Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "frankg_photo" <fh.gross@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 2:07 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Sprintscan120/Silverfast6 & Glass holder sharpness
problem


>
(snip earlier)
>
> Martin,
> I just tried the above with PS anbd the reult is exactly as you
> deescribe -
> I saved the file from Insight as a 16 bit RAW in TIF file format and
> then in Photoshop I opened Image>Adjustment>Levels and found the data
> all bunched up on one side of the histogram. So I moved the slider on
> the 'empty' sideto join the pixels on the histogram and voila a
> decent looking result, but a little dark/muddy. I then used Curves to
> move the Midpoint (gamma?) up a little to get a very good image.
>
> I dont have SF HDR installed (I had only upgraded to SF6 Ai but
> didn't get the HDR as they wanted yet more money for it)and am
> contemplating whether it's advantageous to get & use. You say that
> it's the exact same procedure as I've described here but on some
> images the HDR handles the RAW file adjustments easier than PS does ?


Frank,

The upgrade cost is $65 for SF HDR I believe and at that price it is
probably worth it. You are likely to run into raw scans that open in PS with
the data not only bunched up but jammed up against one end of the histogram
meaning the shadows or highlights are blownout and detail lost. This can
usually be recovered by the use of the levels function in SF or SF HDR which
by setting the endpoints will get the data back into the middle of the
histogram for adjustment in PS.

The other big reason to do the upgrade is that the older versions of SF HDR
would not output a 16-bit file to PS, only 8-bit.

Play around with the workflow a bit and see what you like and think you will
use. There is not fix path to follow on a lot of this and much of it is
personal preference.

Martin