Personal Experience

[Ed_L]

I have a 4 x 5 neg from around 1924 that I scanned in both 8 bit, and 16 bit per channel. The scan needed a lot of tonal adjustment, due to the condition of the neg. I expected to see a pretty good difference in the histograms for the two files after making 15 - 20 tonal adjustments (some pretty steep). The histograms were nearly identical, with no gaps whatsoever. I wonder if this might be because it was a neg that I scanned. Any comments?

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Hi Ed,

I am under the impression that scanning in higher bits may not visually look different but should show up in the histograms when you do corrections vs scanning in lesser bit scans. You got the book of Katrin's didn't you? Did you see the PDF file on scanning she has available on the book website? It's at the top of the page where you get the pictures at. It really gets into what you asked. It's a bit of reading (32) pages but it really helps alot. Better than I can for sure.

DJ

[Ed_L]

Hi Debbie,

No I didn't see that. Thanks for passing that on. I understood the same thing you did about the histograms. That's why I was taken back when they were essentially the same after many tonal adjustments. I guess I just have to prove it to myself. The negative actually had a lot of tonal range in it, and I'm wondering if that's the reason it came out that way.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Could be Ed. I haven't scanned negatives so I can't say. Thank you for all the linking you did.
DJ

[Ed_L]

Your more than welcome. It wasn't *your* job to do it, so thanks right back at ya.

Ed

[Chris W.]

Hi Ed,

I just finished with one of those 4x5 negatives...a very strange scan I do agree. I don't know about yours, but mine was scanned as a negative and the entire picture was a dark red color...haven't seen one that color before...I assumed it was originally the old yellow/sepia toned color so that's the direction I went with it... I did get the picture to come through but it was sure a surprise when I saw that red color. The dark areas of the picture were extremely dark and when trying to lighten them a bit it really lost the detail. So I did what I could and left it at that. I'm curious as to what type of camera that came from...any idea?

Does your scanner scan negatives ed?

[Ed_L]

Hello Chris,

No, I don't have an idea what kind of camera was used, but I think it could have been one of many.

As per the negative scanning, yes I can scan negatives up to 5 X 7, and reflectives up to 11 X 14. Optical resolution is 1200, so even for a 645 neg, that would produce a pretty good size print.
I'm using the Acer 1240UT scanner, and I use Vuescan software, which I think is great.

Ed