Digital BW, The Print

My father took quite a few photos of the 1939 World's Fair with his Rollei.  The 
negatives were stored for 64 years in "Nega-Print Album."  The album is made up of 
soft paper envelopes that two photos were attached to the front and back and the 
four corresponding negatives were stored inside.

I just had the negatives scanned to TIFFs at a local shop and was quite surprised at 
the amount of grain showing.  There was a little dust, no prints, and no 
scratches.  But, the grain is strange.  Maybe the chemistry of the negatives changed 
over time, some interaction with the envelopes, or they weren't totally fixed.  Anyway, 
there's going to be quite a lot of PS work to do before these are printable.  Lot's of 
work ahead of me.  

Hal

Hal,
with a magnifier, can you see the grain in the negative ? Does it look 
as strong as what you see in the scan ?? What dpi was used for the 
scan ? You should be able to see in the neg exactly what is in the 
scan with a good loupe. 
I have some 100 year+ 4x5 glass plates from my grandfather, and they 
scan well - worthy of 16x20 printing..... I use a Polaroid 
SprintScan45 (2000dpi).

Best,
Alex

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, 
"redwoods2tiredhal" <2tiredhal@c...> wrote:
> My father took quite a few photos of the 1939 World's Fair with his 
Rollei.  
> I just had the negatives scanned to TIFFs at a local shop and was 
quite surprised at 

> the amount of grain showing.  
 
> 
> Hal

redwoods2tiredhal writes:

> I just had the negatives scanned to TIFFs at a local shop and
> was quite surprised at the amount of grain showing.

What film was it?

Older films, as a general rule, had a lot more grain.  There have been
gradual improvements in film for decades, and so you don't really notice
the differences unless you compare old films with new films side by
side.  I've noticed it with color films, which were really bad even
thirty years ago: the grain from ISO 400 film back in the 1970s was
worse than the grain from ISO 800 film today.  The evolution in black
and white hasn't been as dramatic, but going all the way back to 1939
I'm sure there would be a difference.

Also, the film might have been deliberately pushed if it was slow film
and the pictures were taken in low light or at high speeds.  Of course,
that would make the grain a lot worse.

They could of been scanned incorrectly. Have one scanned somewhere else 
and see if you get the same results. Have them scanned with ALL 
sharpening off.
Mark

On Nov 23, 2003, at 11:14 PM, redwoods2tiredhal wrote:

> My father took quite a few photos of the 1939 World's Fair with his 
> Rollei.  The
> negatives were stored for 64 years in "Nega-Print Album."  The album 
> is made up of
> soft paper envelopes that two photos were attached to the front and 
> back and the
> four corresponding negatives were stored inside.
>
> I just had the negatives scanned to TIFFs at a local shop and was 
> quite surprised at
> the amount of grain showing.  There was a little dust, no prints, and 
> no
> scratches.  But, the grain is strange.  Maybe the chemistry of the 
> negatives changed
> over time, some interaction with the envelopes, or they weren't 
> totally fixed.  Anyway,
> there's going to be quite a lot of PS work to do before these are 
> printable.  Lot's of
> work ahead of me. 
>
> Hal
>
>
>
>
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 04:14 AM 11/24/03 +0000, you wrote:
>My father took quite a few photos of the 1939 World's Fair with his 
>Rollei.  The
>negatives were stored for 64 years in "Nega-Print Album."  The album is 
>made up of
>soft paper envelopes that two photos were attached to the front and back 
>and the
>four corresponding negatives were stored inside.
>
>I just had the negatives scanned to TIFFs at a local shop and was quite 
>surprised at
>the amount of grain showing.  There was a little dust, no prints, and no
>scratches.  But, the grain is strange.  Maybe the chemistry of the 
>negatives changed
>over time, some interaction with the envelopes, or they weren't totally 
>fixed.  Anyway,
>there's going to be quite a lot of PS work to do before these are 
>printable.  Lot's of
>work ahead of me.
>
>Hal

Hal,

  The problem may only be in the way they were scanned. I don't think the 
grain structure of  film changes with time. If the negs are "normal" 
looking they are as they originally were. What resolution were they scanned?

I read somewhere about proof sheets giving excellent scans.  Maybe you can 
get better results scanning the prints rather than the negs.

AZ

Build a Lookaround!
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Hello, i scan historic negatives professionally.  It is not unusual to have
excessive grain in 1930s miniature and medium format negatives, at the time
most photofinishers did not use a fine grain developer.

You can select the sky, make a new copy layer, and shift the pixels
slightly.  This does a lot to break up the grain.

You can also apply selective blurring or unsharp mask.  You can even apply
it globally and use the history erase brush to restore sharpness where it is
appropriate.  

good luck
Thomas Robinson