Digital BW, The Print

I also have a Polaroid 120 scanner and Silverfast AI 5.5 with 
Negafix. The Negafix software is great for color, but more often I 
just bypass it and scan my T-Max 100 negs at 16 bits, then tweak them 
in Photoshop. I always develop my films in a Jobo processor so don't 
have any need for the C-41 B&W films. Both T-max and Delta films scan 
great, but I prefer T-max because its base is a bit thicker. I 
absolutely love my Polaroid Sprintscan 120 and am suprised more 
people don't use them. I have a close friend who has a Nikon 8000 and 
has had nothing but trouble with it, but that's another story.

Bruce McElhaney
McElhaney Portrait Studio
Livonia, MI



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Alessandro Pardi 
<alessandro.pardi@i...> wrote:
> 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@u...]
> Sent: venerdì 17 maggio 2002 00.40
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y...
> 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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