Digital BW, The Print

> Oh, by the way don't let Carolyn's claims of being an amateur fool
> you.....I don't think she is allowed to play in the novice class.

Indeed!

Carolyn, I have a couple of follow up questions.
 
>> Sometimes if the highlight details are missing on the preview I'll
>> apply a
>> -.1 or less analog gain in master.

What is analog gain and how is it applied? Is it raising the center (gamma)
of the master curve?

>> 
>> If the negative is difficult and I cannot achieve an acceptable
>> tonal range
>> I will scan two or three times with different curves settings, one
>> optimized
>> highlights, one for shadows and sometimes one for midtones. Then I
>> combine
>> the files as layers in photoshop and apply layer masks to each scan
>> allowing
>> the best parts of each to show through.

Is this so that you can hold detail throughout the entire range of the
original at good contrast *and* while maintaining the integrity of the
histogram? Otherwise you could just capture a flat (soft contrast) rendition
of the image at the scan stage, and apply contrast through curves; but this
would yield a combed histogram. Is that your reason for scanning separately
for shadows and highlights?

Thanks, I very much enjoyed learning your workflow.

Todd