B&W processing, scanning & printing

[rougewave]

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I'm getting ready to start shooting with fim again. It has been a while. I can't get involved with any wet work for a variety of reasons. I'd need to send out the film to be developed. I'd like some info about best practices, materials, scanning & printing. Can anyone throw me a lifeline? Thanks in advance.

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[Mark Antony]

Hi Ben

If you can't process the film yourself then consider a C41 B&W film like Ilford XP2.

These can be developed in your local 1Hr minilab and have a smooth almost grainless look even at 400 ISO.

You don't say if you have a scanner or what size print, or if it's just web sized jpgs you'll need.

Low end flatbeds are OK for web work and the odd 5x7" but you'll see a difference with a better scanner especially when printing to 8x12" or larger.

If you are having a lab do prints, they'll probably be scanned, this is OK as they can give you a CD of web sized images, quality varies, but I've seen some good XP2 to fuji paper on a frontier.

 

If you want that grainy look, then try an Ilford mailer with HP5 they do 4x6" and 5x7" I've tried them out and the results I got back were pretty good in a nice little archive box too!

Have Fun

Mark

Photo Utopia

[rougewave]

Mark, sorry for the dearth of details. I'll be shooting with my R8 and probably a MP. Would like 12" x 9" fine prints. I also would like to use my Ikoflex, so the scanner would need to accomodate 120 film size. Thanks for the help.

[StS]

I went through the same process when trying to combine film and digital. The options I found were:

 

• To find a lab which offers a high quality scan of the negative (at least Base16)
  
• To buy a film scanner and to learn the art of handling densities and colour control.
  
• To buy a flat bed scanner, to have the same learning curve of a film scanner and to carry out meticulous dust control (some of the flatbeds have dust control now).
  

 

In the end I bought a M8 (learning now colour and density control with capture one) and still give my films to a lab for scanning although sometimes I don't like the results.

 

There seems to be no fast and easy way to go digital if you like to have some control over the results.

[richam]

Before you invest in a flatbed scanner, I recommend you consider the following 100% comparison I did with an Epson 4490 flatbed and Nikon 9000 film scanner:

 

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[rougewave]

Stefan & Michael, thanks. No easy solution where have I heard that before. I like the idea of finding a lab close to me in the Village tat I can work with before experimenting on my own with a dedicated solution. What do you use for printing in B&W and do you use Tiffs or native Photoshop files? Thanks again for the help.

[richam]

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Stefan & Michael, thanks. No easy solution where have I heard that before. I like the idea of finding a lab close to me in the Village tat I can work with before experimenting on my own with a dedicated solution. What do you use for printing in B&W and do you use Tiffs or native Photoshop files? Thanks again for the help.

 

I have the Epson 2200 inkjet printer, which is about 4-5 years old. It doesn't do B&W very well with the native drivers, so I got Quadtone RIP software for it, which is much better. I rather suspect that there are now better printers and software on the market, especially for B&W work. The 2200 has two black/gray cartridges (light and dark). Theoretically, the more dedicated shades of black/gray cartridges a printer has, the better the B&W prints you get. I can't attest how this works out in practice, but you should be able to research it on the internet and discuss it with dealers. (I also have a Kodak 8500 dye sub printer, which makes rather nice color prints, but does not do well with B&W)

 

As far as format, I use jpeg for most of my smaller "snapshot" prints, but 16 bit and tiff for the "wall hangers." My B&W workflow usually is to scan negatives at 8 bits, 600 dpi, jpeg to produce "proof" sets. I have the Nikon 9000 scanner, and this takes about 7 - 10 minutes per 12 frames, or less than a half hour for a 36 roll. Then I build a contact sheet of the images in Photoshop (an easy auto action) and print it on my laser printer on plain paper. This gives me a reference sheet which I file with the negatives. Using the reference sheet and looking at the images on the computer screen, I pick the ones I want for further processing, and re-scan those frames at 4000 dpi and tiff. Quality re-scans can run 5 minutes or so per frame!

 

I've also tried mpix.com. They do excellent color and B&W prints by mail. I had a Turkey Expo a few years ago using some of my old images. I spent a lot of time trying to get the mix of color and B&W images just right. I ended up using the Kodak 8500 for everything, just for consistency of tonality and format. But the B&W images all had some type of color cast. If I had it to do over again, I'd use mpix.

 

If you spend some time on research and just thinking it through, I'm sure you will come up with the optimal solution for yourself. Good luck.

[valtof]

Mark, sorry for the dearth of details. I'll be shooting with my R8 and probably a MP. Would like 12" x 9" fine prints. I also would like to use my Ikoflex, so the scanner would need to accomodate 120 film size. Thanks for the help.

 

Hi Ben,

 

I do recommend the flatbed Epson V700 or the newest V750 (a bit more expensive but no better, it appears). It's a very good and fast dedicated film scanner with which I obtained even better results than what my pro lab did with their Imacon. With it you'll get all the necessary handlers for all ind of films (135, 6x6, etc...) all this for about 500$.

I also recommend to prefer Vuescan to any of its competitors also because you can get raw files even in DNG format.

 

All the pictures here were scanned at 4800 dpi which gives you about a 7000x5000 pix file, that is far enough to print even a 24"x18" and the V700 can go up to 9600 dpi...

Photos d'ici et de là...

 

Below an example with a 4800 dpi 100% crop (M6 with lux50, Ilford Delta 100) :

 

Cheers

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[rafael_macia]

Stefan & Michael, thanks. No easy solution where have I heard that before. I like the idea of finding a lab close to me in the Village tat I can work with before experimenting on my own with a dedicated solution. What do you use for printing in B&W and do you use Tiffs or native Photoshop files? Thanks again for the help.

Ben,

 

I use a good lab, which is not too far from the Village in Manhattan. Sunshine Color, 138 W 31 St.

 

They are fair priced, and do fine B&W, C41, and E6 processing.

 

Rafael

[rougewave]

Christophe, I have read inseveral places that the Epson doesn't produce sharp scans. Have you had any problems? If so, how did you compensate. Also, my wife wants to scan & preserve old snaps that are beginning to fade. Kodak sure did a great job marketing, but a poor job of quality control in processing. Will this Epson due color photo scans in a resonable manner? Thanks again. Ben

[paralx]

Hey Ben-

I live SOHO/Chinatown area and use US COLOR (Mercer near Canal). Not too far from the Village. Typically, I'll get them to process and burn to cd. What I get back are pretty solid negatives and a cd containing jpg preview files and 5mb tiff files along with handy little disk content images. Its enough to get a good look at things in order to decide whether or not to invest the time in scanning. I too have the Nikon 9000 scanner and although a bit pokey in the speed department, the quality is outstanding.

[rougewave]

Chris, thanks for the lead. Your site is stuffed with intriguing imagery.

[thomasw_]

I have the V700 and have been very pleased with it. I use the 35mm trays provided by EPSON. For MF film, the supplied trays suck. Accordingly the glass inserts made by Betterscanning are a must.

[budrichard]

Dwyane's Photo A trusted name in photo processing for over 50 years - Dwayne's Photo in Kansas. Last surviving lab doing Kodachrome, even Kodak sends thier Kodachrome there. They will develop, scan to Photo CD and deliver to your door with 100% reliability for any B&W, Color positive or negative. Price for B&W includes prints but I just get the CD and tell them to skip prints.-Dick

[valtof]

Christophe, I have read inseveral places that the Epson doesn't produce sharp scans. Have you had any problems? If so, how did you compensate. Also, my wife wants to scan & preserve old snaps that are beginning to fade. Kodak sure did a great job marketing, but a poor job of quality control in processing. Will this Epson due color photo scans in a resonable manner? Thanks again. Ben

 

Ben,

I don't agree the V700 wouldn't deliver sharp enough scans. Look at the 100% crop I posted, especially in the details of the sailboat on the left, everything seems to be here from the film and the file is not sharpened in any manner nor at the scanning stage neither in post processing.

 

Anyway, this an important question and here is my point of view :

- When you print in the darkroom, the grain of the film is quite a lot softened by the process of chemicals and paper ;

- When you scan a film at the extent of sharpness a very good scanner can provide, you catch the grain and get "nearly" all what's on the film. But then, if you print the resulting file, especially with inkjet, the picture will look grainier than the one obtained in the darkroom, because it lacks this softening effect of the chemical process ;

 

I made a lot of prints from the kind of files you seen on my link including the one posted here with this kind of sharpness the V700 provides and so far the results are very very similar to darkroom prints, that is excellent even up to large format like 60x80cm.

 

Chris, thanks for the lead. Your site is stuffed with intriguing imagery.

What do you mean by "intriguing" ?

 

Cheers

Christophe

[rougewave]

Christophe, thanks for the detailed information. I will take it both on faith and by your images that the 35mm B&W film scans work well with the 700. Can you also get good color scans from color photos, mostly 5x7 Kodak prints? This is my wife's question as she wants to digitize her collection of color photos which are beginning to fade. Christophe, my comment is for Chris Bradley in Soho, NY. Check out his site. His work is very good & reflective of the urban mood in the east village and points a little further south, north & east in NYC.

 

Thomas, thanks for the seconding of the recommendation for the 700. I'll try & pick one up this week with the recommended Betterscanning glass inserts for the 120 film. Happy holidays and good shooting to all.

[rougewave]

Christophe, I purchased the Epson 700 & started to scan some 30 year old negatives. I'll shot some film this weekend if the weather permits. I like the scans & took your advice regarding the settings. I also bought the Vuescan & Silverfast came with the scanner. Each software has a different strength & application. I like the Silverfast for photo scans. Any hints on how one can get the scanner to extract more density from old negatives. I read the pdf/online manual, not not much there. Thanks so much for all the help.