Digital BW, The Print

Jeff,
 
you're introducing scanning software (Silverfast with Negafix, in this case)
as a variable. The fact that you got best results with settings for a
different film than the ones you were scanning is significative: I mean, it
could (just an example) be that Vuescan gets better results with FP4+ and
Canon Filmget with TMax100.
This information is not to disregard, of course, because there are surely
people that don't want to waste too much time in tweaking scans and
therefore rely on a certain software, and then, of course, which film looks
better with that software is very important.
OTOH, for those who are not afraid, for example, to get a raw scan and work
their way in Photoshop (which is not so hard a task with B&W images)
chromogenic has different charachteristics from standard B&W, which are
lower grain, lower DMax and the capabilty of using infrared cleaning
filters. Depending on the scanner you have, the importance of this may of
course vary (e.g., if your scanner resolution has or has not grain aliasing
problems, your scanner has or has not infrared cleaning etc.).
Converting from color is another matter. From a theoretical point of view,
there should only be advantages (it's like you can apply color filter
afterwards), and I did it happily for a while, but in the end I somehow
found it distracting to start working from a color image, and came back to
shooting good ol' B&W.
 
Alessandro Pardi

-----Original Message-----
From: J Greer [mailto:jgpinfo@...]
Sent: venerdì 17 maggio 2002 00.40
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] B&W Films and Scanning


Even though I'm not using the same scanner, I'll jump in with my
experiences.

I have a Polaroid SprintScan 120. I use Lasersoft Silverfast Ai 5.5 
software to do my scans. For negative film, I use the NegaFix settings in 
Silverfast. I recently scanned a wide range of black-and-white, including 
the C-41 films (XP2 Super, Portra BW, and T400CN) to see what works best 
for me. I preferred the non-C-41 films, specifically Ilford 100 Delta and 
Ilford HP5+. The odd thing is the NegaFix setting that provided me the best 
base scans was for Kodak TMax 100 film. Go figure.

TMax 100 looked good, too, but I preferred 100 Delta over it. The C-41 
films seemed flat by comparison. For the C-41 bunch, I got the best scans 
from Portra BW, with T400CN a close second.

My experiences have all been with 120 film.

Another option is to shoot color film and convert to black-and-white in 
Photoshop. I've just started experimenting with this so I don't have 
recommendations for or against.

Jeff Greer

At 01:42 AM 05/16/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello all,
>     Does anyone have experiences good or bad with particular black
>and white films.  I shoot 35mm and have been using Kodak's C-41
>chromogenic BW film and my Canon 4000 dpi scanner.  I recently
>purchased tanks, chemistry and equipment to begin developing true BW
>film (Kodak or Ilford).  I was hoping to improve the contrast and
>quality of my images.  Of course, after my purchase, I have now read
>that the C-41 BW film perhaps scans better than true BW film.  Any
>advice would be appreciated as I have not used any of my new
>equipment or many rolls of film.  Thank you in advance.
>                                 Scott Michener
>
>
>
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