a tale of two scanners

i've talked about alt scanning methods elsewhere but i wanted to do another side-by-side comparing an epson perfection v500-scanned b/w image and a window-scan of the same image. the scanned images were taken with the diana mini, using expired efke kb 400 and diafine developer. the jury is still out on window-scanned color images (i don't always love the blues that come as a result of inverting the image) but i love it for b/w images. in particular, i love the rich sepia tones it provides the images--after, of course, i've inverted the images in photoshop. because window-scanning involves taking macro photographs of the negative, it also allows for more freedom and variation in the way the negative is photographed--close-up, at an angle or on a bend, etc.--and whether it's over- or under-exposed.

on inverted (or inverting) images

Ctrl+I in photoshop will invert an image. Here, I've put together some before and afters. The first image (above) is the color negative as photographed with the digital camera, the one below that is the image after inverting it in photoshop. With the bottom pairings, I grayscaled the photographed negative and then inverted it.

alt scanning--a comparision

the image to the left was scanned in the "normal" way--with my epson perfection v500 scanner. the middle image was window scanned with crumpled wax paper beneath it. the image to the right was scanned using the viewlex previewer jr. the original tree image was taken with a banner camera--a diana clone. i really like the way the b/w images window scan--in nice, rich sepia tones.

alternative scanning (part 2)

As ever, flickr has been the most amazing learning tool. I saw this image posted by a contact and wanted to learn more about how it was created. As an aside: My general method when using flickr as a learning tool is to seek out images that appeal to me and learn how the composer made them--most times this has to do with finding out what type of camera, film or processing technique they used and if I can afford the camera, film or stuff for processing, I'll give it a shot. 200+ cameras later, I was happy to find something to experiment with that allowed me to repurpose or remediate the negatives I had on hand. And that gave me reason to use craft supplies that I'd normally never have occasion to use. Following these directions and after looking at the most amazing collection of scanned negatives I've ever seen, I rigged up my own lo-tech scanner (my kitchen window) and starting experimenting with different textures--pages of my manuscript, crinkled wax paper, bubble wrap, textured craft paper, pieces of a plastic milk carton. The general method involves taping a texture to the window, placing the negative over that, and taking a macro shot of the negative and then inverting the negative in photoshop.

Since I was almost finished with my book manuscript at the time I learned about this technique, I decided to pull out some old vacation negatives and place those atop pages of the manuscript. I then started experimenting with different materials place below and on top of the negatives--there's a sampling below and still more here.

alternative scanning (part 1)

I picked up this viewflex previewer jr in an antique store in maine last fall. you can feed strips of 35mm negatives through the top (or bottom) of the mechanism and view each of the images before printing or, in my case, scanning. using my canon powershot s5's macro setting, i can take images of what appears on the screen and invert those images in photoshop. inverted "as is" results in a very blue image (see below), so i flipped them to grayscale in photoshop.