B&W Ilford HPS5 Plus + Plustek Scan, then PL4

DxO PhotoLab
102

I’ve learned more, but I am still stuck.

I have my original image, with my .dop file
I created a virtual copy, and made it yellow, an obvious change.
I can use the “compare” tool to slide back and forth to compare them.
So far, so good.

BUT

I have replaced my “.dop” file with the one that I downloaded from Wolfgang.
I assume his .dop file will contain the changes he made to my image.
I can’t find a way to open this image, using Wolfgang’s settings.

The good thing about all this is I’m learning more about how all this works, but I can’t find a way to tell PL4 to show me my image using Wolfgang’s edits. It’s probably staring me in my face, but I don’t know how to select what he has done, and compare with what I have done.

103

When you open the image, with Wolfgang’s DOP file in place, you should see a Master and two VCs in the thumbnails strip…

Capture d’écran 2021-09-24 à 16.13.38

The “M” is the basic version, the “1” is my version and the “2” is Wolfgang’s.

Simply select the “2” thumbnail to see what Wolfgang has done.

@Wolfgang I forgot to say, that is one amazing edit. I really like what you’ve done.

104

Before doing anything, I had my original image (labeled as M for master), and a virtual copy which I think was labeled as “1”.

I just downloaded Wolfgang’s .dop file again, and moved it to my scans folder, replacing the current .dop file.

I then open PL4, and I now see three thumbnails, M, 1, and 2.

Thank you, both of you. Now I am seeing things correctly.

I suspect I was making a very dumb mistake yesterday and last night. The only thing I’ve done differently now is to have shut down PL4 before replacing the .dop file, and then re-starting it.

(Once again, things always look better in the morning…) :slight_smile:

Oh, and of all the versions I have now seen on my own screen, my favorite is Wolfgang’s.

…and as long as I’m admitting to things I did wrong, until now, I was feeling annoyed by the grain. Following Wolfgang’s advice, and yours, the grain is no longer noticeable. As a B&W image, from Plus-X, I like this as a photograph. I think if I shot it with my digital M10 it would have a very different “feel”. Viewed at 100% size, instead of pixels I see grain.

(Most importantly, for me, is whether I’ll be able to learn from all this, and use what I’ve learned to create better images in the future…)

105

As a good friend of mine would say “Thars yer prawblem” :crazy_face:

Definitely.

Don’t be so sure. Take a look at this image from 2007 and tell me whether it was taken on film or digital.

106

Sorry to interject here but no, you;re not, I’m stuck.

:grin:

3 Likes
107

I don’t know what this image is, but I am 99% sure I know what it is NOT. Ain’t no way this came from a 35mm film camera. There is so much detail, I think it is likely from LF. It’s also to perfect to have come out of the camera (file or negative) like that. It looks like someone with the skill of Ansel Adams has adjusted it until it’s perfect. Worded differently, this is what I would like my 35mm film negatives to be able to do (but I don’t think I can ever get “there”). It has the “feel” (or what I think is the feel) of film, not digital. It’s also beautifully composed, but that’s not what we are talking about.

I think a Leica M10, in your hands, could accomplish this… but the on-screen image looks almost “too perfect”. Verticals are exactly vertical, even when my eye fools me into thinking they’re not. The end posts of the structure seem to be angled inwards at the bottom, but when I check, they are perfectly vertical. You would’ve needed a lot of precision in setting up the M10.

To answer your question, it “feels” like film, but it has the detailed perfection of digital, as I look at it. If I was more used to LF, I’d probably say that’s what kind of camera made it, on film. I don’t think it was 4x5 or larger - maybe 2 1/4 x 2 1/4?

Also, the “darkest part” of the structure appears to me to be darker than the darkest part of anything else in the photo, almost so much as to look “un-natural” to me. It is almost “too perfect”. :slight_smile:

I can easily picture you standing behind a camera on a tripod, with the large black cloth covering you and the camera. And even then, the processing is too good to have just “happened”. I think you saw this in your mind, and made the image appear the way you had imagined.

(Hmm, maybe I should post this in that thread, not here…?)

108

Follow-up on this discussion.

One year ago, PL4 looked like it had a zillion tools, and I had no idea which was which. From the advice here, I now know a lot more about them, including which to use most, and which to be cautious of. So, I’ve taken my “Right Dock” and re-ordered things in the order in which I seem to be using them.

1 - Crop - as that’s the first thing I usually do.
2 - Exposure Compensation
3 - Denoising (as I almost always turn this on to HQ if I don’t forget to do so)
4 - Tone Curve
5 - Selective Tone
6 - Contrast
7 - Instant Watermarking (usually the last thing I do)
8 - Local Adjustments
9 - Perspective
Everything else follows.

No big deal I guess, but it simplifies “hunting” for things.

My “Left Dock” is just the way it came in the “All-in-DPL4” Workspace I downloaded.
(I renamed it “BW-neg-mike3”, which will be saved now as BW-neg-mike4.)

I guess it will likely change once I go back to working with color images.

109

In fact, it’s a digital file from a Nikon D200, taken hand-held

Here’s a low-res export of the un-retouched file

_JNA0006_M_DxO
_JNA0006_M_DxO1536×1028 591 KB

How about this one?

T3904x2616-04447_1_DxO
T3904x2616-04447_1_DxO1229×1536 509 KB

Screenshot of crop at 100%

Capture d’écran 2021-09-24 à 18.49.32
Capture d’écran 2021-09-24 à 18.49.321221×1029 440 KB

110

Oops!!! Am I guilty of copyright infringement or something? :slight_smile:
Your (you’re) stuck is better than mine!!!
( Big Grin!!! )

111

Gee, when I look at that, I imagine a painting, not a photograph. The rear engine is as sharp as the first, while other things appear blurry. I don’t know enough about foreign (to me) locomotives, but this looked strange - until I saw your 100% screenshot. That looks like a photograph.

I am lost. It still looks to me more like film than digital, but all that smoke is so perfect, I dunno. If the rear engine and the farms in the background are so sharp, the cars in the middle of the train should appear more detailed. I know you’ll tell me I’m wrong, but it looks more like a painting, and certainly not a digital image… I see the trainmen looking out the windows… I’m lost.

112

It’s a photograph - I couldn’t draw a curved banana without a tee square and compasses.

Just controlled depth of field almost at hyperfocal distance.

Maybe I just over processed it. Here’s a version with less accentuation

T3904x2616-04447_2_DxO
T3904x2616-04447_2_DxO1229×1536 329 KB

100% crop

Capture d’écran 2021-09-24 à 19.38.47
Capture d’écran 2021-09-24 à 19.38.471221×1029 268 KB

1 Like
113

I just want to say how helpful this and similar threads are to relatively new users of PL. I’m not stuck now, though there have been times… :slight_smile:

PL is different to other image editors, rather quirky at times, and so good once you start to get the hang of it. Thank you to @Joanna and others for sharing your workflows and wisdom; and thank you to @mikemyers for being so open about your learning struggles and progress. I greatly appreciate it all!

114

I’m thankful that there are so many people in this forum who jumped in to try to teach me, and I’m also thankful that these discussions have helped others.

Every time I thought I “understood”, it just led to so many more things I had yet to understand.

I’m very stubborn, and I know my problems are “me”, not the software, but Joanna, Platypus, Wolfgang, and so many others have pushed me in the right direction.

I guess others (like you) have been following along, learning for yourself what so many people are teaching me.

I think they were maybe smiling at me, as if I was trying to use a micrometer as a glue clamp, but I really was that ignorant.

I used to watch videos and recorded webinars, but none of them went into as much detail as we have here. …and there’s that famous line “Anything is easy to do, once you know how to do it!!”

115

Yes, looking like this, it now looks like a photograph.
You mostly had me fooled, but I never considered “over processing”.

Maybe your goal was to get it to look the way it did, in which case it wasn’t over processed at all.

I prefer the way it looks now, as it “feels” real, even the freight cars in the middle of the train, which looked painted to me. Now they, and the tracks look and “feel” real.

…I wonder what other people think?

116

I’d go with a mix. Emphasize the structure of the front smoke and the gravel of the tracks in front of the head locomotive and leave the rest of the image untouched…

117

@Joanna – an old photo

T3904x2616-04447_3_DxO_Nik
T3904x2616-04447_3_DxO_Nik1229×1536 439 KB

:slight_smile:

118

Ah, but is it scanned from film or is it a digital original? :nerd_face:

119

must be from the pre-metadata era :slight_smile:

120

Nope. The same Nikon D200 as the Chatterly Whitfield Colliery shot, on the same day. Just processed differently using FilmPack :sunglasses:

I love PhotoLab. It means I can get all the look and feel of film without having the hassle of developing, scanning and de-spotting negatives. I can even add grunge to make it look less clinical and “digital” :grin:

121

I used to own and use a Nikon D200. My brother still shoots with one right now, although he mostly uses his newer Nikon Df.

By today’s standards, I don’t doubt that you can do what you suggest, making digital photo look like they were shot on film, but there is no way a digital camera, in this case with a small sensor, can replicate what you can do with your LF cameras with all the control they offer, and a huge negative size to capture data. Perhaps the new Leica M11 which will have 50 megapixels might come close, with Leica’s best lenses, which will likely sell for close to $20,000 for both.

If I ever start thinking of this as a “hassle”, I’ll probably put my film cameras away as an interesting experiment. For me, it has been fun. But as you say, it takes more time, more work, and certainly adds to the cost thanks to buying film and my paying for processing. I’ve been enjoying it so far.

When it comes to $$$, I’ve now got a $7,000 Leica M10 which I bought as an “open box sale” for a thousand less dollars. It seems like every time I look, Leica has a newer M camera, with the M11 right around the corner - it will be released on 11/11/2021 I believe. The Leica M9 was released on 9/9/2009. The M10 was delayed - so it did not come out on 10/10/2010. Anyway, were I to update, the selling price of the new M11 is likely to be far beyond $10,000, and the value of my previous Leica’s will take another drop. (…and I still own my Leica M8.2 camera, with a smaller CCD sensor).

For analog Leicas, I can spend $6,000 or so for the new M-A, or I can continue using my M3, M2, M6, or M-whatever. Many people who should know tell me my M3 is better than the very latest M film camera, which itself hasn’t been updated in a very long time. Why update? The new lenses are better in many ways, but many people prefer the “look” from the old lenses. As to the cameras, the M3 was hand built with all parts adjusted for a perfect fit. Ditto for the M2 which followed a few years later.

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/324825-lenses-for-leica-film-cameras/#comments

Anyway, if you, who have been at this for ages, were to really believe what you just wrote, do you think I am wasting my time by shooting film? (I doubt it, as you still shoot both film and digital.)