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Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom
07-25-2017, 11:51 PM
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Yes, that's a very good summation. As one of the sidelines in my old "photographic" job, I was responsible for preservation management of photos sound and moving images in a substantial archives. One of the key strategies we developed was systematic migration of digitized content. In very simple terms, the digital masters are stored on drives and migrated to different storage as drive technology evolves, and can be readily batch converted to other file formats if necessary. Multiple backups are kept, including off-site. Backups included storage on CDs or DVDs as well as hard drives. We did keep originals.
If I was still in the business now, I'd be looking at solid state drives for storage of some backups.
It's relatively simple for professional archives, but quite a can of worms for the general public particularly if the intent is to preserve things for tens or hundreds of years. You might consider printing books of selected images.
Looking at the OP's question, there is no simple answer. "Archival quality" is a pretty nebulous term. For example, the standards for archiving the work of a master photographer where high colour accuracy and resolution down to the finest grain would be considered necessary are quite different from family snapshots where pleasing moderately sized prints could be a reasonable goal. We're talking a high end with drum scanning and very sophisticated colorimetry vs. middling level with a decent desktop scanner and eyeballing colour corrections on a (maybe) calibrated monitor. I'd recommend the simpler approach to the OP, as that is within the reach of an average person who is willing to put in the effort to learn a moderate amount about the technology.
Colour negs tend to be all over the place in terms of colour balance. Even scanning software with specific film profiles won't always work due to off-spec development and fading during storage. Unlike slides you cant use the original as a baseline for judging accuracy. You often just have to wing it.
My own standard for family photos is 3600x5400 pixel TIFF files. I use Lightroom and Photoshop for processing, and simply go for rendering that I find pleasing without worrying about absolute technical accuracy. I generally like to adjust tones that we perceive as neutral to be reasonably so, but otherwise just go for what feels right. I often use auto color in Photoshop and tweak from there. If that doesn't work I have to get my hands dirty. I've been using Photoshop since the early 90's and have a fast computer, so usually get OK results before I resort to setting my hair on fire.
I recommend getting a good Photoshop book, studying colour correction, and practicing, practicing, practicing.
Hang on to the negs as you may find that you will want to rescan some as you learn.
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