A Development In My Hobby - The Film Journey

steveo_mcg said:
Christ, that was nearly four years ago! :(
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Doesn't time fly when you get past 40! Sorry... I mean when you're having such fun! I keep forgetting that these days it's not fashionable to tell it like it is... sorry, I meant 'say anything negative at all' ! :rolleyes:
 
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Shaun Palmer said:
Cheers badger. I was thinking tiff as it’s losless editing? Or is that a bit misguided.
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See what the others think, but I'd doubt you'd notice much difference between TIFF and JPEG when saving files scanned at that resolution... but I've been wrong before, and no doubt I'll be wrong about something again at some point, well.... possibly almost wrong, very nearly! ;)
 
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Mr Badger said:
See what the others think, but I'd doubt you'd notice much difference between TIFF and JPEG when saving files scanned at that resolution... but I've been wrong before, and no doubt I'll be wrong about something again at some point, well.... possibly almost wrong, very nearly! ;)
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I know the feeling mate, I’m married so I’m always wrong ha ha
 
As we used to say when I worked in the retail sector, the customer is always right.... it's just sometimes they're more 'right' than others! ;)
 
I just did a very quick Google search and the first hit was this one. As far as I've skimmed, it seems a reasonable explanation of bit depth and the disadvantage of jpg as the "base file" from a scan.
 
Mr Badger said:
I always use the Epson software my scanner came with, saving as JPEG files and tweaking afterwards in Photoshop Elements. To be honest, given the resolution that 'consumer grade' flatbed scanners deliver for 35mm film I can't see the point in saving images as a TIFF file, as they take up more PC hard drive space, and will it actually make any noticeable difference at that resolution?
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I've had flat-beds, but not lately & never Epson - however - I can't imagine much wrong with Epson Scan as long as it has an 'expert' mode where you can set levels / curves at least, after the preview's loaded and before the scan. That's to start on the best foot, and if you can export in 16-bit too, go for it. It's about maximising your chances - if your processing software can handle 16-bit? It might for some functions, and not others till you've converted down to 8-bit, but you leave that as late in the workflow as you can. Equally, stay tiff as long as possible.

Forget all this if you just want to post on Fartbook, in which case who cares?
 
Shaun Palmer said:
Cheers badger. I was thinking tiff as it’s losless editing? Or is that a bit misguided.
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I started a thread on (8-bit) TIFF vs JPEG last year. TLDR: I couldn't see a benefit to 8-bit TIFFs even after multiple rounds of edit-save-edit-save. I stopped asking Filmdev for TIFFs and haven't regretted it (they now don't offer them).

There may well be benefits to 16-bit TIFFs over JPEGs in some particular circumstances, though I suspect there are so many variables in the whole film-camera-exposure-development-scanning-posprocessing nexus that you'd find it hard to prove!
 
droj said:
Could we see a 16" x 12" print?
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Doubt it. I don't think it's that capable a scanner. Fine for web use.
There's a bloke about a third of the way up the last scramble wearing a red jacket. We met up with him at the top.
10x8 would be okay.
 
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medwaygreen said:
I have found that irrespective of what you are scanning ICE/dust removal mode is a waste of so much time for little return. Prep you're negative prior to scanning, that is my tip.
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Mr Badger said:
I don't usually use it either, as you say, remove the problem at source. I use a rocket blower on the negs/slides and on the top and bottom scanner glass immediately before each scan and that seems to cut down a lot of dust issues, unless it's ingrained into the neg.
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ICE can save lots of time. But it might also soften things you didn't want softened. I always used a (rubber bulb type) blower lens brush top & bottom along slides or film strips since before ICE was available - worked pretty well. Then I dust-spotted (cloning tool) in PS.
 
droj said:
I've had flat-beds, but not lately & never Epson - however - I can't imagine much wrong with Epson Scan as long as it has an 'expert' mode where you can set levels / curves at least, after the preview's loaded and before the scan. That's to start on the best foot, and if you can export in 16-bit too, go for it. It's about maximising your chances - if your processing software can handle 16-bit? It might for some functions, and not others till you've converted down to 8-bit, but you leave that as late in the workflow as you can. Equally, stay tiff as long as possible.

Forget all this if you just want to post on Fartbook, in which case who cares?
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Fartbook hahaha that made me chuckle. But yeah it has an ‘professional ’ mode which has things like histogram adjustment, which is basically like ‘levels’ in PS. Tone curve adjustments etc. It’s quite a lot more I’m depth and controllable from I expected from a bundled software.

ChrisR said:
I started a thread on (8-bit) TIFF vs JPEG last year. TLDR: I couldn't see a benefit to 8-bit TIFFs even after multiple rounds of edit-save-edit-save. I stopped asking Filmdev for TIFFs and haven't regretted it (they now don't offer them).

There may well be benefits to 16-bit TIFFs over JPEGs in some particular circumstances, though I suspect there are so many variables in the whole film-camera-exposure-development-scanning-posprocessing nexus that you'd find it hard to prove!
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This things scans upto 48bit, which I have found out doesn’t really matter a great deal as moniters can’t ‘see’ anything over 24

kendo1 said:
Doubt it. I don't think it's that capable a scanner. Fine for web use.
There's a bloke about a third of the way up the last scramble wearing a red jacket. We met up with him at the top.
10x8 would be okay.
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I think I’ll get a few test prints done to see what size you can get from scanning
 
Shaun Palmer said:
This things scans upto 48bit, which I have found out doesn’t really matter a great deal as moniters can’t ‘see’ anything over 24
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Look at it this way. 24 bits means 8 bits for red, 8 bits for blue and 8 bits for green. Take such a file, and pop it into Photoshop and make a curves adjustment. Take a look at the histogram for each colour. See any spikes or "missing" values? Those are tones you now longer have when it comes to printing. Repeat in 48 bits and see how much smoother the whole thing is. 8 bits means 255 different tones for each colour, and 16 bits means 65,536 different tones per colour.

You are correct of course if you're only going to display on a monitor, or make minimal adjustments before printing.

Now consider: do you think you'll learn anything over the next year or so, and want to come back to make a better image of an old scan - possibly even printing it? Are you likely to overstretch the tones if you do?

I'm one of those people for whom the glass would be half empty, except I don't expect to even get a glass - someone to whom a pessimist is a cheery sort who always looks on the bright side, oblivious to their only being one (bad) side. Hence I prefer to assume that I might want the maximum possible options down the line. Or alternatively, why throw away what you might need later?
 
Shaun Palmer said:
Tonight is the night I try my first development! Wish me luck guys haha
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Take it slow and methodical and you should have no trouble. It's later when you think you know it that you'll fix before developing or some other major SNAFU!
 
So long as they are completely dry then you don't need to leave them overnight.
Have you attached a clip or a weight to the bottom of the roll? They shouldn't curl if you have. If they are curling inward along the length dont worry, when dry they should be much flatter and the negative holder should straighten out any remaining curl.
 
Andysnap said:
So long as they are completely dry then you don't need to leave them overnight.
Have you attached a clip or a weight to the bottom of the roll? They shouldn't curl if you have. If they are curling inward along the length dont worry, when dry they should be much flatter and the negative holder should straighten out any remaining curl.
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I'm guessing when the tackiness is gone from each frame they're completely dry? Yeah its along the length, I've got a weighted clip on the bottom
 
Have you weighted the end? The photos don't show the top and bottom.

Patience is a virtue; the more you disturb the dust, the more likely you are to get dust stuck to the film.

Agfa used to sell a product called Drysonal. It's an alcohol based product, the idea being that the alcohol displaces the water and evaporates more quickly.
 
StephenM said:
Have you weighted the end? The photos don't show the top and bottom.

Patience is a virtue; the more you disturb the dust, the more likely you are to get dust stuck to the film.

Agfa used to sell a product called Drysonal. It's an alcohol based product, the idea being that the alcohol displaces the water and evaporates more quickly.
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Yeah it's weighted, I did use some RA50 rinse aid, is that similar or would I use the Drysonal afterwards?
 
A rinse aid will be either a wetting agent (reduce drying marks) or in this case the less likely hypo eliminator. Neither are intended to promote drying. Drysol - like so much Agfa - is a thing of the past...
 
Not sure what film it is, but I find Tri-X dries with a bit of a curl lengthwise, which is annoying FP4 is usually lovely and flat!

Drying times... the longer it hangs there the more likely to get dust; OTOH if it's not completely dry it just won't go into the sleeves. I'd say minimum 2 hours, max 4. I sleeve mine, then leave the Tri-X sleeves overnight under a heavy book, scan them the next day.
 
ChrisR said:
Not sure what film it is, but I find Tri-X dries with a bit of a curl lengthwise, which is annoying FP4 is usually lovely and flat!

Drying times... the longer it hangs there the more likely to get dust; OTOH if it's not completely dry it just won't go into the sleeves. I'd say minimum 2 hours, max 4. I sleeve mine, then leave the Tri-X sleeves overnight under a heavy book, scan them the next day.
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I find that pretty much all Kodak negatives have a curl like this. It’s a real pain in the backside when it comes to scanning, and like you, I’ve now taken to leaving them under a pile of books overnight. It does the job, but it’s frustrating that it’s necessary.
 
So I finally got them dry and scanned into the PC, and I'm a little bit deflated :(

I wasn't too sure how they were going to turn out but I expected them to be better than this. Probably a combination of cheap film (kodak colour plus 200), inexperience of film use and developing and lack of skill after relying on digital. These are even after noise reduction in Lightroom as they just looked awful. Not sure where to go from here, got some better film on the way so back to it when it arrives and see what happens

img1strollnoedit039.jpg

img1strollnoedit061.jpg img1strollnoedit058.jpg
 
I'd be pretty happy with those for my first attempt. I like the third shot especially.

I'd maybe bump up the contrast on it a little, as it looks slightly flat to my eyes, but it's down to personal taste. I recently went back and re-scanned some of my earlier shots as I've gotten better at scanning and post-processing my photos, and I was able to make some slightly lacklustre shots (scan and post-process-wise) look much nicer. It's like most things - practice makes perfect.

Don't be disheartened though - I think those are a great start.
 
I can't say if this has any bearing on your results, but in my experience the scanning parameters are very, very important. You can get a hopeless image that even Photoshop can't fix, or one that will print with virtually no changes just by changing the scanner settings. At least, I found it so with VueScan. I did look to see if I had a side by side pair to demonstrate, but I couldn't find them quickly.

The other thing to remember is that digital always softens the image. A digital camera will sharpen jpgs, but you have to sharpen raw files yourself (unless the software does it automatically as a baseline to work from, as some camera software does). The same applies to scanned images.
 
FishyFish said:
I'd be pretty happy with those for my first attempt. I like the third shot especially.

I'd maybe bump up the contrast on it a little, as it looks slightly flat to my eyes, but it's down to personal taste. I recently went back and re-scanned some of my earlier shots as I've gotten better at scanning and post-processing my photos, and I was able to make some slightly lacklustre shots (scan and post-process-wise) look much nicer. It's like most things - practice makes perfect.

Don't be disheartened though - I think those are a great start.
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Thanks for the feedback mate. I should have really spent a bit more time on PP, but it’s late and I was a bit gutted with them lol. Just thought I’d put them up here to show everyone how I’d got on. Fresh mind tomorrow after work and I’ll work on a few others and upload them.
 
Found them! Same negative, two scans. Both as from the scanner.

scan bad.jpg scan good.jpg
 
StephenM said:
I can't say if this has any bearing on your results, but in my experience the scanning parameters are very, very important. You can get a hopeless image that even Photoshop can't fix, or one that will print with virtually no changes just by changing the scanner settings. At least, I found it so with VueScan. I did look to see if I had a side by side pair to demonstrate, but I couldn't find them quickly.

The other thing to remember is that digital always softens the image. A digital camera will sharpen jpgs, but you have to sharpen raw files yourself (unless the software does it automatically as a baseline to work from, as some camera software does). The same applies to scanned images.
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Thanks for that Stephen. I need to do a bit more experimenting with the scan settings, it’s not as straight forward as I thought it would be, all a learning curve though I guess lol.
 
I'm viewing this on a smartphone so can't see them properly but that first one looks a nice shot?. Will have a look at them properly when I fire up the computer tomorrow. I'm sure the others will give you some feedback before then though. (y)
 
@Shaun Palmer You shouldn't be disheartened at all!!

Also viewing on my smartphone but the first shot is a lovely capture.....I'd be more than happy with that!!

Second shot looks nice, could maybe be tweaked a bit further but looks like it was an overcast day - so maybe going to lack a little punch/saturation anyway?

Third shot just maybe needs a touch more contrast as suggested above.

Is this your first go at film coming from digital? With film you will get some grain, you will have some softness in places and sometimes you will completely screw it up!!

When I got my first rolls back from Filmdev from my Yashica Mat and Mamiya C330 I went straight into lightroom, and initially felt disappointed too. Trouble is, I was zooming right in at 1:1 like I would with a digital shot, looking for ultimate sharpness, lack of noise, etc. I was looking at them from a digital viewpoint which was the wrong thing to do in my opinion.

Film has it's own character :)
 
:plus1:

The qualities that make a film shot work are (in part) different from digital, it's an aesthetic thing. You will find that under perfect lightning conditions, using good quality film and shot with good glass that you can get technically excellent results but there are far more things that can effect the final image so there are often disappointments.
Pixel peeping is definitely a bad move. ;)

The bigger the film format the cleaner the results, generally, so medium format produces a cleaner neg that often needs less pp. You do still need to do the basics correctly just as with digital but with a bit of practice you will get better results.
Having said all that I agree with the comments above, they look ok for a first attempt. (y)
 
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