Considered Opinions

Darkroom Mysteries

The house Dad built at Fishers Lake had two small rooms in one corner of the basement, directly below the garage. One was for storing coal for the furnace, and the other was called the “Fruit Room”. It was called that because that was where Mom stored the fruit and vegetables that she had canned the previous summer^[i]Yes; people actually used to do that. The Fruit Room also served as Dad’s darkroom. Check out this footnote ^[ii]For those who do not remember “wet photography”, that is a place where photographic film is chemically developed and enlarged into prints by projecting the images onto photo-sensitive paper. if you don’t know what a darkroom is. I remember the feeling of trepidation, sneaking into the Darkroom when no one was around, to discover what mysteries were hidden there – and there were some.

This antique Globe Wernicke 7410 C ^[iii]Globe-Wernicke was an American furniture company based in Cincinnati, and founded in 1893. wooden box, containing hundreds of negatives, was part of the intrigue because I knew there must have been secrets in those images but negatives are very small and hard to view without a lightbox. When Mom and Dad relocated to California, my brother Todd held onto The Box and sent it to me some years later to scan the contents for posterity.

In the front section of The Box are some alphabetized dividers, along with 4″ x 6″ Cards (44 of them) organized in alphabetical order. Each Card contains, (a) “Category”, (b) “Subject”, (c) “File” (Packet number)^[iv]I renamed it to avoid confusion with the data/image files, (d) number of “Frames” in each “File” (Packet), (e) “Date”, and sometimes, (f) “Exposure Time”, (g) “f-Stop”, and, (h) “Film” type. Some Packets contain additional information written on their fronts, but that seems to be largely redundant, with a few ^[v]File 2 shows details not included on the T3 Card. exceptions. We can page through Dad’s original handwritten Card Index here. Click on the bottom corners of the pages to turn them and be sure to explore the flipbook’s menu at the very bottom of the window to explore all its features, particularly those at the right end of the menu.

Behind that Card Index section are over 200 Packets containing hundreds of negatives and thousands of individual Frames in the various film formats in use at that time.

Creating The Archive

Preserving these photos online would have consumed too much storage space to be hosted on a website like this. Instead, the scanned image files are stored elsewhere, in a Directory ^[vi]Currently both Google Drive and Dropbox – The Google Drive Location being the simplest and this webpage acts as a coordination center for the Preview Scans, the Packet Scans, and the HiRz Scans.

Scanning

I used an Epson V600 , capable of scanning at up to 19,200 dpi. That is far less resolution than the film was theoretically capable of at the time it was exposed, but far more than was justified, considering lens distortion, focus, movement of the camera, etc. Most of the images in the Preview sections (Front, Center, etc.) of the Directory were scanned at 600 x 600 dpi in the interest of scanner-time required and data storage considerations.

Most of the higher resolution images in the “HiRez” section of the same Directory are scanned at 4800 x 4800 dpi or greater, depending on the quality of the negative. In terms of potential pixelation loss, consider the example below, scanned at 4800 x 4800 dpi, and note that adjacent pixels in high contrast areas of the negatives exhibit minimal variation in density from pixel to pixel. For example, the pattern resolution on Mom’s dress indicates that further increase in scan resolution is not justified in this and most other cases.

In terms of contrast and the dynamic range of intensity, while it is true that the film originally had an exposure latitude far in excess of the dynamic range available from the photo-transistor arrays in the film scanner, any inherent advantage in that regard had long since been lost to natural degradation from the decades since the negative was developed.

Preview Scans

The polarities of the scans have been reversed from negative to positive, as part of the scanning process to make the images suitable for on-screen viewing. Given that most are scanned at 600 x 600 dpi, these Preview scans of the “M” and “L” formats are adequate for most online use or for “newsprint” purposes – the “S” ones need higher resolution scans to be useful. Anyone wishing a closer look at any of those can get them as described below, under Hi-Rez Images.

Since various film formats were often mixed within individual Packets, I have classified the Preview scans by category. In a few cases, an individual Packet contains negatives of different formats so the Packet is identified according to the smaller of the Formats.

• “S” = 35mm format
• “M” = Medium format (2.25 x 2.25 or 2.25 x 3.25)
• “L” = Large format (3.25 x 4.5)
• “U” = Unsorted formats

 

The Online Index

Viewing the Preview scans in Google Drive is simple. Nothing is needed except a gmail.com account. It is even possible to view without an account but that is a bit involved – easier to just open an account, even if you never use it for anything else.

The file names of the Preview scans reflect a combination of descriptors that make each unique within the Online Directory. Please note that there is not a 100% match-up between these Preview scans and either the Card Index or the transcribed version . Some negatives are missing; others don’t seem to match the description; and there is a section of the box, containing 71 negatives that are not included in the Card Index at all. These 71 are included in the Online Directory in the Rear Section.

Viewing Preview scans in the Google Drive Online Directory is easiest using a computer. Phones and tablets will work as well, and that method has the advantage that the device can be rotated instead of rotating images on a screen. A computer is obviously better for close-up viewing. Either way, just send me the file name and a reference to the particular frame(s) on the scan – I will take it from there.

Hi-Rez Images

If you see an image of interest, just send me the file name from Google Drive (like this “FRNT-S-138-a.jpg“), and indicate which particular image(s) on that Preview Scan you like. I will then;

1. Clean the negative of fingerprints, etc.
2. Determine the optimum scan resolution for each negative (typically 4800 dpi)
3. Scan the selected Frame(s) accordingly
4. Align and crop each, removing white space and sprocket holes
5. Run the PhotoShop “Despeckle” and “Dust & Scratches” filters
6. Enhance the brightness, tone, and contrast for optimum viewing as required
7. Save it in the format of your choice (.jpg preferred), using the file name of your choice
8. Place the final image in the HiRez Dropbox directory, where it can be downloaded

 

By: Jim
Written: July 2020 – June 2021
Published: June 2021
Revised: