Digital BW, The Print

mh:

I am not quite clear what resolution you are scanning at but it sounds like
you are varying it depending upon what size you expect the final output to
be. As was noted on a recent thread I is best to scan at the scanners
optical resolution (which is 2400 dpi at the 1:1 size of the negative) and
then resample down later as needed for printing.

The other thing to keep in mind is that in 8-bit grayscale you only have 256
shades of gray and if you make large changes in brightness, contrast, levels
or strong curves you will start to lose shades of gray. You can observe this
by checking the image histogram before and after making a large adjustment.
If too many shades of gray are lost the image will begin to look posterized.

In addition the RGB separation curves used in the MIS-VM workflow are
sometime very strong. They can by themselves push a marginal image file into
posterization. One of the things to try if you are getting posterization is
a different RGB curve to see if that improves things.

What I recommend is that you scan you negatives to a 16-bit file from the
scanner if possible. I suspect you are working in Silverfast SE and do not
have this capability. I would recommend the full version of Silverfast for
your scanner to get the 16-bit output option. You can download a demo
version to give it a try.

Once you have a 16-bit file in PS do all of your large adjustments before
you drop to 8-bit. For some images you may have to stay in 16-bit all the
way through applying the RGB separation curves and printing. Some people
work this way on all their images.

Martin Wesley
http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html


----- Original Message -----
From: "oncdoc301" <oncdoc@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2002 8:01 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: posterization


> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "husseyhussey" <mh@t...>
> wrote:
>
> mh:
>
> Thanks for your reply. I am scanning in 48>24 bit color mode then
> converting to grayscale for editing. I have been using the
> brightness/contrast sliders in a new adjustment layer to boost those
> areas which posterize ( I hope that is the correct term..it appears
> as merging of what as a photographer I would call zone III-IV tones
> into a single flat poorly detailed puddle.
>
(snip earlier)