Digital BW, The Print

I found the link mentioned about NikonScan "failing" to display histogram
info below 30 very interesting, but wonder if we're getting in a tizzy over
nothing.

I'd like to hear from the more technically minded members of the list
regarding this. My guess (again, being a semi-intelligent artist, not a
technician!) is that since the lightest areas of a neg are not really clear,
but colored the tint of the film base or neg mask or whatever you call it
(especially in the orange color negs the web guy is using), inverting this
very light tint would produce something less than the deepest black (as long
as software stays out of it). This can obviously be overcome by moving the
shadows slider to compensate.

So my question is--isn't what NikonScan is being criticized for actually
closer to a "raw" scan? Isn't other scanner software just basically
automatically moving the shadows slider to compensate for this without
bothering to give us a say-so in the matter?

I can see why the clipped highlights are a reason for concern (and scanning
as a positive), but I am getting great prints and therefore not exactly
losing sleep over the shadows matter. Just curious.

Thanks, 
Doug


> Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 14:18:37 -0800
> From: George Hartzell <hartzell@...>
> Subject: Re: For those using the Nikon ED 4000 to scan B&W negatives
> 
> Jean-Marc Humbert writes:
>> Dear all:
>> 
>> I've been using the Nikon Coolscan ED 4000 for 18 months [...]
>> 
>> After hundreds of scans (with different kind of negatives and
>> different ways of process), I am still disappointed with:
>> 
>> - the poor histograms I obtain in PS
>> - the gap in shadow area (from 0 to 25/30, no data at all!) which is
>> quite annoying for printing with the PiezographyBW plugin since it
>> requests strong blacks...
>> 
> 
> Here's a site that talks about the problems scanning negatives on the
> LS8000.  My LS4000 exhibits the same behaviour.
> 
> http://www.marginalsoftware.com/LS8000Notes/autoexposure_not_working.htm
> 
> For black and white, I've had good luck scanning as a positive (which
> gives me an inverted image) and then flipping it in Photoshop (usually
> using the levels dialog to invert it and set the black and white
> points at the same time, curves is cool too, but simply inverting
> sometimes is "icky".).
> 
> I find color corrections challenging when I'm flying by the seat of my
> pants, so I've had less success w/ this approach for color negs.
> 
> I can get Vuescan to give me ok results, but I'm hampered a bit
> because I'm tied to MacOS 8.x and am therefor running an older version
> of vuescan.  I'm worried about keeping my Leaf45 running if I upgrade
> to 9.x, so...
> 
> g.