Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/10/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dan: These were available light pictures in mostly dismal, flat lighting. On T400CN, which is a low-contrast film. I'm probably going back to Tri-X or Neopan 400 and 1600 soon. The negatives were scanned in Vuescan on a Nikon LS-2000, and curves were adjusted in Picture Window Pro in 16-bit greyscale mode. The curves only took up 1/2 to 2/3 of the 0-255 range. I stretched the curves so that they took up the full range and let specular highlights and darkest shadows go pure black and white. I also boosted the midtones a bit. The problem is that there's only so much you can do with this before you get the soot-and-chalk effect. Old darkroom hands will remember the "pushed Tri-X in Acufine printed on Agfa-Brovira #6 paper." I don't much care for that look. I prefer a dark picture. I try not to drop too much detail off the black and white ends of the curves. I usually have three, and often four or five adjustment points in my curves to try to keep tonal range. Perhaps I'm not being aggressive enough in my adjustments. But every time I've put more "umph" in a picture, somebody criticizes it for "blown highlights." If somebody has some practical advice on curve adjustments in available light pictures, I'm all ears. - --Peter Dan Khong wrote: > Thanks for posting the images from the LHSA meet. May I assume that > your images were scanned digitally and then posted. Except for this > one which was closest to the mark in terms of tonality: > http://www.2alpha.net/~pklein/lhsa2002/21leicarose.htm > the others lacked contrast. The blacks were far from black and the > whites rather weak. I am sure something could be done to tweak the > final image a bit more to give it that "umph!". Dan K. - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html