How to scan Pyro negatives?

[Alan Johnson]

Any tips? I wonder if there is any useful information in the stain? Thanks.

 

[sanking]

Any tips? I wonder if there is any useful information in the stain? Thanks.

The stain is very useful in minimizing grain. For best results scan in RGB and then look at the three channels. You will probably find that one is much sharper and has less grain than the other two, though this will vary with scanner.


Sandy King

 

[donbga]

Any tips? I wonder if there is any useful information in the stain? Thanks.

Hi Alan,

I use Vuescan and seem to get the best results by automatically converting the Green channel to grey. I've also had good results by scanning in 48 bit RGB and then choosing the best channel in Photoshop.

Hope this helps,

Don Bryant

 

[Bob Carnie]

I have found as Sandy comments to scan in RGB and as well use a pull down of XP2 for starting pack reference.. the base density is high and gives a good starting point.
We were finding with pyro negatives scanned and then printed very large, artifacting in the shadows..
After trial and error , we found that major changes or adjustments at the scanning stage was not good for critical work. By using a XP2 profile we got very close when we opened the image on the scanner right off the bat and then made minor adjustments before sending to PS.
Ted Harris was at our shop and helping us with this very aspect and he was going to come back and make custom profiles for our purposes.
We have made a few profiles for different exposure settings that we defer to when working with others films.
Kind of like setting up a VCNA back in the day,, you would have a normal neg channel, but as well you would program plus and minus slope adjustments for negatives coming at you in different balances.
In a perfect world we would all be making negatives that when laid down on an emulsion or scanner all things would be perfect.
unfortunately I do not live in a perfect world.