Stills

akikana: I'm using Silverfast on a Coolscan. I'm planning to write about it at some point, but the summary is that it is the most miserable crap piece of software that I've used since Windows 3.x - it just happens to produce brilliant results.

As you can imagine, there have been a number of versions of this file, with more or less shadow detail and with the various faces more or less obvious. Silverfast gives you full (global) contrast control and curves. Photoshop then deals with the local changes.

This was a 35mm Tri-X neg processed commercially.
 

I just love the link between the sign "I love you", the gingerbread couple and the kissing couple on the right.
 

A properly scanned b&w negative can be a wonderful thing, but scanning is tricky. You've got a lot out of this scan, but it looks like some contrast and detail has been lost in the highlights. For me this is the hardest part about scanning B&W film, and although I've never been entirely satisfied with my results, I've found that a slight underdevelopment helps.

I'd be tempted to crop this closer around the kissing couple. You might be able to make a nice lopsided triangle of the kissing couple, the gingerbread couple, and the "I love you" by chopping a bit off the top and each side.

Without a crop, I think the mass of light in the center frame prevents the viewer from getting the punchline; it's hard to see anything but all that light. I had to look at this a number of times before I could put the three previously mentioned elements together.
 

I go quite a long way with Matt's last para: the mass of light, particularly with the composition removing the top corner, overwhelms visually. But not in a way that prevents one seeing the story; it is just that it is something difficult for the eye to live with and takes up too much space to give its message. It's a difficult composition anyway with the angle to the subject matter and the way the various elements that everyone has talked about lie in their plane. My favourite part of the picture is that blurred crossing pedestrian, who provides an urban counterpoint to the kissing couple - is she returning to an empty flat or something better? The hints at New Year given by the strings of lights around the edge redeem the picture a bit. Nicely seen though.
 

As always, Stills proves its worth.......because I know the couple is there I can't see anything much other than the couple.

Picking up a few points -

JohnE: the passing pedestrian was a Filipina from memory. That means 'maid' and therefore she was unlikely to be going home to anything particularly good. The maids tend to camp out one one corner of this square on their days off. Cheap, and nobody bothers them.

Matt: I'm not sure that there was any more detail in the highlights to retain. That flashing sign is, like, bright. My scanner seems to be set up to protect highlights in that the histogram pre scan always leaves any spare space in the dynamic range on the right (which Silverfast always tries to remove, but that at least becomes a decision point). I understand the point about underdevelopment, but that wasn't an option open to me on this occasion.

I think Anson is a local politician. The sign is a typical piece of political blather passed through the filter of a lingustic and cultural translation. Working backwards, this sign reads 'vote for me and I'll pretend to like you'.
 

Funny, isn't it? The "Anson" had puzzled and disturbed me - now I know why! I put this in the category of 'interesting picture' because it picks up various little fragments and passes on a narrative. It is a picture for a book on the former colony rather than one to go on a wall.
 

I much preferred not knowing the political credentials of the sign. The central theme of this image is romance, which it seems to have in spades. The sign should be the over powering centre of interest but for me, it isn't. It's the kissing and the hugging. Take that you slimy politician type!