Sharpening Digital Negatives

[Ben Altman]

Hi Everyone,

How does sharpening affect digital negs for alt processes? I'm wondering if, when printed, it just gets lost in the paper texture, or if one should use a bigger radius or amount than for, say, an inkjet print. Has anyone tested this? I'm currently printing Pt/Pd on Artistico Extra White.

Thanks!

Ben

 

[sanking]

Hi Everyone,

How does sharpening affect digital negs for alt processes? I'm wondering if, when printed, it just gets lost in the paper texture, or if one should use a bigger radius or amount than for, say, an inkjet print. Has anyone tested this? I'm currently printing Pt/Pd on Artistico Extra White.

Thanks!

Ben

OK, I am not expert on this, but since no one else replied, here goes. If the sharpening just adds a bit of noise it will probably get lost in the paper texture. However, if over-done the sharpened look can look as bad as when printing on inkjet papers.

I work mostly with LF and ULF negatives and tend to sharpen just enough to make up for the loss of sharpness in converting analog to digital. And maybe just a tad more. But I learned very early on that ove-sharpening is a solution much worse than the illness.

Sandy

 

[Ben Altman]

Thanks, Sandy. I'm out of time for a while now, but in the next round I'll do some experiments. I'm guessing that appropriate sharpening is going to be different for each paper surface as well as the normal variables of subject matter etc. that one worries about with a straight digital print. I'm drum scanning LF, so the scans are pretty crisp to begin with.

Ben