Digital BW, The Print

From: David Kachel <david@...>
Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sunday, September 2, 2012 7:31 PM
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re: What Asa to shoot tmax400 with standard
development

I would use a hybrid approach to the handling of film. I would of course use
my Zone System knowledge; it would be silly not to, and I would continue to
determine exposure based on what I wanted to see as darker tones in the
image, but I would base film development on achieving a more or less uniform
density range somewhat flatter than I would normally seek in anticipation of
conventional analog printing. The reason for this is the problem we have all
encountered with digital printing and getting a satisfactory degree of local
contrast in the final image. I won't go into lengthy theory about local
contrast but 

Well, I had decided to delete that email and accidentally hit send instead.
I thought I was a little overbearing in my remarks and decided to just butt
out.
But since I already sent it, I might as well finish that last paragraphŠ

Š I won't go into lengthy theory about local contrast but, from what I know
for certain about the contrast behaviors of film and analog paper (see my
article "The Primacy of Local Contrast") and what I have observed printing
my own scanned B&W negatives digitally, a fairly flat negative with a scan
that is quite different from the conventionally recommended approach (I
don't tighten up the ends but rather leave lots of elbow room) gives me the
best results with lowest noise. When the scan opens up in PS it looks really
flat, but easily withstands all the work I do to it without sacrificing
highlights or shadows in the process. When I followed conventional
instruction for scanning I lost too much information while I worked on the
image in PS. I turn off virtually everything in the scanner, especially
noise reduction, etc.

Oh, and one thing I wanted to add. I think I read that the OP wanted to
process 120 roll film? If you shoot sheet film, watch out for the T-max
films. They scratch VERY easily when hand processed in trays. The only way
to safely process T-Max sheet films and get even results is in tubes (rotary
processing). You can either spend a small fortune on a Jobo processor (are
they still made?) or read "Tray Processing in Tubes" on the same History
page on my site. My method in today's dollars would cost you about $30 in
materials. Some people who made expensive processing tubes got REALLY mad at
me over that one! Not only does it work just as well as the expensive
hardware, the open tube process is also more flexible.


David Kachel

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