Janet Delaney, “South of Market Survey Project, 1980-83″

Brad — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:20:39 +0000

These images were part of Janet Delaney’s recent exhibition at Google’s San Francisco headquarters. The original 4″ x 5″ color negatives were drum scanned to create the best possible starting point for a exhibition-quality print. Due to the age of the film, we made the scans large enough to permit printing at 50″ x 60″ inches in the future without the need to scan the negative again. This is known as “scan once, purpose many” approach to scanning and printing.

Negatives and original development notes for "Pat serving coffee in the Budget Hotel (now the Good Hotel), 7th & Mission St. l980", and Moscone Center under construction, 1980".

Color negative for “FLAG MAKERS: a back alley sign near Howard and 3rd Street. l982″, mounted on drum for scanning. The Howtek Hi-Resolve 8000 drum scanner uses a specialized software package (Aztek Digital Photolab Professional aka DPL) that excels at scanning color negative film. This negative was pretty thin and previous attempts at scanning it (performed by another scanning lab using a Heidelberg Primescan drum scanner) didn’t quite pull out all the information that the Howtek + DPL did.

"FLAG MAKERS: a back alley sign near Howard and 3rd Street. l982", fluid mounted on the drum and ready to scan.

The original negative for “Moscone Center under Construction, 1980″ was damaged during the original processing – there is a light band in the upper left corner. Prior to Photoshop there was no way repair the damage except cropping the image. We repaired the corner to make the image look the way it should have without the processing damage.

"Moscone Center under construction, 1980" with processing damage in upper left corner.

"Moscone Center under Construction, 1980", shown after damage from the original C-41 processing was repaired in Photoshop

Janet owns an Epson 7900 printer, which allows her to produce archival pigment prints up to 24″ wide in her own studio, using her own inks and media. After the scans were done, we collaborated together for on-site printing session in Janet’s studio to produce the prints.

Printing with the Epson 7900 and Exhibition Fiber paper

Janet had some of her vintage chromagenic prints (c-prints) on hand to compare with the new prints. Epson Exhibition Fiber was Janet’s paper of choice for the new prints.

Proofing (making small test prints) is a critical part of printmaking. It allows you to see how the image looks on your chosen paper, and dial in fine adjustments to make your prints really sing. Even with a properly calibrated and profiled monitor and tight color management practices, proofing helps you get the last little bit of quality expressed in your prints.

The small 8" x 10" test print in the upper left allowed us to preview changes before printing the final 20" x 26" print.

The final print of “Pat serving coffee in the Budget Hotel (now the Good Hotel), 7th & Mission St. l980″, printed at 22″ x 28″ on Epson Exhibition Fiber paper. See the entire portfolio here.

Final print of "Pat serving coffee in the Budget Hotel (now the Good Hotel), 7th & Mission St. l980".

All about Drum Scanning

Brad — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:04:15 +0000

After operating many different types of scanners (Heidelberg Tango and Primescan drum, CCD scanners from Imacon and Nikon Coolscans) since 2005, the Howtek Hi-Resolve is the one we chose to invest in. Why?

Great scans, regardless of whether its negative or transparency film: The Howtek Hi-Resolve handles color (and black-and-white) negatives with ease. We use the latest version of Digital PhotoLab (the software required to drive the scanner) which delivers excellent results from color negatives (and transparencies too)! With other scanners, color negatives have traditionally been difficult to scan as the scanner software was designed for transparency film. The Howtek scanner and DPL software creates great files with excellent color balance and smoothness with all film types.
Up to 8000dpi resolution: It has higher resolution than popular Imacon scanners (Imacons are limited to 3200dpi for 120 film and 2400dpi for 4″ x 5″), Nikon (4000dpi) and other flatbeds, to get every ounce of detail out of your film.
Unparalleled sharpness: Film is wet-mounted for maximum clarity and held absolutely flat against the drum when scanning, for perfect edge-to-edge sharpness.
Better highlight and shadow detail: If your film recorded it, the scanner will get it. Clean shadows, clean highlights, with a minimum of noise and artifacts.
No scanner flare: Scanner flare happens to CCD scanners (Imacon and Nikon) when the scanner encounters a transition between a very bright area (light skies, for example) and the film holder (black). The flare bleeds into the image and creates a dark band across the top of your scan. The Howtek drum scanner doesn’t suffer from scanner flare!
Variable apertures for the best grain: Many scanners have a fixed aperture lens and can exaggerate grain in some films, especially when scanning at very high resolutions. The Howtek has user-selectable apertures for the best results based on the film type. This allows the utmost control in scanning and obtains better grain rendition, with optimal results for each emulsion.
Film borders or irregularly shaped film: Imacon and flatbed scanners usually cut off some (or all) of your film borders or rebate as the film holders obscure the edges of your film. Drum scanners don’t suffer from this issue; you can scan the entire image plus film borders, sprocket holes, overlapping Holga frames, an entire strip of film even!

Coming up in a future post will be a detailed comparison of scans made on different drum, flatbed, and Imacon scanners you can see the results for yourself.

Candela Fine Art Printing

Janet Delaney, “South of Market Survey Project, 1980-83″

All about Drum Scanning