Topic: Post Processing, Printing and Posting

[Late Developer]

As someone who has to suffice with third party processing, then scans his own negatives before having them printed (again via a third party), I was wondering what post processing work is done by other forum members and what type of prints / size of prints they make.

To what extent do forum members undertake post processing? Is it just cropping and sharpening or do members do more adjustments to enhance the end result before printing / posting?

Personally, I use CS3 to:

1. remove dust and hairs
2. adjust contrast and brightness
3. apply a vignette
4. crop
5. sharpen

but I also have Silver Efex Pro and Lightroom with which to make more radical changes if I feel they are appropriate.

Is there a line where forum members feel they would not cross when it comes to enhancements?

[LT]

Is there a line where forum members feel they would not cross when it comes to enhancements?

Not when I'm making real prints - anything goes.

I find I cant get particularly good scans of prints - especially when they are larger than my scanner glass, so I prefer to scan the neg and recreate the print in p'shop.  I dont really mind what I use to do this - usually its a bit of sharpening, some local and global contrast controls and a touch of light toning.

[Francois]

I for one don't have the patience to doctor a print... A bit of healing tool, levels and crop. That's about all I do to the images.

I rarely print anything I work on since it's mostly used for online posting.

[LeonY]

My scanner is pretty ordinary, so scanning negs is a waste of time. I prefer to print and scan from the paper. The most i do is touch up the whites and blacks(once again because my scanner is shIte) and sometimes to correct distortions created by different paper types. I tend to print on a number of different papers in one session(i have heaps of paper stock and am constantly trying new types).

But all up i rarely every digitize my 'analogue' photos, i like the tactile feel and that if someone wants to see it then need to come over(and bring me ice cream)

[LT]

But all up i rarely every digitize my 'analogue' photos, i like the tactile feel and that if someone wants to see it then need to come over(and bring me ice cream)

good point - there is a social aspect to sharing prints that gets lost when staring at a screen. 

[Nigel]

I'm fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum. I do minor curves adjustment, spotting and add a thin black border (it's just how like them). But as someone who spends most of the day on a computer I don't particularly enjoy the process.

[sapata]

My workflow is:

Process the film (if B&W)
Scan the negatives using Epson V700
I crop trying always to keep the negative film borders
Adjust levels
Healing tool in photoshop to get rid of dusts and marks
Adjust curves if needed
I use Nik sharpener pro software for more sharpen control

Now, when it comes to apply other softwares it's when I always get the feeling I'm "cheating". It may sounds silly but I don't even like converting colour to B&W in photoshop...

Silver Efex/Colour Efex and Dfine are great tools but how far can you go to enhance an image? I have quite a few pictures on the "stand by" for a more serious treatment but something on the back of my mind says is wrong....

Regarding the social aspect of not having my negs printed I agree (and I do love ice cream too!;) ) but the money I spent on my Epson V700 was the one of the best investments in photography I've ever done, the amount of money I saved by scanning negs it's considerable not to mention the money saved with prints. I rarely print anything but when I do I print what I really think it's worthy.

[Francois]

I for one tend to keep the whole work to a minimum. Apart from dusting and removing the occasional power pole, that's pretty much how things stay when I post online.

I too like having prints much better...
And I don't like the inkjet papers very much. Not that they don't give good results, it's just that I don't like that they stay "sticky" when you handle them.

The same thing can be said of the instant digital printers that make all your prints stick together.

[Late Developer]

Interesting set of responses so far.

As with Nigel, I spend most of my day slaving over a hot computer, so chuffing about with software is a necessary evil and not something I enjoy. If only we had a bigger house and I had more time to do chemical prints I'd print it how I wanted it and then scan the print.

There's a part of me that feels that the essence of a film image can be lost during the various applications of digital software to achieve the desired outcome.

[Windy]

Personally, I use CS3 to:

1. remove dust and hairs
2. adjust contrast and brightness
3. apply a vignette
4. crop
5. sharpen
Is there a line where forum members feel they would not cross when it comes to enhancements?

ditto (- #5)

Can't be bothered to do anymore than that

Sometimes use picnik to change the effect to. eg sepia, vignette, desaturate, holga effect etc.

[sapata]

There's a part of me that feels that the essence of a film image can be lost during the various applications of digital software to achieve the desired outcome.

Very true...

[Pete_R]

I'll do whatever's needed to get the result I'm after. I certainly go beyond what's possible with wet printing but I generally would stop short of anything that is 'bleeding obvious'(ly) 'shopped. Incidentally, I don't use PS. My main tool is Paint Shop Pro which is perfectly capable of 99% of what I want to do. I then switch to Gimp when I hit the occasional limit of PSP.

[Pete_R]

There's a part of me that feels that the essence of a film image can be lost during the various applications of digital software to achieve the desired outcome.

I'm sure there's a contradiction in there somewhere. If you know your desired outcome and it requires application of some digital tool to achieve it, then isn't your desired outcome not film like in the first place?

Maybe this is all about desired outcomes. If someone likes images to be just straight out of the camera then they'll generally do little post processing. If they want a specific end result that isn't achievable straight out of the camera, then they will. Does it matter?

[chris_n]

add vignette? :///

[LT]

add vignette? :///

I do the same quite a lot when I make real prints - it is an effective way of keeping attention on the key point of the photo as in all of these:

[LeonY]

My main tool is Paint Shop Pro which is perfectly capable of 99% of what I want to do

psp is awesome!

[jojonas~]

I rarely do prints in the darkroom (but I should start again soon, might have a place to put them up for a day) but I develop all my film.

develop film
scan (to a degree- try to keep dust off)
faff around in epson scan program to get the "look" (mostly just levels)
if I plan to use it for something special I can go in with photoshop 7 to clone out dust and such.
colour I use the scan and order prints online
bw I do my own or as above

that's pretty much it~

[johann]

It depends :

BW :
I develop myself.
I replaced contact printing by scanning.
If I find a picture worthy of it, I print it in my beginning of a darkroom in my cellar or go to my college's darkroom if need more control.

Color :
I have it developed (35mm at the convenience store, 120 at local lab, 4x5 there was a lab but now it's gone so i'm looking for a replacement).
I scan it with more care than BW and clean it.
If I find a worthy picture I have it printed at a lab.

I suppose it's more or less the same as everybody.
The best thing I found was to start developing at home. It makes a huge difference, financially and time-wise. You don't need a lot of equipment : The must-have a "darkbag" (?) to load the film without having to render a room light proof.
I might also start to do color myself. I will have to read those threads about diy color later.

[Phil Bebbington]

I get my film commercially developed and  scan with a V750 Epson. I use CS5 for any adjustments that are necessary. I don't do much other than try to recreate what I saw when I took the shot. However, I will adjust to get what I am after if I need to.

[greenstphotography]

I think the question all of this skirts around is where exactly does the art part of this whole photography thing happen.

There are many (whom I use to think were just plain lazy) who believe the art happens by pressing the shutter release and everything that happens after should be focused on brining only that image to life.  Now I have learned to be nice and accept that that is a perfectly valid way to do photography.  I used to always ask these believers exactly how does one know when the print reflects what was recorded on the negative.  I mean film and paper are totally different mediums.  The are numerous papers and chemical combinations all that effect the look of the final image.  Paper can't record the full latitude that the negative can.  The there are all the toners and different enlargers, filters and lenses that can effect the print in some way or the other...blah blah blah

Then there are those of us (like me) who think the art part happens after the shutter is pressed.  Pressing the shutter records the data I will use to create my masterpiece (if only in my own eyes).  I have pretty much moved away from the darkroom and do all of my post using photoshop.  I will clean up the dust, use levels, curves, Silver EFEX Pro, and what ever else feels right to me.  Often my goal is to reproduce an fav paper filter combo from my wet darkroom days, sometimes I need to rescue something that I screwed up during shooting.  To me personally the idea that there is some purity to the creation of an image just doesn't make sense. I don't consider myself a photojournalist so representing the real world accurately is not my goal, rather I try and show the world I see it or would like to see it.  While I love a well done Fiber print, digital printing and materials are now with in a hairs breath of being indistiguishable (If you haven't used Epson Fiber paper check it out.  I have on many occasions fooled other photographers into thinking my prints were done in the darkroom).  Another interesting thought is that you can look at scanning of negatives as an advancement that for the first time allowed us photographer to most accurately make prints that contain the full range of tones found on the negative.  Pay attention to your darkroom prints, there was always a bit of detail in the shadows or highlights that just couldn't be printed in a wet darkroom, the paper just didn't have a wide enough lattitude.  You can capture that data scanning and using photoshop can then print it.

Any way there is room for all of us and brilliant images are created using either ideaology

For the record.  I develop all of my B&W film, send out the rare color to the lab, do all of my own scanning and printing.

[LT]

Another interesting thought is that you can look at scanning of negatives as an advancement that for the first time allowed us photographer to most accurately make prints that contain the full range of tones found on the negative.  Pay attention to your darkroom prints, there was always a bit of detail in the shadows or highlights that just couldn't be printed in a wet darkroom, the paper just didn't have a wide enough lattitude.  You can capture that data scanning and using photoshop can then print it.

I'm not sure that's right. The only thing that scanning has advanced is the ability to get a reasonable image from a poorly considered and processed negative. Avoid the faults, and you'll have a neg that scans well and prints well too.

If you are not able to get the shadow detail you want, your film is underexposed. Some simple post/pre flashing and fogging in printing will control the highlights nicely, and some careful grade 5 burning will bring in the highlight local contrast.  All very easy, and infinitely more enjoyable than staring at a PC screen.

modern alternative methods are just alternatives.  They are not a magic wand, just a different way to do what was always possible with real photography. Well I say alternative, inkspurts still do not match a good silverprint - and oddly enough, the richness of shadow detail is always the tell-tale area.  
 

[Suzi Livingstone]

Wow, you guys do a lot of work. I think I've said before the only thing I can do in photoshop is invert the negs and adjust the contrast a bit. That's my lot. And I really can;t be bothered to learn anything else because I have to sit in front of a computer screen all day long & if I had to sit in front of ps all night long as well I'd go even more bonkers.

When I had a darkroom I mucked about a lot more but now is much better - I have Leon!   

Actually, Randy from Holgamods just won 6 months darkroom membership with Zoom In and can't go so transferred it over to me, so I may trek down to south London (yipes..) and check em out and start processing some rolls down there.

[Suzi Livingstone]

The best thing I found was to start developing at home. It makes a huge difference, financially and time-wise. You don't need a lot of equipment : The must-have a "darkbag" (?) to load the film without having to render a room light proof.

You've just reminded me, I actually have one of those darkbag type things somewhere. All my processing stuff is in a box somewhere.. must find it all it would save me a small fortune to start using it all again.

[Pete_R]

modern alternative methods are just alternatives.  They are not a magic wand, just a different way to do what was always possible with real photography.

At the risk of turning this into an analogue-v-digital argument (actually, you may have already done that), I would say there are things that can be achieved using modern methods that would be, at least, extremely difficult to achieve in a darkroom. It's possible, for instance, to completely distort the characteristic which can never be done with paper, even multigrade, which has fixed characteristics. It would require some very difficult masking techniques to achieve anything similar. And before anyone says they don't want to achieve wierd effects by distorting the curve, it's surprising how often I peg parts of the curve and warp the remainder to, maybe, lift some shadow detail while not changing other parts of the image.

inkspurts still do not match a good silverprint

That, of course, is an opinion rather than the fact you've presented it as. Wet prints and ink prints are different. Always will be. I think we've generally come to accept that film photography and digital photography are different animals and making endless comparisons is pointless. And that applies to printing as well.

[Mojave]

Very cool discussion! And Suzi, Im super jealous of your 6 month darkroom privileges.

Myself, I develop my b&w film myself, from 35mm to 4x5, then scan it on my 4490. It doesnt scan 4x5 so I made a template out of a Shrinky Dink sheet and scan half the neg, move it, then scan the other half, and stitch it together in CS3. Tricky business since half the time each half scans with different tones. Yippee!!

Anyway, after I scan the images in I usually crop the image because I dont like to crop incamera. I feel like Im not leaving myself any room for error when I do that. After I crop, I make other adjustments to make the image look like what I saw when I pressed the shutter or at least make the image look the way I want it to look.

Oh yeah, and most of images live in the digital world. I have only  just started making prints and Im loving it but for the most part, my images live online or in my computer.

Once those minor adjustments have been made in ACR, I open the image up in CS3 and use the healing tool and clone stamp to remove dust and hairs. Sometimes though, I will use the clone stamp and healing tool to remove whole elements from an image that destroy it for me, like telephone wires. I removes lots of those.  

Thats it for me. No darkroom stuff yet. Someday maybe, now that I have some equipment.  

[Suzi Livingstone]

Very cool discussion! And Suzi, Im super jealous of your 6 month darkroom privileges.

I know, what a sweetheart Randy is. I just checked prices for members, £25 for an 8 hour session in the darkroom, I'm guessing that's sole usage, just me and the lovely chemicals..  

[Skorj]

I am analog to digital - for presentation on the web, and then digital printing. Here's an example:



The above, printed on my Epson K3 looks very the same. With my photographs being 8.5 x 10.8cm negatives, if you know a master printer (thanks Leon!), they can sling them in an enlarger and produce nicely toned silver halide prints:



Not an answer perhaps to the question, but more an example of options, and individual process results and personal preferences... All part of the mix. See ya! Skj.

[Jeff Warden]

I stay all analog if I can, which for me is just more fun.  For presenting images here I will scan paper prints, but some fidelity is lost because the paper has a texture that shows up on the flatbed scan.  Oh well.  I then resize and use levels in PS to match the print as best as I can.

I also sometimes scan the 35mm negatives directly but this for me is less enjoyable and somehow loses some of the life that comes out in the darkroom.  I haven't tested it but it seems I'm getting a greater dynamic range in the darkroom than I am from the scanner.  It's not so hard to fix though, as you can just make two negative scans at different gamma and make a kind-of HDR that can be blended together in PS layers.  That's starting to sound like work though.  :-)

There is no limit to the theatrics that PS can perform and it's amazing to me, but the more I explore photography I just want a simple, straight-from-the-camera record of what I saw, more-or-less.  I think that's where I'm headed.