Film scanning work flow: How to incorporate PKS2 & Topaz tools

[saiguy]

My experience is scanning 35mm mounted slides. Nikon LS9000, SF8 8.8 Archive Suite, LR on a robust MBP El Capitan. Thanks to Mark Seagal & Taz Tally, and many others, I am confident that my scanning & color magnet is being employed properly, and that I know LR Develop well. I'm just now 1 year into a PS study.

My late father left behind 4500 Ektachrome mounted 35mm slides of National Park photos. Late 60's to mid 80's using a Nikon RetnaReflix 2 camera, a few lenses, and used a light meter. He did shoot some pics in poor lighting given a hectic 2 week vacation schedule. Gotta keep on moving!

My out put target is SlideShows on DVD for TV viewing. And by the way, I have NEVER seen this addressed anywhere.  SF8 scaling factor 485 @ 300 ppi, Adobe RGB, using 48 bit. A TV salesman told me a TV is 2.5 MP??? Thats is how I arrived at that size: right or wrong. Please correct me.

In my dad's project I often used NIK Define 2 to mostly use on the sky's. I did not see noise or grain as a particular problem thou, and using those control point all over the sky was a lot of work. It definitely gave a noise free sky. The poor lighting shots were for sure a different matter. But that was a savage attempt.

I've just completed a family friends 1200 Mounted 35mm Kodachrome project. WOW. My guess is poor camera & lens, no clue of photo technique, 50% out of focus & shake, under exposure, etc. Photo 1200 is as bad as shot 0001.

This is where I'm looking to Topaz or similar plugins for help in these scenarios. PKS2 has templates for film scans, which may be super in future work.
But how to mitigate these problems in crappy family photos.

Hoping to avoid months of confusing testing, can anyone tell a WF where you employ these kind of plugins. I am most keen to know what to do where.

I am presuming you do NOT fully optimize an image in LR, and then tweak it with plugins. Like do clarity in LR and do more of it elsewhere. But, do you do it like that?

I use external HD's for working files and am not concerned with multiple files. In the end I flatten or use a file as a LR master after many gyrations. I will import that as a master tiff. into a LR.cat for the project. And I always leave head room for final toning in LR.

Looking forward to your input.

[Mark D Segal]

Those sharpening tools will not make blurry photos sharp. For that you may need a deconvolution application if you can control it to work effectively. For photos that just need conventional accutance sharpening, after you scan the photos you can bring them into Lightroom and use Lightroom sharpening, which is very good, or edit them in Photoshop and use PKS2. If you get to Photoshop via "Edit In" from Lightroom, a flattened version of the file will re-appear in Lightroom for any further work you need to do on it. Finally, within SilverFast 8 there is a sharpening tool designed for film scans which can do a good job. You can use that too, but if you do, don't pile Lightroom or Photoshop sharpening on top of SilverFast sharpening. The one downside of prescan sharpening in SilverFast is that it is then baked-in to the scan, whereas post scan sharpening can be undone or amended as necessary if performed in Lightroom or with preserved sharpening layers in Photoshop (such as PKS2 provides).

[saiguy]

Thank you Mark.

I am not looking to "fix" the blurry shots. Seems that slides from the 70's shot with a consumer level camera could benefit from Topaz Detail & Clarity or similar tools. Was wanting to know how someone might be using them.

[Mark D Segal]

Understood. The workflow suggestions I made in my reply would apply whether you use PKS2 or Topaz.