Interaction Models: Tangible Interface and Application for Film Scanning, Editing and Printing

Maria Pilar Guerra Arias January 30, 2012

1. Test strip and Contact Sheet

32s 16s 8s 4s 2s 1s

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8s

2. Select copies

4. Enlarging and Printing

3. Proofs and Editing (Dodging and Burning)

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Maria Pilar Guerra Arias - Interaction Models - Tangible Interface for B&W photo processing and editing in a darkroom

With the resurgence of lm photography as a creative medium, it would be nice to be able to update some of the steps in the editing, enlarging and printing workow to take advantage of developments in the eld of TI and TUIs. My proposal is for a tabletop interface to be part of the darkroom equipment that could act as: a light box, negative scanner, photo editing tool, and enlarger A typical workow using this interface (illustrated in the rst page of this document) would consist of: 1. test strip to determine correct exposure for contact sheet 2. contact sheet 3. select negatives to enlarge by examining contact sheet 4. test strip for each negative to enlarge to determine correct exposure and contrast 5. work prints to pinpoint exposure and estimate any dodging and burning requirements i.e do any areas need to be lightened/darkened with the respect to the optimal exposure time for the nal print 6. enlargement and ne print A user would start o by placing a negative strip from the whole lm on the tabletop and setting the maximum exposure time for the test strip and the time step length. The application would then take care of calculating the number of steps needed and scanning in the negative strip cumulatively applying the time steps to each section of the negative. Once the negative is scanned in, it would display the positive copy with the dierent exposures and their times as well as suggesting the optimum exposure time for the negative. The user would then select the desired exposure for the contact sheet and place the whole roll of lm on the tabletop to be scanned in at the selected exposure. Once the contact sheet is produced, the user could place a loupe on the tabletop on top of selected negatives to display an enlarged area and allow them to assess the quality of the exposure. Notes could be made on the contact sheet by using the ngers or a special pen e.g exposures selected for printing could be circled and automatically placed in an editing/printing queue. Items placed in the printing queue could be selected by touch and edited by: physically or digitally adding dierent contrast lters on the digital negative adjusting exposure selecting areas to be lightened/darkened using a pen or more traditional methods of dodging/burning stacking negatives for more artistic eects Finally, once all this editing data is encoded, the user could place the photographic paper directly on the tabletop to be exposed according to the instructions encoded during the editing stage and the print would then be developed as normal. A tangible tabletop interface (with a high resolution projector and camera and/or scanner) could speed up this workow considerably by allowing direct experimentation and manipulation of images without the cost of printing each test out. Typically, in a darkroom, a lot of work prints need to be made in order to arrive at a ne print. This is a laborious and time expensive process. However, some would probably still prefer the old school approach, but the beauty of this process is that it could be simply used as an aid, e.g to help identify best exposure but still doing most of the editing and printing processes manually or it could automate most of the process until the nal print. A photographer could use many of the tools already at his disposal and use them in a natural way as the table top would be calibrated to recognise them and thus allow the user to continue working in a similar manner to before. 1