Digital BW, The Print

Now this subject is starting to come back to me.

Color negative film should actually have less inherent grain than color
transparency film.  This because neg. film is a single process (development) and
transparency film is really double processed.  It starts off as a negative and
then it is 'reversed' (which is why they call it 'reversal' film) chemically.

BTW:  The original reversal films had to be flashed with light to reverse them
before 'redevelopment'.

So...It is definitely something odd in the algorithms that is causing scanners
to show more grain in color neg. film as compared to color transparency film.

Also, the neg. film should have a much longer tonal range (more information)
than reversal film.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC

Alessandro Pardi wrote:

>  Harvey,
>
> I never thought (or heard) about it but it makes a lot of sense. The lower
> Dmax in neg. film, also, makes it necessary to increase contrast, to get
> acceptable images, therefore emphasizing grain. I have to say, though, that
> I get excellent results with Portra400BW with respect to grain...
>
> Alessandro Pardi
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>
> As I recall, form the scanner lists, in general, color neg. films on all
> scanners appear grainier than transparency films because of  the algorithms
> used
> to get rid of the orange mask.
>
> <snip>
>
> Harvey Ferdschneider
> partner, SKID Photography, NYC
>
>
>
> Todd Flashner wrote:
>
> >  Any Idea why that is? I mean in conventional photography I don't notice
> > C-prints as being much more (any more?) grainy than R-prints or Cibas. Why
> > do PMT scanners record neg film as so much more grainy than chromes?
> >
> > Todd
> >
> > > Todd,
> > >
> > > I don't shoot 35mm so I can not really opine on the grain of a 35mm
> scan. I
> >  >  so shoot 120 and 4x5 and scan T-Max 100 and Fuji Astia regularly. I
> have scanned
> > > Kodak Portra Neg film with good results, but obviously negative films is
> > > granier than transparency film.
> > >
> > > Mike
>





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c Pardi wrote:

>  Harvey,
>
> > Color negative film should actually have less inherent grain than color
> > transparency film.  So...It is definitely something odd in the algorithms
> that is causing scanners
> > to show more grain in color neg. film as compared to color transparency
> film.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > Also, the neg. film should have a much longer tonal range (more
> information)
> > than reversal film.
>
> It does, but it also has a lower DMax: this means that it can capture a
> wider range of tones in a scene, but they are compressed in a narrower
> density range on the film. So it is easier to scan, because it rarely pushes
> a scanner to its DMax limits, but also forces you (or the scanner software)
> to heavier tweaking afterwards, to bring lower tones to black and higher to
> white, and this is what I think makes grain more apparent, because it
> increases the contrast (you can see this when you have a dull grey sky and
> try to make it more "dramatic").
> I think that a fair test would be to compare the grain in the raw scan of a
> slide and a negative, i.e. without any software intervention. What I expect
> to see is that the histogram of the slide is wider, and the grain no less
> than on the negative.
> I think I have, somewhere, a slide and a color negative of the same scene
> (when I was testing what film was better for my Nikon LS-30), so I can try
> and see...
>
> Alessandro

Alessandro,

I think that would be a very interesting test!  I look forward to hearing the
results.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC




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