This is my first post, so please be gentle 
I have looked over a lot of Pyrocat-HD posts here and elsewhere and they seem to be very printing-oriented. No problem, except I am trying to scan my negs on an Epson 4990 scanner with Silverfast.
(A bit of background, I am an editorial shooter with a totally digital workflow but have lately had good luck shooting Polaroid Type 55 on my Linhof and scanning the negs and including the digital files along with regular digital files in what I send my clients. However, Type 55 is very expensive and I have a dusty Job CPP2 sitting around so I thought I would try using it to process 4x5 and or 8x10 negs for scanning)
So, here is my plan, any hints or corrections would be appreciated. I plan on testing FP4+, HP5+ and TMY using various times and temps I have found on the net for Pyrocat-HD and my Jobo. I plan on shooting a MacBeth color checker and a Kodak Calibration Target (20 shades of grey, from white to black) plus our trusty mannequin to get a set of "calibration negatives."
Then I plan on scanning them as RGB files on the Epson 4990 using SilverFast and placing the white and black points on the appropiate places on the Kodak target.
My question is: Then what?? How do I evaluate if the negative is "good" or "bad", properly exposed or not? I understand that I can vary exposure to control density of the negs and vary development time to "expand" or "compact" the tonal range of the film, but I am not sure how to evaluate the scanned results nor how to decide which adjustments to make.
I would really appreciate some help to walk me through the film calibration process, essentially using the scanner and its results as my densitometer and the final file as my print.
Also, am I choosing the right films to test, since my objective is scanning and are there any other hints people have on the whole process?
I thank you all in advance!
Ralf-Finn
I have looked over a lot of Pyrocat-HD posts here and elsewhere and they seem to be very printing-oriented. No problem, except I am trying to scan my negs on an Epson 4990 scanner with Silverfast.
(A bit of background, I am an editorial shooter with a totally digital workflow but have lately had good luck shooting Polaroid Type 55 on my Linhof and scanning the negs and including the digital files along with regular digital files in what I send my clients. However, Type 55 is very expensive and I have a dusty Job CPP2 sitting around so I thought I would try using it to process 4x5 and or 8x10 negs for scanning)
So, here is my plan, any hints or corrections would be appreciated. I plan on testing FP4+, HP5+ and TMY using various times and temps I have found on the net for Pyrocat-HD and my Jobo. I plan on shooting a MacBeth color checker and a Kodak Calibration Target (20 shades of grey, from white to black) plus our trusty mannequin to get a set of "calibration negatives."
Then I plan on scanning them as RGB files on the Epson 4990 using SilverFast and placing the white and black points on the appropiate places on the Kodak target.
My question is: Then what?? How do I evaluate if the negative is "good" or "bad", properly exposed or not? I understand that I can vary exposure to control density of the negs and vary development time to "expand" or "compact" the tonal range of the film, but I am not sure how to evaluate the scanned results nor how to decide which adjustments to make.
I would really appreciate some help to walk me through the film calibration process, essentially using the scanner and its results as my densitometer and the final file as my print.
Also, am I choosing the right films to test, since my objective is scanning and are there any other hints people have on the whole process?
I thank you all in advance!
Ralf-Finn
