Re: scanning loooong negatives

Hi Marcy,

I've experimented with overlapping images on 120 film and I've run into the
same kind of problems as you.

My approach was to contact print the negatives on paper, to scan the print
in sections and to blend the scans into one another (through layering on
PhotoShop) so as to make the final image seamless.
Check the images at:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/guy.glorieux/pnhl27Ang.htm
http://www3.sympatico.ca/guy.glorieux/pnhl28Ang.htm
http://www3.sympatico.ca/guy.glorieux/pnhl29Ang.htm

The task was more complex when Tom and I talked about showing the image from
the Flying Pinhole Camera to a significant size (10 in. by 10 feet). In the
end, I took the negative to a specialized lab who made a two-part
high-resolution scan of the 36 in. color negative and blended the two parts
together into a 500MG file. The 10 feet image was printed from this file
with a tremendous amount of detail in all parts of the image.
A poor quality scan had been made initially through the
contact-print/scan/blend method and is shown at
http://www3.sympatico.ca/guy.glorieux/flyingpinhole.htm
http://www3.sympatico.ca/guy.glorieux/fp02.htm

In the end, my experience has been that the trick to get fairly decent
homemade loooong scans from either a positive or a negative is to make sure:
1. that all the automatic features of the scanner/scanware are turned off,
2. that there is no light leak in any part of your scanning system (I cover
my scanner with a black cloth when the material to be scanned exceeds the
dimensions of the plate), and
3. that there is lotttts of overlap to blend individual parts into the large
final image.

This said, if you need a really fine print for exhibition purposes, go the
extra bucks to get a service bureau to make the scan. It's not half as
expensive as it used to be and it's really worth it in terms of quality of
print!

Best,

Guy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcy Merrill" <marcy@merrillphoto.com>
To: <pinhole-discussion@spitbite.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 9:49 AM
Subject: [pinhole-discussion] scanning loooong negatives

> Okay you buncha geniuses, I poked through the archives and couldn't find
> anything about scanning long negatives. I've made a pinhole camera using
> an
> old Kodak movie can. www.merrillphoto.com/canorama.htm
> It's got 20 holes and uses 35mm film. So, there's one exposure on a piece
> of
> film that's about 2 feet long. I've got a scanner that'll scan negatives
> up to
> 5x7. So I can scan this negative in bits and paste it together. My problem
> is
> that each scan is slightly different and the end result shows where
> everything
> was pasted....AND it takes too darn long ... AND it doesn't look very
> good. Is
> there a better way? I suppose I could make a contact print and scan that
> and I
> might have a little bit better result. Thanks in advance! -Marcy
>
> www.JunkStoreCameras.com
> _______________________________________________
> Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML
> pinhole-discussion mailing list
> pinhole-discussion@spitbite.org
> FAQ at http://spitbite.org/pinhole-discussion/list.html
_______________________________________________
Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML
pinhole-discussion mailing list
pinhole-discussion@spitbite.org
FAQ at http://spitbite.org/pinhole-discussion/list.html
Received on Tue Mar 1 19:05:26 2005