October 11, 2009, from Lloyd Erlick,




On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 07:28:24 -0700 (PDT), Lew
wrote:

Totally COOL! I bought a flatbed scanner to do just this: scan entire
rolls of 35/120 at a pass. Unfortunately, I interpolated in the idea
that, in order to keep the negs from moving around when I lowered the
top, I needed a sheet of glass. This produced what I believe are
Newton lines & it became impossible to judge fine detail in the
resulting digital files. I dropped the idea and went back to the dr
again. (Now I have a backlog of about 40 unproofed rolls, and the ugly
task of spending at least 1 boring day in the darkroom just to catch
up before I can print anything.)


Yes, I know just what you mean. I found this
one of the worst aspects of the darkroom. My
own shortcomings being highlighted and thrust
in my face. At least the scanner does its
thing while I am sitting down ...




So you do entire rolls -through- the PrintFiles? Did you try other
brands without success?

Over the years my neg file has come to
contain other brands of neg sleeve. The
scanner works fine with all of them.

Obviously the result can't be as good as one
with no sleeve on the neg, and of course the
plastic sleeve is capable of causing Newton
rings. Both of these are minor problems, and
anyway they are contacts, not finished
products.



What res do you use? How long does each scan take? How do you
compensate for different exposure densities & dynamic ranges from
frame to frame? (Of course, this problem exists for the traditional,
darkroom method as well.)


The files I end up with are usually in the
six to twelve megabyte range for a whole
roll. I usually set the scanner to 400 or 600
ppi. (Maybe that should be dpi? I don't care.
It's just my DARKROOM SCANNER, and I don't
care.) My enlarger is clean and aligned, and
I do care.




Can't wait to get home & try this out!

-LS

It's easy and work-reducing. That's my whole
darkroom philosophy. Cheap, too.

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
website: www.heylloyd.com
telephone: 416-686-0326
email:
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