How Well Does Film Edit?

YoshiK1

YoshiK1

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Possibly setting myself up for another stupid question but here it is! Please entertain me. Haha.

Before you start hitting me with 'why would you edit film?' etc, hear me out.

I've only shot digital until recently where now I only shoot film. I have creative ideas I'd like to explore that require more than the usual editing in the likes of photoshop. With digital of course it can be edited etc through the RAW files but can film be edited in the same way?

Also are TIFF scans of film as versatile as a RAW file or are they more like trying to edit a JPEG in the sense that the data just isn't there? I just dont know how the scanners work and again I realise this could just be a stupid question.
 
No such thing as a stupid question. Absolutely nothing wrong with editing film. Back in the day, in the darkroom, with traditional wet prints, people did all sorts of weird and wonderful things. 1960s psychedelic album covers? Faked antarctic expedition photos? etc.

To answer your other questions - I haven't a clue. Sorry.
 
simon ess said:
No such thing as a stupid question. Absolutely nothing wrong with editing film. Back in the day, in the darkroom, with traditional wet prints, people did all sorts of weird and wonderful things. 1960s psychedelic album covers? Faked antarctic expedition photos? etc.

To answer your other questions - I haven't a clue. Sorry.
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Haha! I'm feeling like that's the answer I could get the most. I know there's nothing wrong with it and I wont necessarily be faking like those examples, it's more so abstract editing I plan to be doing.
 
Only one way to be sure - try it *Obvious answer of the week*
 
-Oy- said:
Only one way to be sure - try it *Obvious answer of the week*
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I plan to eventually but the scans I currently have came in JPEG format which I know wont edit well. I've not got any film waiting for development nor will I get out anytime in the immediate future and I dont develop and scan my own film (yet) so that's a week or two wait in itself.
 
First off I'm no expert and very rarely spend much time editing photos but I would have thought that once you have scanned the image it becomes a digital photo anyway so I would have thought all digital photos rules would apply,I sort off get what you are asking as scanning a film image in theory could add the problems of digital and film together ,noise,grain, could you get digital blow out where it didn't exist on the film image. As Oy pointed out try it and see and report you findings back to us all of course .
 
Jpgs are 8 bit, tiffs 16 bit (normally). It's the extra bits that mean that tonal adjustments are smoother. Yes, you can use a photo editor on film just as on a digital raw file.
 
THe negative is your RAW file!

Experiment and learn how to obtain the maximum detail from the neg using your scanner.
Save file as tiff (16bit) and retouch as you would a file from a digital camera.
Save result as tiff and /or jpeg for sharing etc.

It's not rocket science tbh, the most imprtant part ( after obtaining a decent negative of course!) is to get as much of that detail onto your computer screen.

Flat bed scanners have limitations and upping the resoluton to its maximum doesn't always give a better result.
They tend to have "sweet spots" ( not unlike apertures on lenses) and it is you that has to play around to find where that is and profit from it.

Don't forget what I mentioned about scanners having limitations, they are, imo, the weakest stage from exposing film in camera through to printing out a photograph on paper, however they do what they need to do and are very practical ( for those of us that don't have access to a darkroom).
Proof can be seen regularly in here when folk post their work, sometimes with an IQ on a par if not in excess of some of the images posted elsewhere that have been shoot using a digital camera.
 
"... in the sense that the data just isn't there? I just don't know how the scanners work..."

One thing perhaps worth noting is that scanners differ a lot in their capability. Filmscanner.info has reviews that might help you understand more of their capabilities. In general, though, the commercial scanners that the labs used have greater capabilities than the retail ones that most of us have at home. I noticed the other day that Filmdev (who have both Fuji Frontier and Noritsu scanners) now offer TIFFs, but I don't know if these are 8 or 16-bit (I assume the latter, but you could ring them?).
 
ChrisR said:
"I noticed the other day that Filmdev (who have both Fuji Frontier and Noritsu scanners) now offer TIFFs, but I don't know if these are 8 or 16-bit (I assume the latter, but you could ring them?).
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That’s interesting to know. I’ll need to download a fresh order form - I normally just photocopy a pre-filled version.
 
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ChrisR said:
"... in the sense that the data just isn't there? I just don't know how the scanners work..."

One thing perhaps worth noting is that scanners differ a lot in their capability. Filmscanner.info has reviews that might help you understand more of their capabilities. In general, though, the commercial scanners that the labs used have greater capabilities than the retail ones that most of us have at home. I noticed the other day that Filmdev (who have both Fuji Frontier and Noritsu scanners) now offer TIFFs, but I don't know if these are 8 or 16-bit (I assume the latter, but you could ring them?).
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Well this is partly why I started to ask because I noticed the same thing too and they're the ones I plan on sending my films to for development and scanning in TIFF. I'll find out what (x)-bit they are and feed that back here.
 
For the most part, anything you can do with digital you can do with film. I can pull my highlights on TIFF scans of colour neg/black and white neg like I can push my shadows on NEF ones. Slide film is less flexible but since you’re going to be nailing exposure when shooting it you barely have to touch sliders in post. The only big issue is white balance, you simply don’t have the same flexibility as with a raw file since it is an inherent quality with the film you shoot. The key is in knowing how to get good scans or using labs that actually know what they’re doing. This is assuming that your negs have decent density (I.e, good exposure) in the first place.
 
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