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Author Topic: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives  (Read 11583 times)

redeyereeves

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scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« on: March 06, 2012, 03:05:30 am »

Hi, I have a Minolta Dimage Scanner and would like to scan my past 26 years of infrared black and white negatives so as to make the best possible reference scans. I began with using the scanner software that came with the scanner, but have recently been told that I should use Silverfast scanning software, as it would really make a visible difference. I wonder if anyone could advise me?
Attached are some examples of the photos I would like to scan.
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2012, 04:07:05 am »

Silverfast offers some good postprocessing capabilities and some interesting stuff for the scanning itself:

1. iSRD - their proprietary infrared dust and scratch removal (if the scanner hardware supports it) - will not work with Silverhalide images, because silver is scattering the IR rays. For color negatives its great.

2. Multi Exposure. Basically an HDR technology for scanners to enhance latitude and to better remove noise from the shadows (=lights in negatives).

So - if you have Silver halide based negatives you will most likely profit from the MultiExposure feature, Infrared won't help you much here. IT8 calibration for B/W won't help much either.

The biggest advantage is the workflow you can achieve. IQ-wise multiexposure is great.

There is quite a bunch of on the fly postprocessing possible.
You can download a trial version and find out how it works for yourself.
Thats what I'd do in your situation.

For the Minolta DImage I'd also check out Scanhancer - a sophisticated diffusor to enhance the grain aliasing problem - it works well with b/w silver halide negatives:
http://www.scanhancer.com/
« Last Edit: March 06, 2012, 04:10:04 am by Christoph C. Feldhaim »
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2012, 04:14:13 am »

Hi, I have a Minolta Dimage Scanner and would like to scan my past 26 years of infrared black and white negatives so as to make the best possible reference scans. I began with using the scanner software that came with the scanner, but have recently been told that I should use Silverfast scanning software, as it would really make a visible difference. I wonder if anyone could advise me?
Attached are some examples of the photos I would like to scan.

Hi,

I've allways found Silverfast to be a capable scanning software, but too expensive for what it has to offer (also having to purchase a different licence for all of my scanners). As an altenative, I got the VueScan Pro software and frankly never looked back.

VueScan works with all my scanners, even the ones for which the manufacturer has stopped producing updated drivers for newer operating systems. It's a fraction of the cost of Silverfast, and in practice equally capable of getting the best out of your base material, film or paper. It even includes basic OCR functionality, which I could recently use for recovering some deleted documents for a friend of mine. VueScan unleashes the functionality of your specific scanner hardware, and adds control over the different parameters. It can be calibrated with an IT-8 target for a color managed workflow if you scan color material, but that's less of a concern with B/W infrared.

Give it a try, you may like what it can do.

Cheers,
Bart
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Mark D Segal

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2012, 07:15:06 am »

SilverFast 8 is not available for Minolta scanners yet, but 6.6 is still available and will work with those Minolta scanners. Those scanners do not have infrared channel capability, therefore cannot make use of infrared dirt and scratch detection even for colour images. Also check on the SilverFast website whether the version of SilverFast Ai 6 for your particular scanner model will also work with your version of operating system, as you did not mention those details.

I'd personally be a bit cautious about using grain diffusers at the scan stage, but no harm testing what Chris recommends and seeing for yourself what it does.

I recommend you download trial versions of both SilverFast Ai Studio 6 and Vuescan Pro and try both of them to decide which works better for you in terms of both results and usability before buying either.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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redeyereeves

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2012, 08:45:51 pm »

Thanks Chris, Bart and Mark, I will download the trial versions of Silverfast and VueScan and check out the results. I am not too bothered about dirt and scratch detection... I am prepared to manually retouch the negs in Photoshop, even if it takes a while! I will also test the Scanhancer.
Very much appreciated, all your recommendations and advice.
Regards,
Martin.

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johnchoy

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2012, 02:41:12 am »

My workflow for IR film is:
1)scanning raw with silverfast
2)extract the raw to 3 images of +2,0 and -2 exposure using silverfast HDR.
3) feed the images to ptgui
4) using either the tonemapping or enfuse HDR tools in Ptgui.

I think HDR approach is good to IR film scanning since IR film photography means high contrast photography too and this can extract the very details of the highlights and shadows. I use ptgui instead of photomatix because ptgui support very large files. Mine are 4x5 IR film and the resulting scan are more than 2 Gb.

you can view my works here

john

Mark D Segal

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2012, 03:19:14 am »

John, your vision and execution are excellent in these images. Really good work. I'd also be interested to know what camera lens and scanner you are using to make these images.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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johnchoy

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2012, 03:33:10 am »

Hi Mark,

THanks for the praise.

The cameras used were Shenhao 4×5 and Crown graflex. Lenses were Schneider 90/f 8, 180/f5.6 and 240/f5.6, Caltar 65/f5.6 and 135/f5.6 and a Wollensak 380/f5.6. IR filter used were Tiffen IR87 and Cokin IR 89B

Wet Scanning using a Epson V700 with betterscanning film holder and Lumina scanning fluid

john

Mark D Segal

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2012, 03:48:30 am »

Thanks John, most interesting - especially the reference to those variable height film holders which can clearly make a big difference in terms of getting the scan to reproduce all the sharpness you built into the original captures.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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redeyereeves

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2012, 03:43:18 am »

Thanks for the info John, blimey, 2GB files... what size do you print out? With infrared 35mm negs I have been getting nice results up to 2 x 1 metres.
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redeyereeves

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2012, 04:10:48 am »

Thanks Chris, Bart, Mark and John,

I tried the demos of Silverfast and Vuescan. I think Vuescan is fine for my negs... although it will take me a while to work out how to get the best results.

Some of my early negs (developed at a lab) are very different from the ones I develop myself now — so I think a lot of experimenting will be in order.

Here are a few more examples...

Martin.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2012, 04:55:27 am »

Thanks Chris, Bart, Mark and John,

I tried the demos of Silverfast and Vuescan. I think Vuescan is fine for my negs... although it will take me a while to work out how to get the best results.

Hi Martin,

Feel free to ask for pointers if you want. One thing I try to do is maximize the exposure time, and thus reduce the relative noise level of the scanner electronics and photon shot noise. It helps to use the histogram set to Raw data, so you can see what happens at the Raw data level when you increase the exposure just short of clipping the most transparent film areas. I also change the histogram to show the data counts in each histogram bin to logarithmic, it makes it much easier to see where the low bin counts start to tough maximum exposure level.

Another thing you may want to try is to scan Black and White negatives as Color negatives. This will allow you to use the "Advanced Workflow" suggestions to maximize the signal level of all three color channels. Also, since the three channels have uncorrelated noise, the three layers act as an average of three shots, which reduces the total noise. Also having the scanner average multiple exposures (up to 16) as well, will help to improve the output quality, provided the film stays flat during that prolonged scantime.

Scanning at the scanner's native resolution will reduce grain-aliasing, and you can always down-sample afterwards when required.

Cheers,
Bart
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Mark D Segal

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2012, 07:30:34 am »

Thanks Chris, Bart, Mark and John,.................

Here are a few more examples...

Martin.

Very fine photographs Martin.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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redeyereeves

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2012, 10:24:51 am »

Much appreciated Bart... I'll be in touch over the coming weeks if I may, when I come across stumbling blocks. At 49, all this technology is a bit daunting... but if I manage to get some nice scans, my next venture will be to try and print these digital negs onto platinum prints. As much as I like the ease of printing with inkjet, I miss the look feel of real fibre prints.
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redeyereeves

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2012, 10:32:41 am »

Thanks for your kind comment Mark. I'll hopefully give them all a makeover during the next few months. I've been putting off delving into serious scanning for a few years now — relying on scans I did straight from the Minolta's software and adjusting them in Photoshop, quite badly in some cases. As mentioned to Bart, my aim is to become competent at scanning so that I can eventually print platinum prints from digital files.
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johnchoy

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2012, 11:49:56 am »

Quote
Thanks for the info John, blimey, 2GB files... what size do you print out? With infrared 35mm negs I have been getting nice results up to 2 x 1 metres.

I scanned the 4 x 5 negative at 4800dpi and downsize the final image to 3200 dpi. The edited final image are capable to print at 40 x 50 inch.

Mark D Segal

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #16 on: March 13, 2012, 12:13:28 pm »

Thanks for your kind comment Mark. I'll hopefully give them all a makeover during the next few months. I've been putting off delving into serious scanning for a few years now — relying on scans I did straight from the Minolta's software and adjusting them in Photoshop, quite badly in some cases. As mentioned to Bart, my aim is to become competent at scanning so that I can eventually print platinum prints from digital files.

I would really encourage you in this endeavour, because I think the photographic qualities of your images really deserve best practices in scanning to maximize their potential, especially when it comes to large format prints. Today's software is a considerable improvement on what was provided by Minolta - it gives you far more control over the kind of variables Bart mentioned. Yet these high-end Minolta scanners from a hardware perspective remain very good instruments, so you should be well-served.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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dmerger

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #17 on: March 13, 2012, 07:52:24 pm »

In my tests with my Minolta 5400, the Minolta software produced better results than VueScan or Silverfast.  I'm referring to basic scans, not image editing, which I do with ACR/PS. For image editing, I much prefer ACR/PS to scanning software.
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Dean Erger

redeyereeves

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #18 on: April 09, 2012, 03:24:03 am »

Hi Bart,

I have just started scanning with Vuescan, however I am getting a strange grain when viewed at 100%... lines actually. Attached are three examples... the first is when I scanned in greyscale, the second in colour 48BIT and the third is the old scan I did (albeit 8BIT) a few years ago where the grain is nice. Would you know what I am doing wrong and how I can get grain like the old scan?
Any pointers would be much appreciated...
Thanks,
Martin.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: scanning infrared black-and-white negatives
« Reply #19 on: April 09, 2012, 05:54:33 am »

Hi Bart,

I have just started scanning with Vuescan, however I am getting a strange grain when viewed at 100%... lines actually. Attached are three examples... the first is when I scanned in greyscale, the second in colour 48BIT and the third is the old scan I did (albeit 8BIT) a few years ago where the grain is nice. Would you know what I am doing wrong and how I can get grain like the old scan?
Any pointers would be much appreciated...

Hi Martin,

It's hard to say what is causing it without some more info, amongst others scanner make and model (is it the Minolta dImage?). In general, three possible causes are sensor calibration, electronic interference, or a mechanical scan head issue (e.g. vibration, damaged gear/sprocket, or lubrication issue). The pattern is very regular, so I suspect either electronic interference or a drive train issue.

Move the scanner away from computer housing, display, or speakers, or switch the latter two off temporarily to see if it makes a difference. Make sure you use a good quality shielded cable for the data connection, with added ferrite core(s), and try to eliminate vibrations (think of things like fans) of the surface that the scanner is placed on.

I don't know what the slow scan (mechanical) direction is for the crops. When it is vertical then time plays a role and would support my suspicions. When the scan direction is horizontal, then it is a calibration issue, but the regularity of the period (3.35 and 6.65 p/c) of the artifact makes this less likely (unless the sensor readout is disturbed by interference). I assume, since you are scanning silver based B/W film, that you don't use IR for dust removal.

Cheers,
Bart  
« Last Edit: April 09, 2012, 06:11:14 am by BartvanderWolf »
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