What would be a good workflow to Denoise a file made from a drumscan.
For an exposition i have to make 20 prints, the photo’s were made on a Hasselblad xPan 35mm camera using Kodak tri-X bwfilm. Drumscans will be made on a Howtek 7500 optical resolution 5000 dpi…The prints will become 40 x 15 inch…
I am printing on my Epson 9880, K7 Selenium inks( no HD photo black ) , linearized curve, JonCone studio type 5 paper.
What would be a good way to reduce a little bit the grain in the file/print? Just use PS denoise or a plugin (Noiseware ,Topaz Denoise, Neat Image…?) Would you apply any sharpening in combination with the denoting?
Do you have a favorite workflow? Any recommendations for the scanningproces?
The 7500 scanner is a big legendary for how much false noise it adds to scans. The first thing I would say is that they need to be re-scanned at a larger aperture (I know, that’s sounds counter intuitive but it’s true).
But if that is not a possibility, there are a lot of de-noise plugins around. I am fond of the veteran plugin “NoiseNinja” which is now called PhotoNinja. That in combination with a camera raw filter noise reduction tends to work well.
We have Tango and Howtek HR8000 (similar to the 7500) drum scanners in our studio. I have not used the 7500, but based on my experiences with the HR8000 they could scan with a larger aperture as Walker suggests.
If your 7500 scan operator uses Aztek DPL Professional, they could try making a custom CMS for the film type or for the individual negative. A custom CMS can help, especially if the negs are thin.
The Tango makes fantastic scans with smooth grain. However, the software version effects the Tango’s output. If I remember correctly, with Newcolor (Heidelberg software) the PC software has negative sharpening applied that you can’t disable. The Mac version we use allows you to turn off neg sharpening altogether, but it only runs on OS 10.2.8. One could use Silverfast to drive the Tango, but I haven’t used it enough to know if it handles noise and grain better than Newcolor.
If you end up having them rescanned, I’d ask the operator what software they used, and if they’re experienced in scanning neg film for this kind of printing, as opposed to something more commercial or transparency-based.