Digital Library Development Team

Melitte Buchman Page 8 7/12/2004

Digital Library Development Team

Updated 6/2004

ALBA 011 Project:

The Fifteenth International Brigade Photo Unit

Negative Conversion Project

Overview pg 3

ALBA Negative Project Workflow pg 6

- Master file pg 6

- Submaster file pg 9

- Derivative file pg 11

- Final Quality Assurance pg 11

OVERVIEW

Harry W. Randall, Jr, (1915- ), a photographer and film-maker, served as Chief Photographer of the Photographic Unit of the 15th International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. The collection of 1,832 negatives made by the unit has been chosen as a core collection to digitize both for access to a larger audience and to help preserve this important original collection of negatives. This material is available at http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/randall_photof.html or by typing in the words ALBA 011 and selecting the search phrase in call number option in bobcat.

On May 3, 2004, I had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Randall about the technical issues that the unit faced, both photographing and processing this collection. In addition we discussed his preferences in rendering intent of this material.

IMAGING

The conditions that these images were photographed under were often very trying. Mr. Randall recounts that there were three photographers (and one lab technician) with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Mr. Randall served as Chief Photographer of the unit, along with Benjamin Katine and Anthony B. Drossel and lab technician William H. Oderaka. Of the three photographers, two were always out photographing, either on the front lines or other areas of interest. The third photographer was always in the darkroom processing film, cataloguing negatives and calling for supplies from Madrid or Barcelona, Spain. The three photographers covered four fighting battalions. Duties were shared.

Although Mr. Randall did not remember the make of the camera that he most commonly used, he did recall that it was a 120 twin lens reflex of European make. He also used a Speed Graphic-like camera:

Which was a common camera used in photo journalism at the time. The camera that he used in the “E series” negatives was a 127 mm camera that was hand held and shot half frames. 127 mm film was manufactured from 1912 -1995[1], but was relative uncommon during the latter part of that period. The film was generally shot as a 4 x 4 cm square film, or at a larger 4 x 6 cm. In the case of the half frame cameras, what was generally meant was 4 x 3 cm. Mr. Randall said that he generally got sixteen shots per roll and mentioned that he stopped using the camera when it irreparably jammed.

Mr. Randall told a particularly hair-raising story about a day that he was headed out to photograph troops in a fox-hole at the front line. Crawling out to the ALBA position became disoriented (probably due to the loss of his eyeglasses) and was heading most of the time toward the fascist positions.

PROCESSING

Mr. Randall had a great deal of information about the processing of film. Clearly he was a very exacting technician. Although he preferred to develop the film in Kodak D-76[2], he used whatever developer, film and paper that were available from suppliers in Madrid and Barcelona. The only negative sleeves that were available to them at the time were individual paper envelopes, so the negatives were laboriously cut apart and catalogued separately. Unlike contemporary collections, which often are archived by roll, the relationship between the individually cut negatives from a single session are preserved only by their catalogue number.

None of the negatives that I examined during my initial survey showed signs of staining or fading. All negatives were carefully marked, in the emulsion side with an individual catalogue number. This was surprising to me as the conditions these negatives were processed under were far from ideal. Mr. Randall was pleased by this observation and said that they went to great pains to wash the negatives sufficiently. Often they had to use water with mosquito larvae or other impurities, so they would wash them for considerable lengths of time. Due to the number of uncertainties in developing the film the ALBA photographers generally overdeveloped the film. Though this is a reasonable precautionary measure it means that the negatives will have an unintended increase in the density of the images which will print as overly contrasty. The rendering intent of the final digital representation should be reflect this fact. The ALBA darkroom itself was situated close to the cook tents and auto park and often needed to be packed up as the lines of fighting changed. None of the original negatives were lost during these moves which speaks both to the organizational skills of the photographers and their underlying sense of the importance of the documents that were being made.

Mr. Randall made it clear that the quality and size of existing prints made bears no correlation to rendering intent. Prints were made on whatever paper or paper grade was available at the time. Printing, when possible, reflected the intended end-use of the pictures which ranged from low-contrast versions for newsletters to large exhibition quality work up to 16 x 20” prints. Many prints made for the English press, after the war, were printed very flat because the ALBA photographers knew that was what those news outlets there preferred. Many of the later prints were done at the New York Photo League[3].

RENDERING INTENT

According to Frey four rendering intents can be distinguished: rendering of the photographic image “as is”, rendering the intent of the photographer, rendering of the original appearance of the photograph and rendering of the “real life object” visible on the photograph[4].

According to Mr. Randall the correct rendering intent for this collection is that described above as “real life object”. He said specifically that his intention was “good snappy black and white prints”[5] and that his intent was “to capture the original scene”[6]. In light of the documentary nature of this project this makes perfect sense.

ALBA NEGATIVE PROJECT WORKFLOW

Overview: In this workflow we’ve decided to take advantage of the capacity in Silverfast to save a 16 bit grayscale 2400 dpi negative of an original film negative. The sub-master in its final state will be an 8 bit grayscale 2400 dpi positive and the derivatives will be made from the sub-master.

MASTER FILE:

Open Photoshop on the Agfa station à file à import à Silverfast (Agfa)

Make sure that the first screen in Silverfast looks like this:

Next please check the for separate tabs in options, they should look like this:

Please check these setting carefully at the beginning of each session. Now close out of options

There are two parts to this next check. Click on the “General Tab” in Silverfast. Make sure these are your settings:

The negatives will be cropped to show the black film edge on all sides in the master. No straightening will be done, though the image will be oriented so that the top is at the top.

We are using Silverfast to deliver to us a 16 bit grayscale file with no curves or sharpening or manipulation applied. This is the master file.

Name the file as follows XX_XXXXm.tif (the image id will be the same as the catalog number for example 11_0034.tif). The letters will always be lower case. An underscore will be used not a hyphen.

Save the 16 bit grayscale master to the appropriate folder on the desktop for upload to the server.

SUB-MASTER FILE:

The sub-master is inverted in photoshop. It is straightened and cropped to the image area as a traditional 8 x 10 print would be, that is inside of the black film edges but not cropped into the image area or to in any way change the original composition. To do this begin as follows:

Open the master file. Straighten the file and crop as above. Go to Image à Adjust à Levels.

In levels, the sliders should be moved to make the image look photographic but should not clip into the black area of the histogram. This needs to be done with delicacy and appropriateness to the subject matter.

A guide is that generally the blackest area will be around LAB 15-30 and the lightest area will be around LAB 80-95, depending on subject matter. The human eye will be the best guide here. Mr. Randall has asked for a rendering intent that makes these photographs look like they did “in the world”. Specifically he said “a good snappy black and white”. Any questions about an appropriate rendition should be brought to the digital conversion specialist. Since these are gross levels in photoshop this decision should take less than 30 seconds. The point of the above leveling is to make the images read as photographic records, not to enhance or misrepresent the material.

Care should be used when the results are visually un-natural, as in the situation of intentionally dark images or intentionally light images (examples of this type of image would be night shots or perhaps a group portrait taken in front a dune).

Name the file as follows XX_XXXXsm.tif (the image id will be the same as the catalog number for example 11_0034). The letters will always be lower case. An underscore will be used not a hyphen.

SAVE AS the 8 bit grayscale master to the appropriate folder on the desktop for upload to the server.

DERIVIATIVE FILES:

Two derivatives will be made of each sub-master file. The service file will be no larger than 625 pixels in either dimension, and will be 100 dpi. The thumbnail will no larger than 100 pixels in either dimension and will be 72 dpi. These files will be named as follows:

Service file XX_XXXXs.jpg reduced to 8 bit grayscale

Thumbnail file XX_XXXXt.jpg reduced to 8 bit grayscale

QUALITY ASSURANCE OF FILES:

Locally all service will be looked at prior to upload to server. Once in the server they will all be reviewed again. Locally 10% of the master files will be looked at for digital artifacting such as moiré, banding, Newton rings, distortions. Physical flaws such as dust, scratches, hair etc. that are NOT in the original negative will be reshot. Noise in the dark areas and in the specular highlight areas. Resolution will be checked. All final files will be place in appropriate folder for upload to server.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_format

[2] http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j78/j78.jhtml for technical information about this developer

[3] http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/at/ephotoleague.html An organization in New York active in the 1930’s and 1940’s dedicated to the concept of social and documentary photography. Members included such luminaries at Berenice Abbott, Paul Strand and Aaron Siskind. The league was disbanded in 1951.

[4] Frey and Reilly, Digital Imaging for photographic collections. IPI, Rochester, 1999.

[5] Harry Randall Jr. interview, May 3, 2004

[6] see above