Do you enhance your pinhole photos?

[Grandpa Ron]

There is no right or wrong answer to the question. I am trying to determine the best way to duplicate what is in my negatives.

I shoot 4x5 negatives and they usually turn out pretty good. When I print them; I crop if necessary, choose the grade paper I want for the contrast and develop them for the time required to get the look I want. The look I want is as close to the natural setting as one can get when trying to convert color to black and white. That is admittedly quite subjective but the goal is to stay as close to my memory of "as shot" with minimal enhancements.

The problem comes when I try to scan the negative or the print into a digital format. The analog to digital format conversion is not very good. It is inevitable that I will have to do some degree of post processing. Since I am not a fan of post processing and after chasing my tail a number of times in the past; now, I simply crop, adjust the contrast and call it done. Attached is a pinhole photo I scanned.

It has been my experience that trying to duplicate a back-lit monitor image onto reflected light photo paper is near impossible, or at least requires far better equipment and knowledge than I have. The back-lit white is always brighter.

So the question is, how much digital manipulation do others do to their pinhole prints.

Down the Hill to the Pond

Party cloudy and windy day.
ISO 200 film
f360 at 68 seconds.

 

[grain elevator]

You say you have problems with the whites, that sounds like your screen is set too bright, most people's are. If your screen is much brighter then the average of your field of view, you're essentially staring at a light source, that causes strain for the eyes and facial muscles. And of course makes the tones hard to evaluate. This means you may need to adjust the brightness over the day, if your computer is in a room with daylight. A good starting point is that white sections of the screen, like the standard background of this website, should be about the same brightness as a piece of paper held next to the screen.
To take the guesswork out of what is white and black, you should get familiar with histograms and tone curves. Google those, maybe also together with the software you use. The histogram for the picture you posted has a peak a little away from the left margin, and is empty to the left of that. That means there is no real black in it. Once you understand the histogram, the tone curve tool is the most intuitive way to change it, and in the simplest terms, that means changing contrast. But whereas with the "contrast" slider it is a stab in the dark where which tones come out, if you use the tone curves tool, you know exactly what is happening. The levels tool is an alternative some prefer.
It also helps to have a bit of black and a bit of white on the screen as a reference, many photo editors allow for that.
Your choice of words sounds like you think of "post processing" as " enhancing", tempering with the picture, and are uncomfortable with that. Don't. This is exactly what you do in the darkroom when you pick a paper grade and exposure time - you're matching the contrast from the capture to the viewing medium.

 

[DWThomas]

I consciously try to avoid manipulating them into being something they are not, but from what I see and understand, scanning (with scanner or digi-cam) a negative, regardless of the source, usually needs a minor tweak of sharpness and/or contrast to overcome what I'll call "scanner losses" for lack of a better term. There will often be issues of black and white levels which can be skewed by the in-camera exposure, plus development technique.

The last five or six WPPD outings I have ultimately contact printed my 8x10 pinhole negatives, some for exhibition, that's pretty direct. (Being cheap) I have been shooting X-ray film for 8x10 which in my experience has a tendency toward high contrast. Since I use my enlarger (about 27" above the easel at f/16) for a light source, I have no reservations about using VC paper and a contrast filter. I believe I have the process dialed in better the last couple of years, but I remember using a #1/2 or a #1 contrast filter trying to tame one print a few years ago.

I don't lose too much sleep over it --- "Hey, it's pinhole!"

 

[MattKing]

I don't know that I enhance them, but I do know that if you scan the results, scanning disrupts acutance, and small to medium format pinhole already lacks acutance.
So I always feel the need to add some acutance back.
A contact print from a small original looks great if you view it from a close distance. If you try to share the results digitally, you need to compensate for that process in order to achieve the same response.
From a fairly aggressively sharpened 6x9 transparency - the results give much the same feel as looking at the transparency itself:

 

[Grandpa Ron]

I do not have a great aversion to post processing but having spent much of my career sitting behind a computer screen drafting, emailing and other assorted activities, when I get home that last thing I want to do is turn on a computer. I switched to a 4x5 format, so I would not have the blurriness that occurs when enlarging my 35mm prints.

Pinhole photography objectives are a varied as the people doing them. My particular goal is to try to duplicate some of the early photography works from the late 19th and early 20th century. Unfortunately, in order to share them they have to be digitized. My mind set is to present then as close to the print as practical. Those who pursue the artistic side of PH photography would certainly have a far different approach.

When using the black and white option with my DSLR processing, I have spent a fair amount of time tweaking the histograms of my photos. Also some of the members of my camera club are wizards with post processing and their work is fantastic.

However, when under the hood of my 1910 view camera with lens or pinhole, post processing just seems out of place to me. But again, that is the beauty of photography; it is a very dynamic and expressive media.

 

[Alan9940]

I shoot only MF pinhole and the negatives are printed in a darkroom. All standard tools and techniques are used; nothing special.