From The Files

I am working on a book on photography, at the request of the publisher, no less, covering the creative aspects of the art. To go along with the introduction to the book I thought I'd look out some old images. I have an Epson 4870 flatbed scanner which has done a great job on my medium format negatives but fully expected to have to purchase, borrow or get scanned on a dedicated film scanner my 35 mm. negatives.

Still, nothing lost by trying the flatbed and you see the results above. I shot this image in 1967 on a trip to Britain with my parents, at the Park of Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill.I wasn't very good but sometimes I'd see something special. The image isn't super crisp, being hand held at a low shutter speed, but the image itself is so nice I at least am prepared to overlook that.

I was amazed both at how well the scanner did - retrieving all the detail that wet prints ever made and a bit more besides. The contrast range is huge because although photographed on a rainy afternoon, the shadowed area of the tree is in dark forest.

Digitally I have now made a better print than any I'd been able to make in the wet darkroom days including after I finally became a good printer.

I did try using 'Digital Ice' to remove any marks on the film but it was a disaster, radically altering the image - so I rescanned with no sharpening, no masking, no dust removal and did it by hand, which didn't take all that long. I have to say that for all the fuss made over the years, my negatives of 40 years ago kept in plastic binders in glassine holders have survived very well thank you and frankly are a lot cleaner than the images stored in so called archival plastic sleeves (which I suspect encourage static).

Dust is removed with a combination of the clone stamp tool and healing brush in Photoshop - the latter for small round dust spots and the occasional hair in even aeas, the clone tool for better control in areas of changing brightness.

I have made one change to the image - I had never liked that the fishermen were partially hidden by the tips of some branches so I elected to remove them in Photoshop. Idally I'd have noticed this when I took the picture but there's no guarantee I could have done anything about it since moving to the right to expose the fishermen might have created other image problems.

The top of the tree appears extremely dark relative to the rest of the tree and I think this might just be more flare below rather than more shade to the trunk above. Anyway a bit of work with masked curves adjustment layers fixed that.

I believe I shot this with my Pentax SV (clip on meter) and 35 mm. lens. I must have made the image wide open because you can see the fishing line in the image (which is pretty good resolution) but the base of the tree is soft as well as the boys (so it isn't movement). I did a little sharpening of the boys with Photokit Creative Sharpener for a modest improvement.

This has been a favorite image for many years and I'm glad to be able to make a good print of it again. It will be the first image in the new book about which I hope to tell more in the next month.