Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Kodak Perfect Touch(?) What is it?

This is topic Kodak Perfect Touch(?) What is it? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002589

Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 10-10-2003, 04:22 PM:

I saw this ad on DIRECTV from Kodak about something called Perfect Touch-is that what it is?-but what is it ?

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 10-10-2003, 04:37 PM:

I just *knew* I should have applied for the trademark!

Now I have to come up with a whole new name for my (ahem) technique. [evil]

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 10-10-2003, 07:34 PM:

From what I've seen, Kodak has come up with the digital equivalent of the old darkroom technique of "dodging and burning," adjusting exposure to various parts of the print to even out overall brightness.

With traditional machine prints, we try to discern the subject and print for that (usually faces light by flash). Something like that would render the background too dark to see anything, but the negative has recorded information in the background. Apparently with the new Kodak method, the negative is scanned and all the information is put on the print.

A customer asked us to match one of those prints (with our analog Fuji SFA printer). The picture in question was of two people in the shade--the background building bathed in sunlight. We printed for the faces, but couldn't not ALSO print for the background.

In theory, I like the idea, but like so much that is digital, I didn't like the overall color and detail of the picture. The faces on our prints looked much nicer, with better detail.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-10-2003, 09:43 PM:

In effect, it is "digital intermediate" for your personal photography. Your processed negative is scanned, then the tone scale, color reproduction, and other corrections (e.g., "red eye") are corrected, before paper prints are made:

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2/3/11/1306&pq-locale=en_US

Customer satisfaction with print quality is much higher than with conventional printing.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 10-11-2003, 05:26 AM:

would it be possible, after scanning the negative and computing exposure corrections for different areas, to do the actual printing step in the conventional manner, directly from the negative? that is, an exposure "light map" would be computed, hopefully as smooth and free of pixels and jaggies as possible (perhaps achievable by a diffusion filter), and this light map would expose the actual negative onto photographic paper. that way most of the qualities of the photograph would escape being digitized (away).

what i would really like to see is a similar digital-in-a-limited-way approach to film restorations. take those cases where you have two film elements, each with defects, and you want to take the best parts of each. you would digitize both elements, note the flaws of each, and create two complementary exposure maps that would expose the best parts of both elements. if there's a scratch on one element, the corresponding map will be black in that area, and the complementary map will be white/clear. then a composite print is made, not by printing a digital composite of the two digitizations, but by photographically printing both elements, illuminated by their respective exposure maps, onto one strip of film. the result would have the advantages of a digital cleanup without unnecessary sampling loss, and would be more pure, filmically.

now granted, such a method would demand perfect registration and would probably take a lot of trial and error to get right, and there might be insurmountable logistical problems, but damnit, it would be worth it. can you get a team working on this, john?

carl

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 10-11-2003, 09:26 AM:

John can probably shed light on how the image is exposed on the paper, but the latest generation Fuji and Konica machines use lasers to "print." I would assume it's the same with the Kodak...?

The customer who brought in the photo I mentioned (that we couldn't match)was disappointed that we (a specialty lab) "couldn't do a better job than CVS." Yet a few days later, another customer made sure that when she dropped off her film we specifically WOULD NOT use Perfect Touch. Apples and oranges.

Since digital scanning came out, I've been hoping for such a system, and it seems to work quite well. My only qualification with the final print is the artifical sharpening in place of actual detail (seems to be rampant among current generation digital output). Skin tones appeared flat next to our analog print. In the print we did, the one girl's freckles were clearly visible, but not in the digital print. If those digital bugaboos can be overcome, I'd love to get my film printed with this system.

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 10-12-2003, 02:25 PM:

I've been using Perfect Touch processing and I like it quite a bit. It's very clean, sharp and with good color. I didn't realize until John's post that they made a digital intermediate and printed from that, but I don't see any digital artifacts. I've found with local processing that my stuff always comes back with hair, dirt and scratches, so I've given up on it and switched to Perfect Touch.

I get it with a CD, so I have the original negs, prints, as well as digital versions. The only thing I don 't like about the Perfect Touch package is that you can't get it with 5x7 prints, only 4x6.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-13-2003, 09:14 AM:

I get most of my prints done at a local outlet that uses Kodak "Perfect Touch". I've been very pleased, especially for those difficult to print available-light shots, and shots having very high lighting contrast (e.g., backlit shots, on-camera direct flash). I likewise now get a Kodak Picture CD of all my film shots, so I can file and use the images on my computer as well. Of course I also store all my negatives and prints "cool and dry", as they are the primary images, and will always be accessable as the digital world changes.