Good pudding, Peter
Good pudding, Peter
Tin Can
Thanks, Randy.
This should be the official theme song of any scanner thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2HH7J-Sx80
“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
Well, the epson file allows some additional sharpening to show the grain better. This is a x22 enlargement, it looks a but gritty at x20 but the shatpening is optimized for x8:
A x8 enlargement on the monitor would be this, I doubt the drum would show any difference at x8, which would be a 1m print:
1. Why is the Epson better for color inversion than drums? Would I be better off shooting chrome color rather than negative color? (PS I'm currently loaded with Velvia 50 in 4x5. Maybe we can experiment later with those as well.)
2. Why do we care about grain with the drum when I'm shooting Tmax 100? Is there grain worth capturing? Why bother if you're shooting Tmax. If I wanted grain, I'd shoot Tri-X. No?
Flickr Home Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums
What settings and program did you adjust the unsharpened Howtek and the Epson?
Flickr Home Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums
It's very striking that no one has attempted to do anything with the section of image showing the planks - which along with the larger areas of smooth tonality is where most viewers will really see the differences in optical performance (signal: noise behaviour & its impact on sharp fine detail imaging in lower contrast areas) in an actual print, as opposed to the high contrast hard edged details on the ends of the pieces of wood. Suggests that most 'image analysis' on here is firmly stuck somewhere before 1952 and will result in prints that would be easy to pick out the drum scan from.
First, Epson has a legion of color scientists, they are not leading the Pro inkjet market by chance, so they know how to handle color.
Second, Negafix in Silverfast is amazing, it has dedicated color inversions for each particular negative Brand/film mapping the scanned colors to a suposedly very good RA-4 interpretation.
Of course we can edit color with advanced tools like 3D LUT creator, but departing to a very, very well made inversion like Negafix saves a lot of color edition. This is particularly important for portraiture, with landscapes we always can be more "creative", but with portraits we have to nail de job.
Nick Carver explains it here in min 22:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9d8BukUgzI&t=1674s
Some people try to discredit Craver, but no doubt his color management is sound, even Fuji has highlighted him: https://www.ishootfujifilm.com/spotlight/nick-carver
Slides record a narrower dynamic range than Color negative film, slides are designed for projection so they have to show a similar contrast than in the scene. Color negative film has a lower Contrast Index (BW has 0.62 ISO) so it records more stops.
So no doubt than slides are less flexible and require a more accurate metering and/or graded ND filters
Anyway Velvia (etc) has an impressive spectral response for landscape that later cannot be well imitated with CN or digital. The Epson with multi-exposure scans slides very well, if you compare the scanned image to the real slide you'll see it's faithful, beyond the limitations in the monitor than won't show what the slide has because color spaces are not matching and monitor's static contrast is lower.
I agree with you... To me grain depiction has little importance in LF, and if using TMX even less importance. But the way an scanner records grains may have importance for MF and 35mm, many argue that the Epson does not depict well grain, but if image is well processed then you will match the drum result at least for x8 prints, if not x10 or x12.
Some years ago I followed how Sebastião Salgado (Amazonas team) managed grain for Genesis, it was quite challenging... they had to match optic TXP prints from 645 format with digital DSLR shots. The exhibited prints from digital shots had fake artificial grain added and then they digitally printed the images in Delta 100 8x10" negatives with an LVT film recorder, four images per sheet, finally they optically printed those negatives with an enlarger in the darkroom, instead printing the digital image (incorporating the fake grain) with a Lambda on silver paper.
A sound grain management may be challenging... so it may be interesting what the Epson is able to do with it. No doubt that a drum scanning at 8000 will deliver a more natural grain, the question is if this is noticed by x8 or by x14. IMO it depends on the particular film and on edition skills.
Howtek no sharpening
Howtek Sharpening Method 3
“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
Cheers Peter, it's pretty obvious that the Howtek (and any high end scanner really) severely outperforms the Epson where it's going to matter visually in a print at pretty much any size, especially with the current generation of print heads.
I should however have said that the real challenge would be to try and match the same sector of the Epson scan to the non-sharpened Howtek, but as you and I know, that's going to be a waste of effort and energy to essentially re-answer a question to which the answer is 'no'.
Bookmarks