Just wondering how film photographers feel about editing their film photographs on the computer after scanning them (which is a digital process....) I read about a professional landscape photographer who shoots film and edits in Photoshop. I once knew a wedding photographer who did the same.
good question, right now I am going through two rolls of scanned film. I pretty much do the same things digitally that I would do in the darkroom. I straighten, crop, adjust contrast, and possibly dodge and burn. I cannot think of a single film photographer that would not think to do those things in the darkroom so why should they be limited with scanning their photos.
I posted an OLD film shot that I didn't touch up at all, and you can see all the shortcomings of my scanner as a result. I didn't realize how much the scanner part of my "all in one" sucked until I scanned a photograph.
Yeah I do the same as what you say, get my color developed to disc, I develop my black and white in the dark room, then scan them, no prints in either case, then I straighten them and the necessary stuff, sometimes lighten or affect contrasts, then infrequently I'll do more but only what I think is necessary to catch the original idea.
Always do some editing after scanning. Main issue are dust specks regardless of how clean I get the glass. I try not to use the built in dust remover shortcuts since they can alter more than just dust. Also blacks can get washed out. If I'm restoring an old 1918 photo this will involve a considerable amount of editing time depending on how bad it is. I would think a higher quality scanner would make a difference too.
Hope I contributed. :). I think editing is fine to a certain extent.
I shoot raw, so every shot of mine must be edited outside the camera. Here's what I look for, especially for keeper-shots I want to show.
(1) Check the exposure and the dynamic range (basic tab) and in almost very case punch them up. Make whites white, not some dull off-white. Make blacks black, not some muddy dark grey.
(2) In high dynamic range shots, look to bring out shadow detail or cut back on highlights if the camera didn't or couldn't.. Remember, your eye has a wider range than any camera, so this is not at all "cheating" on what your "saw" but actually returning to "what you did see."
(3) Clarity and contrast especially. Pictures without adequate contrast and sharpness are just plain dreary. Again, you are returning the inadequate camera to "what you actually saw."
(4) Check and adjust the white balance. Many shots improve their colors with this. Again, your eye is better than the camera, adjusting minutely every moment you pan your eyes.
(5) Check and correct distortion. Unless you have professional grade lenses, every wide range shot and zoom shot will be bound to have some geometric distortion.
(6) In large shots, particularly shooting up and to the side, think to experiment with Vertical and Horizontal Perspective Correction. Your eye scans and corrects for these in millisecond real time, so for shots that cover more than the eye's angle of view, you are, in a very real sense, again returning the one shot to "what the eye saw" in multiple pans.
(7) Cropping. I know, your frame is perfect from the start. Believe me, mine aren't.
(8) Straightening. You never shoot off-line, or if you don't, then you have never been in situations where you want a different horizontal?
(9) Especially here at 365, scale down your pixel count (down-sample) to something less than 1500 on the long side, and take control of your own sharpening before uploading. Ross has instituted some changes recently but there is nothing that can beat the bicubic re-sampling of something like photoshop. Wouldn't you rather control your own sampling? If you don't then Ross will!
This is not an excuse for leaving everything to post-processing. There are critical things that an editor just can't "fix." Bad focus, unintentional camera shake, subject motion not stopped by a fast enough shutter, DOF too wide or too narrow from a bad aperture selection. none of these can really be "fixed" completely. And this is also not an excuse for ignoring all these things as you are shooting. By no means. Being aware of things that you might want to do post-shoot can often guide you to producing a better source frame from the beginnng.
@grizzlysghost@phillyphotos@jsw0109@chewyteeth@brianl@automaticslim@frankhymus@eudora
I scan at 1200 or 1600 dpi and enlarge to remove dust and/or scratches. I also sharpen my images a bit because scanning of its nature will mask the edges. I straighten and occasionally crop as required. I will tweak colour, brightness and contrast, but try to get this right at scanning stage. I usually constantly compare back to original image. I don't like editing much so tend to keep it to a minimum so am working more in camera. Editing can help you find detail in a photo that you may wish to highlight. The tools in editing such as dodge, burn, etc are named after darkroom techniques. A lot went on in the darkroom that now can be done on a screen.
I have been giving this topic a lot of thought the last few days. Back in the days when I had a darkroom, I did do a lot of dodging & burning, and used different papers & different chemicals to get different results. I would use different types of toners, I did love using this very rich copper toning. It really was no different than what I do now in Photoshop. And spotting dust is really easier in photoshop than doing it by hand. So I guess I am saying I am ok with tweaking in PS! :)
@frankhymus Well, for one thing colour film usually has a glorious tonal palette which is best left as it is, so it's usually just a matter of minor tweaks to levels or curves depending on what the lighting was like. For another, the dynamic range is wider and gives more latitude - quite often I just guess my settings. Mostly, though, I reckon @chewyteeth is spot on.
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Hope I contributed. :). I think editing is fine to a certain extent.
(1) Check the exposure and the dynamic range (basic tab) and in almost very case punch them up. Make whites white, not some dull off-white. Make blacks black, not some muddy dark grey.
(2) In high dynamic range shots, look to bring out shadow detail or cut back on highlights if the camera didn't or couldn't.. Remember, your eye has a wider range than any camera, so this is not at all "cheating" on what your "saw" but actually returning to "what you did see."
(3) Clarity and contrast especially. Pictures without adequate contrast and sharpness are just plain dreary. Again, you are returning the inadequate camera to "what you actually saw."
(4) Check and adjust the white balance. Many shots improve their colors with this. Again, your eye is better than the camera, adjusting minutely every moment you pan your eyes.
(5) Check and correct distortion. Unless you have professional grade lenses, every wide range shot and zoom shot will be bound to have some geometric distortion.
(6) In large shots, particularly shooting up and to the side, think to experiment with Vertical and Horizontal Perspective Correction. Your eye scans and corrects for these in millisecond real time, so for shots that cover more than the eye's angle of view, you are, in a very real sense, again returning the one shot to "what the eye saw" in multiple pans.
(7) Cropping. I know, your frame is perfect from the start. Believe me, mine aren't.
(8) Straightening. You never shoot off-line, or if you don't, then you have never been in situations where you want a different horizontal?
(9) Especially here at 365, scale down your pixel count (down-sample) to something less than 1500 on the long side, and take control of your own sharpening before uploading. Ross has instituted some changes recently but there is nothing that can beat the bicubic re-sampling of something like photoshop. Wouldn't you rather control your own sampling? If you don't then Ross will!
This is not an excuse for leaving everything to post-processing. There are critical things that an editor just can't "fix." Bad focus, unintentional camera shake, subject motion not stopped by a fast enough shutter, DOF too wide or too narrow from a bad aperture selection. none of these can really be "fixed" completely. And this is also not an excuse for ignoring all these things as you are shooting. By no means. Being aware of things that you might want to do post-shoot can often guide you to producing a better source frame from the beginnng.
I scan at 1200 or 1600 dpi and enlarge to remove dust and/or scratches. I also sharpen my images a bit because scanning of its nature will mask the edges. I straighten and occasionally crop as required. I will tweak colour, brightness and contrast, but try to get this right at scanning stage. I usually constantly compare back to original image. I don't like editing much so tend to keep it to a minimum so am working more in camera. Editing can help you find detail in a photo that you may wish to highlight. The tools in editing such as dodge, burn, etc are named after darkroom techniques. A lot went on in the darkroom that now can be done on a screen.
No frank it just means film photos are beautiful already, whereas digital is like all modern digital technology, easy and soul less.