Digital BW, The Print

On 03/06/2010 HarryB wrote:
> I have a fairly large library of 35mm film taken some years ago of 
> The Ohio State University Dance group. The negs are tri-x, most shot 
> at 400. I plan to scan them with a Canon 4000 scanner. Can anyone 
> give me an idea of what level to scan at, given the info below? 


> I plan to print glossy 8x10s, probably Epson gloss or semi gloss. I 
> want to replicate as far as possible the original pictures. As I'm a 
> kind of "out of the box" kind of guy, I been thinking of the Epson 
> 2400 to print them. I'm an amateur so I won't be selling any but I 
> may give a few away and certainly plan to scatter a few around my 
> house so some permanence is desirable. I don't need 100+ years as I'm 
> 79. <g> Also, I don't want to fool with MIS or Cone inks and I'm wary 
> of RIPs/curves. I have both an IMac and a PC and I've fooled around 
> with Elements simple stuff a little. Will the 2400 suit my needs? Is 
> there a better choice? And what about paper? Do you think the Epson 
> stuff (or Ilford GFS) will meet my wants? Thanks for any help, I both 
> need and appreciate it. Harry

Harry, based on my experience with various Nikon 2700spi film scanners, 
and various Epson printers including the R2400, I'd suggest the 
following as starting points:

I would scan at 4000 spi. Scanning at lower resolution would save some 
time and disc space, but would limit your ability to capture the most 
detail from the negatives and allow for cropping. Scan in grayscale, 
either 8 bit or 16 bit -- 16 bit files will give more latitude for 
making large adjustments to tonal values, but each file will be about 40 
MB. 8 bit may prove to be suitable, at half the file size, provided you 
don't need lots of adjustment.

The Epson R2400 with standard Epson inks and Advanced B&W Photo settings 
should be suitable for your purposes. I prefer to use QuadtoneRIP 
myself, but you should be fine with the 'out of the box' Epson system. 
If you have not read them already, I commend Clayton Jones's web pages 
to you, starting with http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn9b.htm in 
which he discusses printing with the R2400 on Silver Rag paper.

Cheers

-- 

Peter Marquis-Kyle