It sounds like you've optimized this process, and I'm sure your results will be more than acceptable. Thje only thing I might suggest is using a good evenly lit light box for illumination. That being said, a high quality film scanner will undoubtedly do a better job, and I doubt that you'd spend any more time at it. The setup here has to be quite time consuming. -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Jos from Holland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Dear Group, > I have lot of film material (negatives and slides) that I want to > convert to digital. > I have a good Minolta film scanner, at that time I paid more for it than > a K20D costs :-). It delivers good quality but it takes far to much time > to be used on larger quantities of pictures........... > So I want to work out a faster method using my K10D. > July PUG gave a last push, because that black and white negative had to > be digitized. > I worked out the following, remarks, questions and suggestions are most > welcome! > _ > The hardware_ > Aim is to get a 1:1 image of the slide (36x24) on the sensor of my K10D > (approx 24x18) > I would like to use my SMC-M 100/4 macro or my SMC-M 50/1.7 because they > are mechanically compatible with my Pentax slide copier. > autobellows M with slide copier does not work: lens cannot come close > enough to the body. > I made a metal bracket to connect the slide copier directly to the body. > 1:1 can be reached with SMC-M 50/1.7 with 20+12mm macro rings from PANAGOR > Aperture of lens set to 11 as compromise for sharpnees / depth of field > to allow some unflatness of the film and to allow for some misalignment > of slide copier, lens and body. > ISO 100 for best noise performance. > Using flash light from behind the slide copier, Adjusting flash power > and / or flash distance to get the histogram more or less in the middle. > Contrast of negative film is low, so exposure is not really critical > This set op allows quick reproduction > > Now the Software part. > The image contrast on negative film is low and has to be increased a lot > in the processing. > Unfortunately the K10D does not have a setting for negative film > copying. That would be nice if the contrast range could be adjusted to > cover the full range of the AD converter, than 8 bits could be enough. > We donot have that, so we must use RAW to get more bits. In the > processing the higher number of bits has to be maintained till the > contrast expansion is done. > > For the image processing I use Photoshop Elements 6.0 with the free > downloadable plug-in "SmartCurve" this plug-in is very powerfull and > increases the value of PSE a lot for me. > > After importing the file in PSE, do not forget to tick the 16bit square > (remember 8 bit is not enough for negative film) > rotate the picture 1 or 2 degrees if needed > crop the picture > convert to black and white by selecting "gray tones" > Select filter "smartcurve" this curve allows to invert the negative to > positive (vertical flip of the curve), to choose the white level and the > black level (expand contrast to best possible value) and fine tune > gamma (mid gray) if needed > Now convert the immage to 720pixels voor longest side (PUG requirement) > Adjust sharpness for best compromise at normal viewing distance (take > care more sharpness can result in more visibility of film grain!) > Go back to 8 bits to be able to save as jpeg > Save as Jpeg while selecting maximum quality level with file size below > 256kb (PUG requirement) and file name with max 8 characters (PUG > requirement) > > This worked for me. Suggestions for quality or speed improvements are > most welcome > :-) > Jos > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions.
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