These photos were taken in 3 locations, at Crathes Castle in Aberdeenshire, Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen City and Levengrove Park in Dumbarton.

I will explain how to obtain true colour digital images from your negatives

The steps below allow me to obtain perfect colour balance.

1. It is crucial that you shoot in RAW format so that the white balance may be changed after capture – do not worry about the white balance setting at this point
2. Have a white background on your monitor screen such as an empty google page for example
3. Set the film leader in your toilet tube holder, or other suitable negative holder


This is the Negative Film Leader

4. Take a photo of the film leader
5. In Lightroom Invert the film leader by choosing the ‘Develop’ module -> locating to the ‘Tone Curve’ section -> selecting Linear Curve -> and moving the left and right corners vertically opposite, as shown below.


This is how your tone curve should look when you're done

6. Now the frame numbers which are always negative white, are the colour which we want to set our white balance from, using Lightroom’s white balance dropper.


Take the white measurement from the centre of a white frame number

7. Lightroom’s White Balance ‘Temp’ and ‘Tint’ will now have changed to suit our negative’s colour balance.


This is the white balance that we shall apply to the remainder of our roll

8. Note the ‘Temp’ and ‘Tint’ values so that they can applied to the rest of the negatives.
9. Set the negative that you actually want to scan / copy in your toilet tube holder, or other suitable clamp – and take the photo.  Here’s what I ended up with:


This is how the negative looks before processing

10. I now apply invert the image by setting a linear point curve and reversing the ends:


This is how your tone curve should look when you're done

11. I manually set the colour temperature from the first film leader that we shot.


We apply the Temp and Tint settings that we obtained from our film leader

12. Now press ‘Auto’ in the Tone adjustment box to correct the colours that you are seeing and you should have a pretty much perfect image.
13. I had to add a couple of points to the tone curve to restore some contrast, you may have to do the same.
14. Please see my finished frame, cropped and straightened below.


This is the result of our prep work - a well balanced image

15. I found tweaking the colour temperature and tint slightly improved the image, but once you have a good value, it is completely repeatable across the remainder of the roll of negatives, as it should be

Completing this process results in scans that retain some of the colour properties of the film image. For extra bang, like you get from a digital camera, you can apply camera profiles to the image, or export it to photoshop / GIMP and apply ‘Auto Colours’ which liven the images up a little to more what you’d expect from a saturated digital image.

I was delighted with the outcome of this research. Stay tuned for some more where I will experiment with varying the colour of the backlight supplied by the monitor.

I describe how to incorporate film into a digital workflow

Last year I decided to experiment with a film camera and purchased a Nikon FM3a. The camera produces excellent results, but there is the problem of incorporating the film images into my otherwise completely digital workflow.

After googling the issue which many other film photographers have faced I read several web articles about using Digital SLRs to capture developed film, utilising macro lenses. I own a Nikkor 105mm 2.8 Micro lens and a Nikon D300, so I set about photographing my 35mm films so that I could store them with the remainder of my digital workflow.

I find that captured images of my slides actually retain the properties of the slide film rather well, the limitations of the DSLR (dynamic range for example) are minimised because the capture is being taken in such a controlled environment.

My Copying Setup

Other sites recommend utilising a dedicated light source such as a light box behind the film to be captured, with the Digital SLR secured on a mount pointed towards the film. I don’t. I have a perfectly good light table with configurable colour temperature… my computer’s monitor!

• I make sure that the computer monitor is setup with a white background – such as an empty Google homepage – behind the film to be copied.
• I attach my home-made slide / negative copy adaptor

This is the Toilet Roll Tube Copy Jig, note the seperate piece at the end which is cut to accept slides and may be swapped as required

• I setup the camera pointing at the monitor’s white background, and take a custom white balance shot to ensure a neutral colour balance in the final capture – The camera may be mounted on an old book, or on a mini tripod, whatever works best for you.
• I place the slide film in to the toilet roll jig – in front of the white computer monitor.
• I arrange the film so that a very small border (say 1mm) is visible around the film.
• I set the camera to fire on a 10 second timer to minimise camera shake, and ensure that the viewfinder is covered to prevent the open viewfinder affecting the camera’s exposure measurements.
• I dim the surrounding room by either turning off the lights or shutting the curtains.
• With the camera on Aperture Priority mode Aperture of F22 or higher, I press the shutter release and stand clear to minimise shake.
• The exposure can be as long as 2 seconds.
• Once set up, it should take less than 30mins to have excellent quality copies of your slides.
  

  This is the photo of a slide captured from the North Bridge in Edinburgh

• I open the RAW files in Adobe Lightroom for colour balance editing, sharpening & cropping.
  

  The same slide - processed in Lightroom

Above you can see that the slide has benefit from being processed in Adobe Lightroom.  The same effect can be reproduced in Photoshop or freely using the GIMP.  There was a slight red tone to the clouds in the original slide capture that has been removed.

The areas of the original photo that were sharp remain pin sharp in my macro photo of the slide.  Take a look at the 100% crop below and see just how sharp the results are.

This image shows just how sharp the slide copy is

When walking around a place I visit regularly such as Edinburgh, I prefer the compact form factor of my Fm3a, combined with the fact that film makes you think before you shoot.  Using my DSLR to capture the slides taken on one of my short visits; at no additional cost; gives me complete control over my photographs via my normal digital workflow.  Anyone who has had a disappointing film scan from a photo lab will appreciate the high quality of the output that is possible using equipment that they already have available.

The following sites are great references for more of the same information: Print Head, Simple Slide Copy Jig, Macro Lens & Tripod, Toilet Tube Macro Photography

The Folder Structure I Use

Managing image files can be a tricky affair. Where do I store my current working copies? Where do I store my photos from two years ago? Do I store my JPG and RAW files separately or together? Do I allow my image management software decide where to store my images?

Image file management is platform independent.  Windows or Mac users can follow the same basic principles to keep their files in good order and retraceable.  I will give you my take on image file management:

1. On my mac, I create a folder called ‘Photos’ that contains all my image files.
2. Within my ‘Photos’ folder I create a sub-folder for each year, where I ensure that this year’s photos are placed into this year’s folder
3. Within each year I create a ‘Lightroom’ folder
4. I create a further sub-folder with an event description, and optionally the date
5. I create a last set of sub-folders called ‘JPG’ and ‘RAW’
6. I put my images into a subfolder of RAW or JPG, based on filetype

The first step holds a question in itself; ‘Where do I store my Photos folder?’…  I always store my Photos folder in my user account’s Documents folder.  This way the folders are protected by OS X’s user account security, which means that other users of the same computer, or any thieves that may get hold of your computer cannot view the images without your password being entered.  This may or may not be ideal for you, but I am security conscious and if anyone were to steal my laptop I wouldn’t want them to have any of my intellectual property.  Apple gives further options to encrypt your documents based on your login password if you want to really theft proof your data!

I next recommend sorting photos into years, as although this data is contained within the metadata of the photo (if you remembered to set the time correctly on your camera!!) it’s a lot easier for your average human like me to have the large number photo files split into bite-sized yearly chunks.

Within each year, I create a ‘Lightroom’ folder to hold the files that Adobe’s Lightroom creates. By storing the Lightroom catalogue files within the Year’s folder, an entire year can be exported to, for example, external disk without breaking the Lightroom Catalogue file’s internal links – Lightroom works via relative paths.

I keep a Lightroom folder within each year

From then on my organisation becomes descriptive; I describe the event so that I don’t need to remember exactly what month it was when I went for through the Linn of Dee.

The Layout I Use Within Each Event

Within each event’s subfolder I create RAW and JPG folders. If you don’t shoot RAW at all, you can skip this step. Having two folders allows me to do two things; I can keep the out-of-camera JPGs which are often as good or better than I could manage by manipulating the files in Adobe Lightroom, or if I choose not to use the camera’s JPGs, it gives me a folder to place Lightroom’s processed JPGs. A further option is to create a sub-folder called ‘Final Burns’ which means that I can store both the out-of-camera JPGs as well as Lightroom’s JPGs in separate folders.

A point of note here is that I do not delete anything, even my worst shots get kept. This is my self-tortuous way of trying to ensure that I don’t take any poor photographs next time I’m out shooting; applying the theory that less is more when I’m actually out and about shooting.

1. New RAW conversion engine (same as ACR 6 for Photoshop)
2. Incredible Noise Reduction features
3. Improved Non-destructive editing
4. 64-bit compatibility
5. Lens corrections
6. Flickr integration
7. Improved Image watermarking
8. Improved curves tool
9. Tethered shooting (currently limited to selected Canon and Nikon DSLRs)
10. Support for video files (organization and tagging only – not editing)
11. Perspective correction adjustments
12. Film grain simulation filter
13. Comprehensive importing, organization and exporting, with multiple output options (DNG, TIFF, JPEG)
14. Easy synchronization of adjustments across multiple images
15. Offline library management (i.e. if your images are stored on an offline external drive)
16. Photoshop integration

Noise Reduction

The new RAW conversion engine combined with user controllable noise reduction sliders allow for a level of noise reduction that I’ve never seen possible from an Adobe package out-of-the-box.  Lightroom 3 has introduced an incredible new noise reduction regime that justifies the purchase price on it’s own in my opinion.

To prove my point, the image below shows an out-of-camera RAW file shot using a Nikon D300 at base ISO 200 with the out of date Lightroom 2 RAW process applied.

The next image below shows off the noise reduction possible, without losing the finer details when using Lightroom 3.

Lightroom 3 image noise reduction is very impressive

You can purchase Lightroom at Adobe’s Site for the very reasonable $299.

Further Reviews: Stephen Shankland over at CNET has another good review here. CrunchGear has a review here. Kerry Garrison interviews Senior Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty for the cameradojo Podcast about Lightroom 3 here. John Nack has a post here. A good link roundup from the Lightroom Blog here. My favourite post is at Thomas Hawk’s Site

I don’t know about you, but one of the biggest headaches created by taking hundreds of photos over a weekend is sorting out the good from the bad during the following week! Zoner Free; from Zoner; provides all the organisational functionality that Adobe and Apple’s offerings provide at no charge.

Zoner Free allows one to automatically perform the usual photo touch-ups such as red eye and colour balance correction, as well as containing more advanced features such as GPS tagging of photos taken with non-GPS enabled cameras and producing 3D images.

When you are happy with your photos you can either leave it at that as I normally do! Or create a web gallery, upload to Flickr or Facebook.

If you’re needs are fairly simple, Zoner Free is a very affordable (free!) way into professional style bulk photo management. For those with more complex needs, Zoner Free may better serve as a testing package prior to ordering one of Zoner’s more feature rich non-free products, such as the home and professional editions; which still represent excellent value and more complete functionality when compared against the Lightroom and Aperture.

Click the image below to go to Zoner’s site.

Digital Camera Review has a high quality article on the Olympus E-P2 including sample images studying the technical image quality. Click on the link to go to the review…..

Joshua Archer’s blog provides one of the few other reviews of the 24mm F1.4 lens. This review contains comparison photos of the Nikkor competing against Sigma’s lenses.

The photo.net review is a single page reference review. No comparison photographs, but all the useage and technical information you could need to make an informed decision.
Click the logo to read the Reveiw.

The DPReview report is a complete review (33 pages!) of the camera on it’s own merit and also compares the 1D MkIV to it’s competition. The review contains many sample images taken by and of the camera itself.
Click the logo to read on…..

Rob Galbraith has written a detailed review of the Canon EOS 1D MkIV with excellent sample images. The review also includes a comparison against the Nikon D3s, the Canon’s main source of competition.
Click on the logo for Rob’s analysis…..

Lots of people seem to be looking for information on Canon Lenses – and I’m only too pleased to help!

Ken has written an informative and fun review of the Canon super do-it-all x1.6 camera lens.
Click the link to the left for more…….

DP Review has written a very thorough review of the Canon EF-S 18-200mm Lens. This review includes technically asssessed sample images.
Click the link to the left for the full report….