Digital BW, The Print

I have a few minutes as were taking a break.. I'm struggling with something so some clarification please.. Maybe it's just understanding something a bit better then I'll be fine. Ok so you made what your calling a raw scan off a B&W negative.. and you basically let the scanner do it's thing with out you making any adjustments to what the scanners output would be.. That is how I'm understanding what you said. That would have me believe that image if done properly was photographed on a really dreary day maybe at first light when lights and darks and contrast aren't available.. Speaking as a shooter and the only reason I'm saying this is that in an earlier post I got that this concept will apply to a larger body of work not just this image.. Where I'm struggling is that I've been a shooter for long time.. If I'm after world class images that's not the light to  shoot in. So I'm honestly going to head back to the scanner ok.. so bare with me.  With scanners their is a base level .. and that is how they see things natively... then their is a level on top of that that lets you adjust that.. the second level is not where I'm  ...It's the base level and I think this where it broken.. I have a Tango, a Howtek Hi-resolve 8000 that's been Azteked, a Nexscan 4200 flat bed & a Betterlight 8k scan back... all of these I've built what I guess I call base level input profiles just so they can see and deliver what's their correctly.. Every piece of equipment I have has access to different input profiles to match the material an dor lighting  I'm trying to capture something in.... So at a foundation level I think I'm just trying to get where your at so I can figure out where to go.. So what are you scanning with and what and what software?  
Your trying to be a painter living in a photographers body.. it's easier honest.. we'll get there.

jimbo
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: michael3442@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint] 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 11:33 AM
  Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Workflow assistance?


    
  Jimbo, thanks for looking at the images. Regarding the scanning, I made a "raw scan" of the negative which has no scanner software adjustments involved - just the bare scan and out to a tif file. (Raw scans appear dull, dark, and muddy but contain all the information on the negative.) I've experimented with adding basic adjustments in the scanning software, but I can't find any advantage to doing so if a full workup of a file will follow anyway. 

  Again the area of difficulty is getting the tree tips to show against the overcast sky, when the tips range from slightly darker to lighter than the sky. It's like masking blond hair against a white background. And I want to end up with the entire sky at a specific luminosity level, in this case, 243. 

  You mention not seeing a levels adjustment layer in my workflow; I skipped that and included those adjustments in my overall curve layer. And you mentioned making a custom sharpening mask in a channel. I'm afraid your words fall on uneducated ears, I'm not familiar with that process, but, as the saying goes, I'm "all ears" to learn about it.

  BTW, last summer we visited some friends at their ranch somewhere is the Martinsdale reservoir area; and, I lived in Bozeman for a couple of years in the '70s. Thanks again.

  
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