Developing film for scanning
Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2019 6:04 am
Hello!
I am new to this forum and just learning it's customs, so if my question is not appropriate for this forum please let me know.
I took my first darkroom course in 1971 but with the time demands of family and career gave up on wet darkroom work in the 90's when I first switched to shooting transparencies and scanning them, using Photoshop for image adjustments and then printing digitally. Later I switched to digital cameras. A few years ago I was looking at some of the wonderful old cameras I had kept in my cabinet--they are mechanical marvels, like swiss watches, that are a pleasure to shoot. I decided I wanted to start using them again by shooting BW film, developing it myself, and then scanning it with the goal of digital printing. Along the way I became intrigued by the history of BW films and film development and by the nearly infinite possibilities it offers. I live near a major university and have access to its libraries which have a large collection of books on these topics going back over a century as well as access to journals--so I have enjoyed going down this rabbit hole. Yesterday I received my copy of the second edition of the Film Developing Cookbook and spent several hours reading it last night and this morning with pleasure.
Most of the material I read about BW film development, including The Film Development Cookbook, assumes the goal is wet printing with an enlarger and states the goal should be something like "so that it prints well on Grade 3 paper". As I have a hybrid workflow my goal is to develop my film so that the negative is optimized for capturing the most information when scanning (or lately, with DSLR based scanning). What I have surmised up until now is that I should choose a film that captures a wide tonal range (I shoot 35mm and 120 film and lately have been shooting mainly HP5+), and develop with the aim of producing a relatively "flat" negative which will produce a scan that captures the full tonal range that can then have contrast adjusted to taste in software. To that end I have read that I should both overexpose and under-develop by 10-15%.
I would greatly appreciate any advice or direction this group may have for me regarding technique as well as developer choice given my workflow. I presently have he following developers on hand, though I am open to all suggestions: Xtol, Clayton F76+, 510 Pyro, and was recently given a bottle of Ilford D-DX.
Thanks!
Steve Rosenblum
I am new to this forum and just learning it's customs, so if my question is not appropriate for this forum please let me know.
I took my first darkroom course in 1971 but with the time demands of family and career gave up on wet darkroom work in the 90's when I first switched to shooting transparencies and scanning them, using Photoshop for image adjustments and then printing digitally. Later I switched to digital cameras. A few years ago I was looking at some of the wonderful old cameras I had kept in my cabinet--they are mechanical marvels, like swiss watches, that are a pleasure to shoot. I decided I wanted to start using them again by shooting BW film, developing it myself, and then scanning it with the goal of digital printing. Along the way I became intrigued by the history of BW films and film development and by the nearly infinite possibilities it offers. I live near a major university and have access to its libraries which have a large collection of books on these topics going back over a century as well as access to journals--so I have enjoyed going down this rabbit hole. Yesterday I received my copy of the second edition of the Film Developing Cookbook and spent several hours reading it last night and this morning with pleasure.
Most of the material I read about BW film development, including The Film Development Cookbook, assumes the goal is wet printing with an enlarger and states the goal should be something like "so that it prints well on Grade 3 paper". As I have a hybrid workflow my goal is to develop my film so that the negative is optimized for capturing the most information when scanning (or lately, with DSLR based scanning). What I have surmised up until now is that I should choose a film that captures a wide tonal range (I shoot 35mm and 120 film and lately have been shooting mainly HP5+), and develop with the aim of producing a relatively "flat" negative which will produce a scan that captures the full tonal range that can then have contrast adjusted to taste in software. To that end I have read that I should both overexpose and under-develop by 10-15%.
I would greatly appreciate any advice or direction this group may have for me regarding technique as well as developer choice given my workflow. I presently have he following developers on hand, though I am open to all suggestions: Xtol, Clayton F76+, 510 Pyro, and was recently given a bottle of Ilford D-DX.
Thanks!
Steve Rosenblum