Perhaps a silly question, but then again, the only silly or stupid question is the
one you don't ask.... This group seems to be fairly proficient in the technical
sides of both film scanning and film processing... The question.. would it not be
possible to use an E-6 process film as a neg film without the orange mask... It has
been many years since I processed transparency film, but if I recall, there are two
developers, one to develop the latent image, the other to effect the reversal... so
why not take it to the first developer stage... or maybe C-41 would work... I don't
know and don't have the tech books anymore to look it up... just a thought
Mike Moore
Gordon Tassi wrote:
> If I am not mistaken, there seems to be a drift on the part of manufacturers to
> provide film stock that will be usable for both digital and paper processing.
> Kodak Supra has been portrayed as such a film. Considering the capabilities of
> digital technology, it seems to me that the primary adjustments will be to
> minimize grain size and the ability of a scanner to neutralize the orange masks
> required for paper processes. As long as there is a film market, it seems that
> the prudent move for a manufacturer would be to optimize their films for both
> the film and digital markets for economic purposes (theirs and ours).
>
> Most of us have had to burn and dodge, adjust exposure time, and mess with color
> balance to achieve the results we wanted when developing prints. Unless we take
> the perfect photo that needs no tweaking or croping, we will have to adjust
> scans in the same ways. Maybe the scanner industry has to put more time and
> effort into optimizing the ability to scan film stock rather than expecting the
> film industry to adjust to the scanners.
>
> Gordon
>
> Laurie Solomon wrote:
>
> > There is no reason why said negative films could not be designed to be
> > optimized for digital uses only ... Now such a thing may very well be
> > impractical but it is not
> > impossible or illogical.
