Category: overnight notes

backfill: Scan C-41

Posted on Posted in big bits, overnight notes, pipeline, the Lab, The Post

the only way to print is with a stopover to the screen. digital is the “new” analog. (it has been since the time of Scitex; the time when removing blemishes was called: Scitexing). One constant over time is that those people less capable of retouching, deride it in all its forms: brush, pencil, or mouse.

Scanning brought knowledge and doubt. Some have knowledge, some know-how, many more have doubt. The transition to ready scanning methods took more than 60 years to make. Scanners are part of the age of transition from chemical to computer; machine space to math scape.

Is there magic in the sauce? Maybe knowledge is held by some, being shared in the darknet (of books, journals, patents and conference lectures)

conversion equation
3 software interpretations

Glossary

Raised by my reading (about) Richard Benson, reminder of many other printer/printmakers, some having influence, such as Dan Margulis, some not. Dan Margulis was an early Photoshop advocate and user of LAB.

  • Gamut. the range of colors that can be produced by a process.
  • GCR gray component replacement, using black to some extent rather than cyan, magenta, and yellow in combination
  • Metamerism. visual phenomenon that two colors may appear to be the same under certain lighting conditions but different under others; two colors exhibiting this are called a metameric pair.
  • UCA undercolor addition. adding cyan, magenta, and yellow to areas that are predominantly black, to a achieve richer, darker color
  • UCR GCR that is confined to shadow areas
  • YCC Kodak’s proprietary colorspace much like LAB.

In the begin– [T, skoffs:  I’m highly skeptical about what ‘people’ say on forums about scanning software mimicking RA4. The reason for this is that I’ve never come across any hints that these people had any inside information on the color algorithms and for the most part seemed to make an educated guess, only. Sometimes, that is good enough, but especially in this case, I don’t think it helps any.

— \\in fairness, krk is responding. as naysay to:One comment, by a couple of users on the facebook Coolscan community – really caught my attention: these people mentioned that the tool was engineered to produce a result that closely matches the colour response of C41 film onto RA4 paper – as most film for the pa..

Certainly, it may seem to those not a member of the change-over, the time of Scitex and others, that no one could have inside information about the algorithms, ie, the science being used by Kodak, Fuji etc. Luckily, color science is a widely published field — both the densitometric and the colorimetric theory is available in text and articles distributed at conferences. Nikon scanners as well as Hasselblad ones implemented modes introduced by firms such as Scitex along with Kodak and Fuji.

Sensitometric Curve sources: profiles from PhotoCD[Kodak]

[April 2, 2021: VueScan first started supporting different film types about 20 years. We originally got film profiles from the PhotoCD database. These film profiles contain ‘sensitometric curves’ for different film types, and they don’t vary much in film types in use in the past 15 years or so.]

Negafix claims similar source for their film-types.

[from the Kodak designers, “… each photographic negative is designed to be optically printed onto one or more specific print films or papers, using specific printer light sources. That fact provides the key to making meaningful measurments of color negative images.” — Giorgianni and Madden.

What do I do?: I use Nikonscan with a Nikon Scanner. I scan to a NEF format file. My use of Vuescan is for making PDFs with an Epson scanner. Hasselblad has a native camera file format which I request when someone scans with a Flex*.

“[157] since negatives are not meant to be viewed directly, it would not seem logical to also measure them using methods based on the response of a human observer” [meaning standard colorimetric measurements] [160] The neutral and color characteristics of color negative films are designed in terms of computed printing densities; therefore, printing desnities are the most meaningful desntiy measurements tat can be made from color negative films.

Nikon film scanners were manufactured from 1988 to 2004. Nikon Scan is Nikon’s own proprietary software for film scanners but it only supported computer operating systems up until scanner development stopped.

  • most recent to oldest >–>
  • Super COOLSCAN LS-9000 ED
  • Super COOLSCAN LS-8000 ED
  • Super COOLSCAN LS-5000 ED
  • Super COOLSCAN LS-4000 ED
  • COOLSCAN V LS-50 ED
  • COOLSCAN IV LS-40 ED
  • —
  • Super COOLSCAN LS-2000
  • COOLSCAN III LS-30
  • —
  • COOLSCAN II LS-20
  • Super COOLSCAN LS-1000
  • LS-4500
  • SCANTOUCH AX210
  • SCANTOUCH AX110

” Nikon Scan 3 and the Coolscan IV provide a choice of a wide range of color spaces, and screen gamma settings of 1.8 and 2.2 (the default gammas for Windows and Macintosh monitors, respectively). With the color management option enabled, Nikon Scan also supports the full ICC-standard workflow: The software chooses an input profile based on the scanner model it detects, uses the one of the offered color spaces as the “edit” profile, and allows you to specify a monitor profile for accurate screen display. (You’d develop your own monitor profile using any of a number of available profiling applications.) The chart below (courtesy Nikon USA Inc) shows the colorimetric parameters for the standard edit color spaces offered.”

overnight: Feb14,24

Posted on Posted in da net, minimum daily requirement, overnight notes, The Other

conversation aids or hinders. you grow when among those capable of growing.

undercolor is an old term, not born with photoshop.

washing prints isn’t a new thing either. Patents go back as far as 1917.

Congo Lens

Words in search of ideas. Happens to all … some suffer more. Both these examples come from high traffic, large influence sites.

The telltale sign of word paddler: adding meaningless words. Examples circled in red. Why does something have to be qualified with: “own,” “true,” “actually,” “simply?” These are weasel words

my own brother

Filling time is something we all do. We seem to do it as we have less time remaining. Those who didn’t make it as far as they wanted, are those making a past more valuable now than it was then. Their past expands to fill the present. Bad examples are what they preserve — the best they did. I don’t know, although I want to avoid them, I can’t. They remain the toothache of aging. I use “aging” as placeholder for a wordphrase I haven’t coined.

On to the wide field Ektar… ask the question in the better place gets: M. Reiss, Kodak patent. Follow up that search takes you into the Kodak patents on “objectives,” and coatings of lenses. This is meant to suggest you take an alternate path to learning. The internet isn’t the problem; the gossip counter is a hindrance meant to use up the last of their time.

An alternate world

Which horse do you ride?

who answers
expansion

Instead of reading the MikeJ’s, try something like the following about Richard Benson:

another way of teaching. This one produces a world of teachers and makers of art — about Richard Benson[November 8, 1943 – June 22, 2017 ] by Matthew Monteith [1974- ]

That might get you into a more understanding relationship with your work and the world of that work.

Harman Phoenix Unmasked

Posted on Posted in labnotes, overnight notes, The Negative, Valley Hi

MAR 8,2024 UPDATE: The march shipments have arrived. Same film, or so it seems; same price. The allotments have increased. Two sample points:

  • A: large seller– December product less than 2K rolls; this shipment over 2K rolls available
  • B: small retail shop– December product 300 rolls; this, march shipment, 1K rolls available.

They may have worked on coating/drying procedures; the making of foundation supplies. They haven’t received much adverse comment, in fact, most of the onliners seem pleased.

the maskless returns. A new phase of color film — flashing back to the middle of last century.

Shooting the Moon — not a moon-shot, rather, it means aiming for something you don’t intend to hit; your reason could be a signal, gesture to investors, an effort at proving, or testing yourself. You do something to see how others react.

2022 Numbers. Not a great business.

Consider you are in a shrinking market, you may have maxed out your customer growth. Your standard item is a dominant in this shrinking market, even so, newer companies seem to have great multiples of growth in both top and bottom line. These folks are tapping into a younger group having more expendable funds. They don’t print in a darkroom. Your the dominant darkroom vendor, but this is to an aging population — a population with reducing need. They just don’t shoot, nor print as much as just 5 years ago. This isn’t the analog rebound group.

Analog rebound is among the 35mm 35 year old photographers. They may shoot film, but they send it to a lab to soup and scan. Some of them have process only, these are the ones with a camera-scan setup. Camera-scan has become a dominant imaging platform in just a decade. In 2013, talking about it was segregated on the Forum boards — it was ‘HYBRID’ — a bastard not suited for inheritance in the Church of Photography.

The December rumor holds that Harman will produce another Phoenix for shipment March, 2024. They can easily make film. Will they alter, by how much, a rev. 2? Will this remain a film-for-scanning.

Are they prepared to make a color paper if(when) FujiFilm drops *Archive. Three labs that produced large RA-4 prints in the US have closed their wide-format Poliettronica [https://webionaire.com/2022/06/26/ra-4-big-lab-printing/ ] lines; switching to ‘dry-lab’ printing for their display clients.

Sensitivity Isn’t Output

Spectral sensitivity curves depict the film’s “shooting” conditions. Its response to the colors depicted. The manufacturer tells you the color of the testing light used. The Spectral Dye-Density curves represent the absorption of the dyes formed after processing. These are used for adjusting the system used for making prints(or scans.) Sensitivity is used during camera setup and use. Dye-Density is used during output. Without this DD curve, you don’t know what the emulsion is expected to produce. Harman doesn’t publish this with “December 23” Phoenix.

What Next

effect of DIR upon color emulsion. neutralizing secondary absorptions of the M and C image dyes

CC:: colored coupler | UC:: uncolored coupler

DIR: Development Inhibitor Releasing compound. An example of a well regarded DIR is 1-phenyl-5-mecapto-tetrazole. This can be imagewise generated and eliminated from the coupling postion during dye formation. DIRs have been patented which enhance sharpness, reduce ‘graininness’, and, via interlayer interimage effects, produce color correction.

[color coupling and masking can be separated]

DIR compounds are disclosed in “Developer Inhibitor-Releasing (DIR) Couplers for Color Photography,” C. R. Barr, J. R. Thirtle and P. W. Vittum in Photographic

Terms:

  • block dye: theoretical dye having equal absorption of light at each wavelength within a given continuous range of wavelengths and no absorption at all other wavelengths of interest. [Giorgianni]
  • calibration: procedure of correcting for ay deviation from a standard. [Giorgianni]
  • coupler: an organic compound which reacts with oxidized developing agent to form a dye.[Giorgianni]
  • cross-talk: transfer of information from one color channel to another.[Giorgianni]
  • interlayer effects: chemical reactions that take place among the various layers of a photographic medium. …used for color signal processing.[Giorgianni]

foundations of emulsion making.