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Author Topic: Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans  (Read 3935 times)

TimG

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« on: August 18, 2009, 11:21:55 am »

Anybody using Lightroom 2 to catalog, process, or otherwise manage their scans from film?  I'd be interested in hearing your experience with this combination.

I'm finding it works pretty well with scanned 35mm, but chokes when importing large collections of hi-res scans from 120 (6x7) and 4x5.  I'm on a PowerMac G5 dual 2.3 with 16GB RAM, dual 7200 rpm 500GB drives (one as dedicated scratch).  I'm seeing performance issues primarily with 4800ppi scans from 6x7; 3200ppi scans import much faster.  All scans are 16-bit tagged with Chrome Space 100, J. Holmes.

The Recovery slider in the Develop module seems to be especially useful with slides where the highlights are nearly clipped.

What's your experience with LR2 and film scans?

Thanks!
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mikeseb

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2009, 05:10:37 pm »

I use Lightroom as my primary editing software for all film scans (TIFF) as well as the few digital images I've shot of late. I find it far easier to do basic adjustments in LR, and need to resort to PS only for extensive or complicated dust removal, which the Spot Healing brush in PS does much, much better than the analogous tool in LR.

Most of my film images are 6x7cm scanned at 1800-2400ppi in a Nikon 9000 or at 3200 with an Imacon 646; or 4x5 scanned at about 2000ppi in the Imacon. This makes for some rather large files, though not as large as yours. Performance is decent on my MacPro 2.7GHz with 14 GB RAM. Generating previews especially at 1:1 takes some time, and occasionally (if the computer is doing other stuff too) I get some lag moving the sliders.

Cataloging duties are shared between LR and Expression Media 2, though I'm gradually shifting more towards LR, given the lack of clarity about MS's intentions for further EM development. I can only hope that future iterations of LR preserve what LR does well, and improves those DAM things that EM does far better.

Just curious: why do you need such high resolution scans? are you making enormous enlargements? There is a considerable school of thought that scanning at those resolutions---depending of course upon the scanner---serves mainly to accentuate grain and imperfection, without adding appreciably to final image quality.
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michael sebast

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2009, 07:29:33 pm »

[attachment=16099:019_Stai...Moor_acr.jpg]
Quote from: mikeseb
I use Lightroom as my primary editing software for all film scans (TIFF) as well as the few digital images I've shot of late. I find it far easier to do basic adjustments in LR, and need to resort to PS only for extensive or complicated dust removal, which the Spot Healing brush in PS does much, much better than the analogous tool in LR.

Most of my film images are 6x7cm scanned at 1800-2400ppi in a Nikon 9000 or at 3200 with an Imacon 646; or 4x5 scanned at about 2000ppi in the Imacon. This makes for some rather large files, though not as large as yours. Performance is decent on my MacPro 2.7GHz with 14 GB RAM. Generating previews especially at 1:1 takes some time, and occasionally (if the computer is doing other stuff too) I get some lag moving the sliders.

Cataloging duties are shared between LR and Expression Media 2, though I'm gradually shifting more towards LR, given the lack of clarity about MS's intentions for further EM development. I can only hope that future iterations of LR preserve what LR does well, and improves those DAM things that EM does far better.

Just curious: why do you need such high resolution scans? are you making enormous enlargements? There is a considerable school of thought that scanning at those resolutions---depending of course upon the scanner---serves mainly to accentuate grain and imperfection, without adding appreciably to final image quality.


I use LR or occasionally acr to manage my film scans. I find the masked sharpening can be useful as well as the develop module's tools. I only scan 35mm at present using a nikon 5000 and the files are similar size to a converted tiff from my 1Ds3. (Like you Mike, I've not shot much digital lately and have considered going to 6 by 7 for more static work)

I am interested in the scanning resolution questions, but my sense with the Nikon is that even scanning at lower than max resolution doesn't change the hardware high frequency response so any grain aliasing remains.

Attached scans are from a nostalgic roll of Kodachrome.

Mike

[attachment=16100:019_Stai...Moor_acr.jpg][attachment=16098:025_Sue_...Moor_acr.
jpg][attachment=16101:028_Stai...oor_acrs.jpg]
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TimG

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2009, 08:19:23 pm »

Quote from: mikeseb
Just curious: why do you need such high resolution scans? are you making enormous enlargements? There is a considerable school of thought that scanning at those resolutions---depending of course upon the scanner---serves mainly to accentuate grain and imperfection, without adding appreciably to final image quality.

Mike, thanks for the comments.  yes, I am making large prints and have found through testing my scanner performs best at 3200-4800.  I'm scanning once, so the higher resolution is also for archival purposes.

You don't have the name of that considerable school of thought do you?  I only ask because I have a B.S. in Lifelong Learning from the School of Hard Knocks!
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mikeseb

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2009, 08:24:45 pm »

Quote from: TimG
You don't have the name of that considerable school of thought do you?  I only ask because I have a B.S. in Lifelong Learning from the School of Hard Knocks!

In my case, B.S. is the, ah, area of expertise; Ph.D. is the degree!

What are you scanning on?
« Last Edit: August 18, 2009, 08:27:11 pm by mikeseb »
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michael sebast

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2009, 08:34:37 pm »

I've just started using LR for my film scans and so far it seems to be working pretty well. I'm using Vuescan for the scanning software and try to limit the adjustments I make there. My mindset is that I'm scanning at the higher bit  depth (12 or 14-bit, forget which my scanner does) and getting a 16-bit file from that, but that's the raw data before any adjustments are made, I'd rather limit the adjustments in Vuescan and do them in LR since then it's non-destructive and will (hopefully) make the best use of the high bit-depth file.

I've even tried an experiment where I saved the raw CCD data (Vuescan allows this as an option) for my slides so that all of the adjustments are done in LR. For negs I have to do some adjusting since there's no easy way to invert in LR (I've seen some tutorials using custom tone curves but then all your sliders work the opposite way so I decided not to go for that).

So far I'm liking the workflow and the fact that I can so easily carry settings over from one shot to the others from the same shoot to use as a starting point.
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TimG

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2009, 08:45:57 pm »

Quote from: mikeseb
In my case, B.S. is the, ah, area of expertise; Ph.D. is the degree!

What are you scanning on?

In that case, may I call you Dr. Mike?  

I'm using an Epson V750-M Pro which I've modified - replaced the scanner bed's glass with Denglas and modified the film holder to accept custom cut Denglas inserted where the holder lid normally sits.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2009, 08:49:48 pm by TimG »
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hassiman

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2009, 07:15:31 pm »

I am using LR 2.4 to edit all of my film scans made with Silverfasr AI and my Nikon Super coolscan 9000.  I scan once  48 bit color/16 bit gray at the maximum optical resolution of the 9000 (4000 dpi) to avoid interpolation and re-size down as needed.

I am running on a MacPro with 6GB RAM and it works just fine even with files 500-600 MB in size.  Like it way more that PS CS4.  Will be moving to Snow Leopard and I have heard it will be even faster.  Kind of sweating the Epson 3800's driver though.

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marcsitkin

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Using Lightroom 2 with Film Scans
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2009, 10:17:15 am »

Quote from: TimG
In that case, may I call you Dr. Mike?  

I'm using an Epson V750-M Pro which I've modified - replaced the scanner bed's glass with Denglas and modified the film holder to accept custom cut Denglas inserted where the holder lid normally sits.


This is a bit off topic, and we can take it to PM, but I'm wondering if anyone can give me some idea of the performance of the Epson 750 compared to an Imacon (Flextite One)? I'm nursing this scanner into it's old age, but need to think of a replacement. I'd like to be able to save files in RAW, and can't do that with the Imacon software. I also have occasional need to scan 8x10 chrome, which is out of the question on the Imacon.
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Regards,
 Marc Sitkin www.digitalmomentum
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