 Steve Fels |
Film Scanning Issue Hi! Today I got a roll of Velvia 100 slide film developed and scanned. On the light table, the transparency looked great. The colours were so vivid. But when I got the CD home, the digital images were very ordinary. They were scanned at 6.4mb JPEGs. Should I be asking for something different? Thanks!
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Bob Cammarata |
Steve, Next time, ask for them to save TIFF files out of the scanner. Then use your software program to make adjustments in contrast, saturation and sharpness to get closer to the quality of the original slide. If scanning slides is something you plan to do often, you may wish to invest in a good scanner and do them yourself. Bob
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Steve Fels |
Thanks again, Steve
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Steve Fels |
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Steve Fels |
I'm not sure what that is but its not what I tried to download.....
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Steve Fels |
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doug Nelson |
Slides in general are harder to scan. Velvia is known to be a challenge for the scanner operator. Sometimes the blacks or whites are clipped so that some tonal information is lost. Set the scanner to return as close to a Raw image as possible. Apply no contrast or brightness in the scan. Scan as a high bit TIFF (the files will be huge), and do tonal/contrast and color balance in Photoshop or Elements.
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Steve Fels |
Thanks Doug, my appologies for the delayed response. Is there a "better" film that will scan better and give nice skin tones ? Steve
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W. |
Hi Steve, as Doug pointed out the Velvia is NOT the problem, but the scanner operator IS. There's nothing wrong with Velvia. So a) get yourself a better scanner operator, and b) have them scan your slides as TIFFs. If "the blacks or whites are clipped so that some tonal information is lost", get TWO scans of those: one exposed for the higlights, and one exposed for the shadows. Then merge them as HDRI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDRI) to get an image file with the complete tonal range.
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doug Nelson |
Just an opinion on my part, but I prefer Provia 100 for slides. It returns natural tones, especially skin and greenery. If you decide you want boosted colors, you can play with Saturation in Photoshop. Read Mike Reichman's article at www.luminous-landscape.com on Velvia vs. Provia.
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Steve Fels |
Thank you both for your advice... Steve Fels
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Bob Cammarata |
I too prefer Provia 100 to Velvia. It's the closest thing to reality since KR64.
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Steve Fels |
Just another question I have often thought about but didn't want to appear stupid. Is there an "ideal" shutter speed. Given that all other things are equal and depth of feild wasn't an issue, would slowing the shutter speed down.eg. 1/1000 @ f4 to 1/250 @ f8, change anything in the way the film reacts. I know the exposure would be the same but does the longer "reaction" time affect anything? colour saturation etc. Steve
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doug Nelson |
I wouldn't expect any difference in freezing action or windblown wildflowers in the scenario you suggested, but there could be several other issues coming into play. I prefer to think more in terms of ideal apertures. Most of my 35 lenses are sharpest at f5.6; my 24, 35, 50, 90, and 100. I have to factor in whether or not sharpness is a prime consideration, or whether my wife will object to every skin pore in her portrait being in sharp focus. Of course, if I know from a test that, say, 1/30 sec is slow on my particular 30 year old camera body, then I use another speed or make an allowance for that.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
I think Encyclopedia Alan has said before that films can have slight reciprocal failure at very fast shutter speeds. Like 2000th made need to be shot at 1500th. But all depending on the film.
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Steve Fels |
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:6W1tAautibYJ:www.bw-photography.net/pdfs/Reciprocity%2520Failure.pdf+reciprocal+failure&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=au&client=firefox-a Geez just when I thought I knew everything there was to possibly know and was about to pronounce myself an "expert" someone throws in something new...lol... Thanks Doug I will do some playing to compare the sharpness at different apertures, something I had never considered, and thanks Gregory I did some research and now understand a little about reciprocal failure at very fast and very slow shutter speeds.....NOW do I know it all ??? Am I an expert yet ? Thanks guys Steve
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