Re: filmscanners: Film qualiy from digital files

["Michael Wilkinson" <michael@infocus-photography.co.uk>]

Tony,
         Bottom line is how good are the scans?
Went we went digital we started with a scanner and a film writer. CD
recorders were not then the consumer items they are now.
All our output was to 5x4 tranny.
Id shoot a job ,scan and Photoshop it then write to film and supply the
clients with 5x4 trannies.
I never  ever had an adverse comment re quality,in fact I was often
asked how Id managed to achieve certain affects and how did I manage to
get the "multiple exposure" shots to look so right.
Inevitably the trannies then went of to be scanned and then
printed,everyone was happy.
Fact is the Graphic designers really haven't a clue as to what is good
and what isn't,if the colours look good the composition ok and it looks
sharp to the naked eye when held up to the window,it would do .
I used to shoot a lot of location stuff on 35mm tranny and write it to
5x4 and charge accordingly.
If you mail me your address Ill send you a sample 5x4" from a 35mm
original
To answer your question precisely , very little,if at all
My  film recorder writes 1667 pixels of each colour R+G+B to the inch
and gives a grain like structure.
If your image has a lot of variations in tone and a lot of fine detail
and has the unsharp mask applied until its just visible on screen you
will get a suprisingly sharp tranny or neg without the usm being
visible.
Bear in mind also that a full 5x4" image is around 144 MB so if you can
scan your original to that size you are going to lose nothing ,if your
file is smaller the filmwriters software will resample and resize to fit
the film.
A 6x9cm image is 75mb and a 35mm  a miserly 12mb.
If you take a 35mm scan and output back to 35mm you are going to lose
detail as the maximum the recorder can write is 12 mb,conversely it can
write all the information to a larger format.
Ive made negs from files as small as 480x680 pixels but cant recommend
that as a great idea but a 5 mb file will produce a neg that will print
well up to A4 again slightly soft but the softness brings with it a
smoothness in the image which, if they were B+W ,would be reminiscent of
the FP2 andFP3 era
Sorry to be so long winded I just thought Id make it reasonably detailed
to save any follow on questions
So endeth today's lesson
Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ
  michael@infocus-photography.co.uk      www.infocus-photography.co.uk
For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files    01952 618986
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Sleep" <TonySleep@halftone.co.uk>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
:
: How severe are the losses when writing what was a critically sharp
35mm on
: ISO100 colour neg out to 5x4? The issue is hypercritical art eds, who
like 35mm
: to look as close as possible to 6x6, on a full bleed cover.