>From: Donald Shedrick <shedridc@xxxxxxxxx>
>
>Does what you
>call a good digital camera equal (or exceed) film in dynamic range -
>highlight and shadow detail.
Not really. In raw mode, some digicams will give you 10 bits -- essentially 10
stops. Drum scanned Velvia will yield 36db of dynamic range -- about 14 stops.
Even an inexpensive film scanner should give you about 12 stops, wheras an
inexpensive digicam will only give you 8 stops.
>a ring with bright
>reflections on the hand of a woman is washed out in its detail on the
>scan (as viewed on the monitor and the Fuji print, but on the print
>directly from the film (Portra 160) all the detail on the ring is
>clear...
I'd say something is wrong with your workflow. There's no reason you shouldn't
be able to preserve such detail.
I'd look at the quality of the scan first. Did you use some sort of "auto
adjust" function in the scanning software? They often clip as much as 0.10f
highlights and shadows.
For your most critical work, DO NOT use "auto levels" or similar buttons!
Rather, take it into Photoshop and normalize the histogram in Levels, then
touch up contrast using Curves. For real tricky stuff, I make a contrast mask.
(Three keystrokes on a computer to do what used to take me three hours in a
darkroom! :-) You should be able to preserve high-key details that way.
--
: Jan Steinman -- nature Transography(TM): <http://www.Bytesmiths.com>
: Bytesmiths -- artists' services: <http://www.Bytesmiths.com/Services>
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