Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/05/03

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Subject: Re: [Leica] New to scanning, Photoshop, and B&W
From: lea <lea@whinydogpress.com>
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 07:20:27 -0500
References: <NEBBIICDMLICPBCPHBFDIEAADMAA.derek@zeanah.com>

You say you scanned a 'sheet of negs'. If indeed they are in plastic, I would
encourage you to remove the negs from the sheet and scan them directly. That
should help get rid of those lines.

Secondly, Photoshop is an art in itself...there is no trick. I have worked with
it for years and there is no one right way to do anything in that program that
will solve every problem. However, I would say you are on the right track
insofar as you are adjusting your levels to get the contrast where you want it.
That is the right thing to do. You might experiment with curves as well.

There are a jillion books out on the program Photoshop...heaven knows I've read
a bunch of them...and I would suggest anything by Lynda Weinman. It may be good
for you to start with a book like hers that offers a tutorial, work thru it then
apply those concepts to your own work.

Best of luck. And, the images you showed really don't look bad so far as
contrast go. At least not on my screen. The lines are a bother but I believe you
can get rid of those.
Lea


Derek Zeanah wrote:

> I'm using a not-very-fancy Umax flatbed scanner with a transparent-media
> adapter to scan a sheet of negatives, then I'm picking them apart with
> Photoshop to save as individual files.
>
> Scanned some last night (see http://www.zeanah.com/horseback -- the first
> roll out of my Hexar RF) and as you can see, the scan quality sucks.  I can
> live with the lines in the scans -- that's a function of the amount of money
> I spent on the equipment.  What's getting me is trying to make the scans
> look *good* -- contrast primarily.
>
> So, what's the secret?  I tried adjusting levels and got close but there's
> more to this that I'm just not getting.  In the images here, I adjusted the
> levels for the entire contact sheet scan, then messed with each file (some
> as RGB, some converted to B&W, more fine-tuning of levels on others, etc.)
> without much success.
>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction?
>
> Thanks.

- --
Lea Murphy
Whiny Dog Press
816-333-9111
http://www.whinydogpress.com

In reply to: Message from "Derek Zeanah" <derek@zeanah.com> ([Leica] New to scanning, Photoshop, and B&W)