Scanning ethics ????

[Toffle]

Edit: In case someone decides to bring it up, I can tell in advance; perhaps "scanography" could pass as an alternative process BTW - worth to discuss at least...

I'm pretty sure the correct term wouild be "scanotype".

 

[stradibarrius]

The reason I placed the original post in the "hybrid" section was keep peace in the B&W section. I would have never thought to put the question in presentation and marketing.
Part of the question was about using PS to do simple things that could be done in a traditional darkroom. I didn't want to get the nasty grams about PS.
Many times when I look at my negatives on the light box they look so much better than the scan.
I love this forum and of all the photographic forums I go to this is the one where I go for opinions I trust.

 

[Vaughn]

Sometimes scanning the print is not the most advantageous method -- highly textuted papers are difficult. The texture can end up being over-emphised. Rephotographing the print digitally works better, but scanning the negative and manipulating the file to look like the print is a easier, and as accurate a representation as one could look for.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Scanning a 20x24" print has its challenges too...

The option of photographing the print with a digital camera remains, assuming one has a digital camera.

Vaughn, have you tried photographing the print with a digital camera? If yes, does that help with the texture?

- Thomas

Sometimes scanning the print is not the most advantageous method -- highly textuted papers are difficult. The texture can end up being over-emphised. Rephotographing the print digitally works better, but scanning the negative and manipulating the file to look like the print is a easier, and as accurate a representation as one could look for.

 

[Monophoto]

In my view, this is not a matter of ethics so much as it as matter of artistic judgment.

I can and often do manipulate images during the course of printing in my darkroom. Cropping, changes in contrast, local burning or dodging, spotting, even bleaching are fully acceptable tools to create a final print. And I don't have any problem doing the digital equivalent of any of those things when working with a digital file.

For the last few years, I've been the editor of an international technical journal that regularly publishes pictures from various technical conferences. These images are published to tell a story about some event. Often, the images are produced by amateurs whose photographic competence is far short of the average APUG member, so the quality is not always high. I don't have any problem with manipulating the digital files of those images to make them sharper, to crop them to better tell the intended story, and generally more publishable. I routinely clone out distracting highlights (I can't think of anything more distracting that a lighted wall sconce growing out of the left ear of an award recipient at a banquet), and I have no ethical qualms about editing 'grip and grin' type images to remove individuals (recognizable or not) who aren't actually a part of the story that the image is there to tell.

Where I do have a problem is where technology (whether it is digital or analog matters not) is used to create an image of something that actually didn't happen. Some of the more offensive images include a mountain landscape with a steam locomotive coming around a corner - supposedly from a place where there actually was no railroad. Yes, the image was pictorially nice - but it was a fabrication of something that was not real.

Years ago, shortly after the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, a friend showed a print of a ski jumper coming off the end of the high jump at Mt Van Hoevenburg. And behind the jumper was a series of shadow jumpers, all lined up in a neat arc, suggesting that a number of jumpers had come down the jump together. In point of fact, the print was made by abstracting an image of the jumper using litho film, and then printing multiple images of the same jumper on the same print. Graphically neat, and clearly demonstrating great printing skill, but the final image was a total fabrication. It created an impression in the mind of the viewer that something had happened that existing only in the darkroom and the creative mind of the printer.

I find that kind of photography to be objectionable, regardless of whether it is done digitally or in a chemical darkroom.

 

[dehk]

As many people said before, your scan should look like what you'd print out in a darkroom. What if someone wants to buy a print, i am not gonna show them something that can't be done, thats shooting myself in the foot.

 

[stradibarrius]

My question and the use of the word "ethics" only applies for this forum and making an effort to participate with in the guidelines of the froum. If I want to shoot digital and really work it hard in PhotoShop or scan my film and do the same it is my choice and my decision as the photographer. My question only applies to this forum.

 

[bblhed]

When I scan a negative I "over-scan" so that I am scanning the image plus some extra then I crop the ragged edges off of the positive at the correct camera ratio later to get a clean image. I will also freely admit that I will crop to paper size when I print, but I select the crop area. I straighten prints as well some times.

Yup, there all tricks, but there all tricks that can be done in the darkroom as well so I don't feel that guilty.

 

[MaximusM3]

Well, looking at this from Rolfe Horn, for example, how would one handle it in a perfect world? Dead Link Removed - under the "technique" tab, second picture from the left/top.
Hard to tell from these small jpgs but the original negative looks like is totally blown out in the highlights, and I find it hard to tell that there is any information there and certainly not enough (again, that I can discern from here and I could certainly be 100% wrong) to get such a dramatic print. So, if one was to simply scan that negative, it would be utter crap because there is no way (unless with extensive Photoshop use and some creative cloning), one could get a print like the end result to the right. But, in this case, because it is done in analogue-world, it would be ethically correct to scan that print and say that it faithfully represents the negative? Just food for thought and nothing else.

 

[BetterSense]

Where I do have a problem is where technology (whether it is digital or analog matters not) is used to create an image of something that actually didn't happen. Some of the more offensive images include a mountain landscape with a steam locomotive coming around a corner - supposedly from a place where there actually was no railroad. Yes, the image was pictorially nice - but it was a fabrication of something that was not real.

Do you feel the same way about painting? Why or why not?

If not, why is photography different that painting? Why is digital art different than painting?

 

[Maris]

Oh, how I wish that people who scan negatives would show me what they scanned: a picture of the negative itself! After a few decades of darkroom work and maybe 30,000 negatives I reckon I can visualise all the possible positives any negative could yield. Plus I bet the membership of APUG includes several thousand people with similar or greater experience.

Remember, when Ansel Adams when to Paul Strand to look at photographs Strand had only negatives on hand. It was looking at those grand and perfect negatives that swerved Adams from the concert piano to his wonderful success in photography.

 

[Les Sarile]

When scanning slides, you definitely have a reference point however negatives require a whole lot of interpretation and that includes the scanner, scanning software and settings itself.

For instance below is a scan of the same frame of Portra 160VC film with the Coolscan 5000 using the various settings in Vuescan and the included Portra 160VC profile as opposed to a full "neutral" setting using Nikonscan.

Here's Kodak Ektar between the Coolscan and V700.

Fuji 100 between Coolscan and Noritsu minilab

Kodak 160VC2 using Coolscan and Frontier minilab.

Having owned and operated quite a few scanners using native or third party software, this starting point is subject to a lot of interpretation depending on hardware and software used.

BTW, the scans from the Coolscan+Nikonscan are all neutral using only orientation, auto focus/expose and ICE (dust and scratch removal) with all color controls off or neutral.

 

[Sirius Glass]

So far when I post a negative scan, if it is related to a technical question, I only turn it into a positive and rarely if ever lighten or darken. If I do more than change it to a positive I so state. If the photograph is posted to discuss something other than the technical processing, I may do slightly more than turn it into a positive. General photo postings are not works of art [reduced size and resolution] and are there to make a point.

I have not posted anything in the Gallery. When I do, it will be from a wet processed print.

Steve

 

[Vaughn]

Scanning a 20x24" print has its challenges too...

The option of photographing the print with a digital camera remains, assuming one has a digital camera.

Vaughn, have you tried photographing the print with a digital camera? If yes, does that help with the texture?

- Thomas

Yes, but I have access to a rather low-end digital cameras -- nothing fancy. A relatively old Panasonic 8 MP camera. A little heavy in the noise area. I have photographed a friend's watercolors and bash my head against the wall trying to match the monitor with the original. She uses the files to make cards to sell. I play with the lights a bit to avoid over-stating the texture of the paper. Not any different from what I did using 64T.

I can scan (flatbed) an 8x10 platinum/palladium print, but if has large areas of even tonality, it seems like the paper texture creates its own "noise". But the quality to post here is more than sufficient. But it only works because I have such a small camera!

I suppose the cool way to do it would be to rephotograph the bigger pieces with 120 film -- then scan the 120 film for use for any web stuff, small prints, record-keeping, etc.. B&W negative film for the B&W work, and transparencies for the color, I suppose. An analog back-up library, so to speak, for those with larger film/print sizes.

 

[MaximusM3]

So far when I post a negative scan, if it is related to a technical question, I only turn it into a positive and rarely if ever lighten or darken. If I do more than change it to a positive I so state. If the photograph is posted to discuss something other than the technical processing, I may do slightly more than turn it into a positive. General photo postings are not works of art [reduced size and resolution] and are there to make a point.

I have not posted anything in the Gallery. When I do, it will be from a wet processed print.

Steve

Steve,

That is a perfectly acceptable decision/choice but, from an ethic standpoint, as outlined in my previous post about Rolfe Horn's print, I would love someone's take on: why would it be more acceptable to present a scan of a wet print that does not remotely look like the original negative instead of a negative scan that has been very minimally processed and shows its flaws, limitations, and the fact that one totally botched exposure/development?
It sounds to me that a crappy negative that has been turned into gold (or fool's gold) by a fully analogue process is totally acceptable, whereas a perfect negative that has been scanned and minimally adjusted to represent a final print with some dodging, burning, contrast, brightness represents an ethic dilemma. I can sense a double standard that raises valid questions, in my opinion.

Max

 

[removed account4]

i usually PS the film to look like
what i can do in the dark.
invert and barely adjust levels + dust + crop
i don't think i have ever sharpened anything but a pencil,
certainly not anything that is posted here ...

 

[Sirius Glass]

Steve,

That is a perfectly acceptable decision/choice but, from an ethic standpoint, as outlined in my previous post about Rolfe Horn's print, I would love someone's take on: why would it be more acceptable to present a scan of a wet print that does not remotely look like the original negative instead of a negative scan that has been very minimally processed and shows its flaws, limitations, and the fact that one totally botched exposure/development?
It sounds to me that a crappy negative that has been turned into gold (or fool's gold) by a fully analogue process is totally acceptable, whereas a perfect negative that has been scanned and minimally adjusted to represent a final print with some dodging, burning, contrast, brightness represents an ethic dilemma. I can sense a double standard that raises valid questions, in my opinion.

Max

My point is that with the photograph post what was done with the scan, examples:

negative scan that has been very minimally processed and shows its flaws, limitations, and the fact that one totally botched exposure/development

a perfect negative that has been scanned and minimally adjusted to represent a final print with some dodging, burning, contrast, brightness represents an ethic dilemma

​

That way there are no mysteries.

Steve

 

[MaximusM3]

My point is that with the photograph post what was done with the scan, examples:

negative scan that has been very minimally processed and shows its flaws, limitations, and the fact that one totally botched exposure/development

a perfect negative that has been scanned and minimally adjusted to represent a final print with some dodging, burning, contrast, brightness represents an ethic dilemma

​

That way there are no mysteries.

Steve

And that is fair enough Mr. Glass. Thank you!!

 

[ic-racer]

When you scan a negative to post, it, of course, will be a negative image. Any manipulation to emphasize the point in question is warranted.
If you are pretending to make it into a print by inverting it then that is not any different than pretending to make wet plate or platinum prints with photoshop.
If the digital scan is your finished product, then that isn't analog photography.

 

[2F/2F]

If I wanted to scan a neg to make a print, I would scan a neg and do whatever I want with it (though "what I want" would be in line with what I could print in a darkroom for 90% of my applications; it is just my personal aesthetic preference). If I wanted to represent a print, I'd scan the print.

I think "ethics" only come into play when you are telling people that the photo presented was exposed as seen by something that actually existed in front of your camera, but it is not. If you say that it is, then adding or removing elements from part of the final cropping of the image is unethical, IMHO.

In other words, if I did any of that sort of manipulation, I'd not claim that this was what was in front of my camera lens, and I personally would call it an illustration made using a blend of photographic and drawing/painting techniques, not just a plain-ol' "photograph," which to me implies - if it does not plainly state - "straightness." I'd do the same if the manipulations were done using analog methods. I am not sure if I would differentiate between analog and digital manipulation. Probably not.

 

[MaximusM3]

When you scan a negative to post, it, of course, will be a negative image. Any manipulation to emphasize the point in question is warranted.
If you are pretending to make it into a print by inverting it then that is not any different than pretending to make wet plate or platinum prints with photoshop.
If the digital scan is your finished product, then that isn't analog photography.

I guess you have a valid point and one which brings me to again re-evaluate the notion that anyone who does not have the resources, time, space, to establish a traditional darkroom workflow, should just stop shooting film, hang it up and call it a day...or go digital. Am I correct?
Maybe that's the problem and that's why film is a fringe. Can't have our cake and eat it too. I hear people complaining about dwindling sales of film and products being discontinued but then the purists keep on pooping on those who have a perfectly viable and honest hybrid workflow and who greatly contribute to film's staying power. There has to be some sort of compromise because I want to keep shooting film and I am not counting on us darkroom enthusiasts to keep the boat floating for ever.

 

[2F/2F]

I guess you have a valid point and one which brings me to again re-evaluate the notion that anyone who does not have the resources, time, space, to establish a traditional darkroom workflow, should just stop shooting film, hang it up and call it a day...or go digital. Am I correct?
Maybe that's the problem and that's why film is a fringe. Can't have our cake and eat it too. I hear people complaining about dwindling sales of film and products being discontinued but then the purists keep on pooping on those who have a perfectly viable and honest hybrid workflow and who greatly contribute to film's staying power. There has to be some sort of compromise because I want to keep shooting film and I am not counting on us darkroom enthusiasts to keep the boat floating for ever.

Why would you have to stop using film? Just call it what it is: a hybrid analog/digital method of imaging. There is no shame in it except in misrepresenting it.

Also, you must, in fact, have your cake in order to eat it...unless you're one-a them commies or sumthin'.

 

[MaximusM3]

Why would you have to stop using film? Just call it what it is: a hybrid analog/digital method of imaging. There is no shame in it except in misrepresenting it.

Also, you must, in fact, have your cake in order to eat it...unless you're one-a them commies or sumthin'.

Oh, absolutely! I call it as it is..no shame in that and nothing wrong with it whatsoever. I just think it is counterproductive to consider "100% analog or nothing" the only way to go and then expect film to survive.
As far as the cake, well, I guess it should be..keep the cake and eat it too?
Damn, I'm tired..got to hit the sack!

 

[FiatluX]

Exactly my method and mottot too. I scan all my negatives as an untouched negative using Silverfast software and HDRi.
Then I convert the file into 8-bit grayscale positive.
I rotate and crop as necessary.
I adjust tonality to make it look like a print would, to the best of my ability.
I dust spot.
I re-size.
I sharpen.

Thats more or less the same procedure that I use:
HDRi greyscale
Invert to positive
Rotation
Levels
Dust spotting
Smart sharpen with the "lens blur" setting
Dodge and burn.

 

[yeknom02]

My process:
- Scan the negative
- Invert to positive
- Remove dust (maybe)

I imagine that I may be in the minority on APUG in that I'm young and therefore started with digital photography. Now that I do negative scans, I still have to keep my goal in mind of having my images seen by as many people as are willing to view them - best done over the internet. Therefore, the negative is 99% of my art, because I only scan and post it for everyone to see.

I think any darkroom processes other than a straight print - for example, dodging and burning - are still "cheating" in a sense. Just more accepted because it's the way professionals like Ansel Adams (who I am beginning to admire more and more) did it, before computers and Photoshop. Photographers in the analogue age had opportunities to be artists both behind the camera and in the darkroom, whereas I only get to work with my camera.

Now, to clarify, I don't think my method is any more "pure" than printing; instead, I'm just at more of a disadvantage because I can't tweak different parts of the negative other than Photoshop manipulation. This is because I'd risk getting labeled as a hack because I can't do anything further without a computer.

All that being said, I'm now struggling to put together a darkroom to make silver prints, and I want to thank all the APUG-ers who have given me advice (or sold me stuff).