Film Scan / Digital Print Hybrid Workflow

[caloosajo]

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Hi all,

So with ze great pandemic having shuttered my nearby community darkrooms, and admittedly being quite a novice in darkroom printing without space to build one in my home, I’m exploring a workflow wherein I print my B&W negative scans via home inkjet printer (likely Canon Pro 600).

I’m generally pleased with the scans from my lab, which are JPEGs (2048×3072 pixel scans per the lab), so I only make minor tweaks for the keepers in Lightroom (which I know is a topic on its own). 

Anyone with experience using a similar workflow? I’m particularly interested in the following:

1. Do you still run the JPEG (or TIFF) through Silver Efex Pro? I’ve not used SEP yet even for my digital workflow, but wonder if the zone system info is at all helpful/effective in translating to print.

2. From what software do you end up printing (LR, PS, ???)?

I don’t have the bandwidth to scan my own 35mm negs, so not looking for input in that part of the workflow. And I’m waiting on my MacBook Pro to start experimenting with this, so I appreciate anyone who can indulge my curiosity. Thanks in advance, particularly to regulars like Jeff S and jaapv in the event they point me to already existing posts!

-j

 

 

[250swb]

The 'Zone' part of Silver Efex is only a tiny, tiny part of it, and while you can get shadow and highlight information from a histogram the 'Zone' display shows how much of each tone there is in your photograph and where it is. So while a bit of pure black never did any harm a lot of it may make you want to do some local adjustments. With all the other many functions in Silver Efex it makes it a very useful tool for a B&W photographer especially used as a plugin with Lightroom.

I use the printer software with an appropriate paper profile.

[jaapv]

There is a vast difference between JPG and TIFF files - JPGs are lossy compressions that eliminate part of the data, TIFF uses the full data set (if not compressed), but can be huge if used for film scans.

[J.Nordvik]

What is a Canon Pro 600? A cheap A4 printer or something more "Pro"?

1. Use Silver Efex if that makes your pictures better.

2. Lightroom. You have to pay a lot to find anything better.

I get the feeling that you have not done much printing. My advice is to do a lot of test prints on the same paper as your final print, but smaller. 4x6 og 5x7. Get to know that paper.

There is a lot more to printing (and scanning), but I need to know what kind of printer you use.

[250swb]

1 hour ago, J.Nordvik said:

What is a Canon Pro 600? A cheap A4 printer or something more "Pro"?

 

This is the question. A Canon Pro '6000' is not a home printer, anything else with '600' in the title from either Canon or Epson is a cheap 'do-it-all' type of printer. I think the OP will need something a bit better with one or more grey inks for doing B&W prints.