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I have +100 122 film negatives that my Dad took in the 1920s and maybe 1930s. I built my own light table and have a Nikon D7000 mounted such that I am shooting them slightly oven the negative size. They have a washed out appearance and are yellow and somewhat blotchy after I'm done editing. They are blue from the camera as the film is orange/yellow base. I'd like them to be more correct B&W and the file size is larger than the original. I'm running the current Windows version 2.10.22 on a multi-core Xeon workstation with 10 Pro and an uncalibrated Dell 3011 photo editing monitor but it closely matches reference prints and when I print photos on my Epson ET-4750 they match the real world . My process is:
first prompt is the color profile - I've tried both convert and keep - no obvious difference - I stick with keep
image - transform - rotate if needed
image - transform - arbitrary rotation to get it exactly straight
crop tool - just slightly trim the border and then double-click
colors - auto - white balance
colors - invert
export as a JPG
Thoughts on how to fix the color issue? Also the export .jpg file is from a 11 MB when the input is 8 MB - not being a photog I thought it would actually be smaller - as expected?
I'd attached before and after files but I'm getting POST errors. Note that I can dim the LEDs in my light box if that would help.
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Are these color negative or B&W? For B&W you should not use color balance (auto or else), but Colors>Desaturate>Desaturate to make them truly B&W. A more advanced technique is to use the Colors>Desaturate>Mono mixer to favour specific color channels (films of that erase where mostly sensitive to red (so blue skies appear black)). And keep in mind than once you have a channel mix setting that works you can save it and reuse it later.
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They are B&W 122 film negs. The oldest I've found so far is 1919 per handwritten date. The "monomixer" seems to give good results with no hue. The pics are also only 1/3 the size of "my way" - 3 MB vs. 9 MB. They are "COLD" with no hint of color both on screen and printed. Since I wasn't around before WW2 I'm assuming B&W negs printer B&W - good assumption.
I'll likely go with the monomixer. Will send a few samples to family members for review.
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My cousin did a careful evaluation of my process vs. monomixer solution. He's a retired AV expert and noticed that my process has more detail in the image. I confirmed this by both monitor review and print output/loupe review. "My way" does have splotches especially in the sky. I like the monomixer but want the detail. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Need to decide before I do 100s.
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What sort of images are you getting out of the D7000? JPGs or RAW? and if RAW, what are you using to process them?
What are you importing into GIMP? JPGs? If so you've already thrown away some potential detail.
What Image Precision are you working in? (menu Image>>Precision) If you're still in the default 8 bit mode, then your processing is throwing away more tonal detail.
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I'm doing JPG format and then doing a straight open with Gimp. Since I actually have a folder with the unedited stashed away I just save them back with the same file name - but that seems to be identical to an export. The precision is 8 bit integer and I've never changed that. There are about 290 images to process. Funny - they were all in envelopes that are from Midway Creamery in St. Paul and have a printed caption of UNITED STATES RATION BOOKS.
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02-23-2021, 08:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-23-2021, 08:30 PM by oldserverguy.)
After my hand hurt each day after doing editing I thought I have to find a better way to edit without paying the "man". Found the portable (or install) MOUSECONTROLLER on my favorite SourceForge. Set F9 as the start & stop record button and F8 as the play button (don't use F10). By carefully clicking each menu choice I then was able to automate everything after cropping through the prompt to open another file. Hand feels good, don't miss any steps, and I save time. One special note - I'm running it in full screen so the menu items are in the same X,Y coordinates every time I start GIMP.
