do need to use only adjustment layers. As for computing power, I have a 2012 MacPro with 32GB of memory and 20 TB of disk storage. My color files will get upwards of 60GB +. Yes, I spend a lot of time on a file when I find an image I like. My Mac handles it okay, just takes a while writing and loading the file. I hope to upgrade in the next year or so for the latest and greatest MacPro. But even then, I would still use the method outlined above to speed up the actual editing.

    Any pixel level fixes needed at that point could be done to the file and recorded as an Action, that way you could redo your pixels adjsustment/fix steps after creating the full size resolution image if you so desired

  2. #22

    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    The best that I've used is Topaz Gigapixel AI.
    A friend told me about Topaz as well but i could never get it to work on my computer, I think my graphics card is a bit outdated or some other bug. I know this site synchronet.me that claims to use AI. I don't really understand the tech behind it, sometimes the results are ok, sometimes its meh, but its been pretty helpful with large format printing. In case it comes in handy for anyone else

  3. #23
    Serious Amateur Photographer pepeguitarra's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Just a side comment to myself (and others). If taking an analog picture, scan it, photoshop it, manipulate it to create a digital print is so complicated to create a sub-par digital copy, wouldn't it be better to use a DSLR to take the photo? Wouldn't it be easier to produce an analog print with the dodge and burn tools? That is really a personal choice, but those were my considerations when I went full analog.
    "I have never in my life made music for money or fame. God walks out of the room when you are thinking about money." -- Quincy Jones

  4. #24
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Quote Originally Posted by pepeguitarra View Post
    If taking an analog picture, scan it, photoshop it, manipulate it to create a digital print is so complicated to create a sub-par digital copy, wouldn't it be better to use a DSLR to take the photo?
    You use the phrase "sub-par digital copy." That implies a distaste for any hybrid workflow, and that's a perfectly fine subjective choice, but I know a bunch of very experienced traditional black and white printers who think that the hybrid workflow gives them better, for their own definitions of 'better', prints than they created in the darkroom. Why throw shade on them? Why not just do what you prefer, and let others do the same?
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
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  5. #25
    Serious Amateur Photographer pepeguitarra's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter De Smidt View Post
    ... Why not just do what you prefer, and let others do the same?
    Isn't that the current case?
    "I have never in my life made music for money or fame. God walks out of the room when you are thinking about money." -- Quincy Jones

  6. #26
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Sure, but why dish-"sub-par digital copy"- what other people do?
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

  7. #27
    Serious Amateur Photographer pepeguitarra's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter De Smidt View Post
    Sure, but why dish-"sub-par digital copy"- what other people do?
    . My digitized scans have always been sub-par. I refuse to spend hours on a computer dealing with Photoshop.
    "I have never in my life made music for money or fame. God walks out of the room when you are thinking about money." -- Quincy Jones

  8. #28

    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Getting back to the original question about downsampling: The method used really depends on the image and how much resampling is taking place. Adobe Automatic uses a non-disclosed interpolation that varies depending on the amount of resampling. The trouble with this is that you never know exactly what is happening and you're trusting Adobe to make the best decision for you. The idea of Bicubic Sharper is not a bad one for downsampling but the problem here is that it applies an equal amount of unknown sharpening to your entire image, which may or may not be optimal, especially when or if you have any diagonal lines in your image. Very likely to get stairstepping in them. For most images, standard Bicubic is the best with locally applied sharpening afterward, either with USM or with FocusMagic, always applied on a duped layer then painted back in where needed. With some subjects - those that are prone to moiré, it's often helpful to use Bicubic Smoother on the downsizing, going against what Adobe would consider standard practice.

    It's always helpful to use the preview box and scroll through the options while in Image Size. After enough images, you'll pretty much know what will work best for you. One other area to consider is using Free Transform to straighten out your slightly crooked scans. You have the same interpolation options in the Options Bar of Free Transform as you do in Image Size but with no preview. Here is an area where you can get weird Bicubic hatching artifacts - the same ones we used to see on scans rotated very slightly in scanning software, but now induced simply by rotating using standard Bicubic. Instead, and I've learned this through testing many drum scanned images that needed only a couple tenths of a degree rotation, using Bicubic Smoother completely fixes the hatching artifact. This is something I figured out several years ago and for some reason have not gotten the samples together to send to Chris Cox at Adobe but now you all know how to deal with it. Maybe this is not an issue with Epson scans as they are not all that sharp but certainly a problem with all the drum scans I make. It's almost as if the pattern of film grain in the scan when slightly rotated creates a large cross hatch pattern which is clearly visible at 100% viewing and more so when viewing individual RGB channels but it only happens with very slight rotations. Go figure. Actually I remember seeing those in commercial scans back in the mid 90's but no one then had any clue as to what caused it.

  9. #29
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    Bringing up rotation is a good point. I highly recommend taking the time to scan the negative such that no rotation will be needed. Rotation other than 90* or 180* will always lead to a loss in quality. Make a guide to make sure the negative is lined up perfectly. If it's not, then take the time to re-do it before scanning.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

  10. #30

    Re: Resizing After Scanning Black & White Negative

    While that's a great idea and good practice, in the real world, no matter how carefully you mount your film on the drum, it's VERY difficult to get it perfectly straight, and I've been doing this for over twenty years. You're often off .1 or .2 degrees, which is pretty hard to see when lining up with the grid on the mounting station. And if you're scanning 4x5, you can also have the film be slightly crooked in the film holder to further complicate. Trust me that when I get 10 frames mounted up on a drum and one or two of them are off a teeny tiny bit, there's no way in hell I'm going to pull them all off and start over. To quote Dana Carvey: "It ain't gonna happen"

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