Not the results I was planning but interesting to me

[Battou]

Some of you may know alredy I am having issues with the lab that processes my film. What started out as gathering up what I needed to ask a few questions I stumbled across this. With a little refining I might use this tactic again in the near future.

I have not yet recieved my film scanner so I put a set of frames that the lab did not print into my flatbed. After drounding out the magenta of the film I inverted sharpened and saturated as normal, resulting in a very grainy and decrepid image. I actually like the outcome and find it fitting to the subject.

Canon FD 50mm f/1.4, 1/1000 at f/5.6, ISO 400, unlit flatbed scanned negitive at 600 ppi.


I was thinking about putting this in Alternative Techniques & Photo Gallery but I am not sure if using an unlit flatbed scanner on negitives for an effect can be considered an alternative technique as of yet and like I said, it needs a little refining but not sure where.

 

[YoungRebel]

I think you just did everything right!

I love the old-look...could be from one of the b&w movies or even KillBill

nice one...

 

[LaFoto]

Well, maybe you are just now creating a new alternative technique ... I personally don't know how the negative could show at all??? When I put slides or negatives on my flatbed scanner and scan (against the shut lid), I get NOTHING. Not. A. Thing. So I go all :scratch: about how you did it?

And it seems like your scanner, too, scans black&white into a colour code? So does mine and I have to revert originally b&w prints BACK into b&w (now digitalised) ... all in all I am thoroughly unhappy with my own scanner's performance (a lament on it was posted many, many months ago ... here --- it might be an interesting read for you.

Back to YOUR photo here ... I wonder why the lab did not print this out for you? Do they consider it too flawed to merit a print on photo paper? It isn't, not from what I can see.

And the magnified dust is adding to the whole, as is the magnified make of the negative - all very interesting, and I would really like to know how you told the scanner that it is a SEE-THROUGH thing he is meant to scan ... with the lid OPEN maybe????

 

[Battou]

Well, maybe you are just now creating a new alternative technique ... I personally don't know how the negative could show at all??? When I put slides or negatives on my flatbed scanner and scan (against the shut lid), I get NOTHING. Not. A. Thing. So I go all :scratch: about how you did it?

And it seems like your scanner, too, scans black&white into a colour code? So does mine and I have to revert originally b&w prints BACK into b&w (now digitalised) ... all in all I am thoroughly unhappy with my own scanner's performance (a lament on it was posted many, many months ago ... here --- it might be an interesting read for you.

Back to YOUR photo here ... I wonder why the lab did not print this out for you? Do they consider it too flawed to merit a print on photo paper? It isn't, not from what I can see.

And the magnified dust is adding to the whole, as is the magnified make of the negative - all very interesting, and I would really like to know how you told the scanner that it is a SEE-THROUGH thing he is meant to scan ... with the lid OPEN maybe????

As you saw in this thread when I scan I get the red coloration of the film. I believe my scanner is able to get this due to having a white panel inside the door that holds the object flat to the glass, witch leads me to the question, what does the inside of your scanner door look like. If it's dark there is no hope of the scanner being able to discern the lighter arias from the dark.

I had been tinkering with scanning negatives on a standard issue flatbed scanner since this thread was posted. I gave up on trying to emulate a back light but continued to look at other options with the method. The way I did it here is vastly in contrast to the solution doobs reached.I should note this is not a standard color film, it's a C41 process black and white but the results are the same for standard color negs, that is an the grainy, bleached, damaged and decrepit look this image has. It's exactly as MaxBloom said, significantly reduced quality compared to a proper neg scanner, but this reduced quality seems to work with this one.

What I did was, I scanned the negative at it's highest color settings at 600ppi, this provided me with the image of the negative posted in the other thread at just short of 5000px wide. I then opened it up in Adobe illustrator, The Default color format is RBG, but I found the best format to use to eliminate the natural color of the film was to convert the image to CYMK. This allowed me to remove the magenta from the image, I had to then play with the yellow, cyan and black to make the negative white. I Used the unexposed portion of the edge of the film to judge this. Once it was white I converted it back to RGB and inverted (inverting in CYMK resulted in a big black rectangle.) Converted back to CYMK and saturated about 30% and sharpened 50% with a radius of 1 and 0 threshold, I think(It's the default unsharp mask, I just click "OK" because I was satisfied with it dozens of times before). I originally exported it in CYMK but that had severe issues with Photobuket so I had to reconvert to RGB yet again (and it still is RGB).

When I get to work tonight 11PM (EST) I'll bring with me an example of a regular color negative and a picture of the inside of my scanner door as I am curious as to why your scanner can't see a negative in it's color as the actual process of scanning was just basic operation in my application. As far as scanning the print goes I too have that problem you described here, My current course of action has been 30% saturation and sharpened 50% with a radius of 1 and threshold of 0 but I can't guarantee accuracy as scanner differences will effect that.

 

[Battou]

When I get to work tonight 11PM (EST) I'll bring with me an example of a regular color negative and a picture of the inside of my scanner door as I am curious as to why your scanner can't see a negative in it's color as the actual process of scanning was just basic operation in my application. As far as scanning the print goes I too have that problem you described here, My current course of action has been 30% saturation and sharpened 50% with a radius of 1 and threshold of 0 but I can't guarantee accuracy as scanner differences will effect that.

It's exactly as MaxBloom sais, significantly reduced quality compared to a proper neg scanner, but this reduced quality seems to work with this one.

As I stated before I would bring in an exsample of regular color negs, These where done prior to the one above and are the original expariment. They where scanned at half the resolution but I arrived at the same process I used above with these. Personally I don't see much use for this tactic with color but I have ideas for further BW's...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/battousaiofnphiles/Photos/scan0023_full-1.jpg

And here is the scanner door, the door has the somewhat glossy plate seen there that sets down into the recess, If I scan the entire glass with nothing in the scanner bed I get a nice white page from it. This scanner is really nothing special I simply don't understand why it would have capibilities that a more expencive peice of equipment would not have.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/battousaiofnphiles/Photos/100_2568.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/battousaiofnphiles/Photos/100_2560.jpg