Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/12/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Robert, Nathan's suggestions were good ones. I would like to add the magazine "Photoshop User". Usually there are three to four good suggestions every month that a photographer can use. For a quickie, I assume that you have calibrated your monitor to a print out, if not then the Lenswork site at the bottom has a decent monitor calibration page that you can download, print out and make whatever adjustments are necessary. 1) prescan a B/W neg without the ICE function. Pull out the tabs to the left if you are using Nikon Scan whatever. Adjust the curve to get what looks decent on the screen. You may have to adjust the black point in the levels dialogue which is another pull out tab. 2)Perform a final scan either into a file or into Photoshop. 3) Using the clone tool at about 100% go through the image and clean up dust and scratches. 4) Using levels, Image, Adjust, Levels, set the sliders on the bottom to the edges of the histogram if the histogram doesn't go edge to edge. Use the middle slider to adjust the middle grays, easy does it. 5) If you don't have a satisfactory black then while still in levels click on the black eyedropper, move it to the part of the image that you want to be black with no detail and click there. 6) If the grayscale of your image is not satisfactory then open the curves dialogue box Image, Adjust, Curves. Tweek the curve in the area that need improvement. Specifically say, your midtones are dull and dark then somewhere in the middle of the curve put your pointer on the curve and move it up a little. Keep tweaking until the image looks good to you. 7) Save the file as a Tiff or some other file that doesn't lose information. 8) Perform an unsharp mask,Filter,Sharpen, Unsharp Mask. The percentage will be somewhere between 50 and 200. You can see what you are doing by putting the printer over part of the image that you care about with the preview box checked. The next option is radius. I get my best results from 0.6 to 1.2. Your last option is threshold which is between 0 and 6 per the last postings. 9) Size the image with resample turned off 10) Open the Print set up box tell the printer what size/type paper you are using, orientation, and to use the enhance or not. Then print. 11) Compare the print to the monitor and make adjustments in Gamma to the monitor, for color that will be another post. Write if this is unclear. Don Dory dorysrus@mindspring.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html