Digital BW, The Print

Stan, thanks for your resposne.

On Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at 04:33 PM, Shire,Stanley wrote:

> Not a bad thought but, one of the main reasons for using the Zone  
> System
> (in addition to printing everything on one grade of paper) is to
> maintain shadow detail while either separating high values or  
> preventing
> them from blocking up. Once density values pile up on the shoulder and
> become the same density they cannot be separted with any scanner.

If I am reading the characteristic curves correctly, isn't the shoulder  
a function of the amount of exposure and not the amount of development.  
  Given N and N+2 development the  shoulder is at the same position on  
the exposure axis but the density is obviously different.  Blocking up  
on the print may be something else (and I have less experience here  
than most others)  but blocking up the negative seems independent of  
development.  Or have I missed something.

> Anybody else???
>
>
>
> Stan Shire
> Associate Professor/Department Chair
> Photographic Imaging
> Community College of Philadelphia
> Adobe Photoshop 6 A.C.E.
> Author: Hands On Photoshop 7: Tutorial Workshops
>
> 215 751-8320
> sshire@...
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin Gulstene [mailto:kevin@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 6:54 PM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Scanning and Zone Sys Development.
>
>
> Is zone system development time manipulation irrelevant when scanning
> film as opposed to traditional printing?   That is the question I would
> like some help with.
>
> My understanding is that the zone system is way of ensuring a  constant
> density range on the negative independent of the brightness range of
> the scene.  This is desirable because it makes most scenes printable on
> a grade 2 paper (leaving the other grades available for artistic
> interpretation) and it helps minimize the stuffing around in the
> darkroom required to get a good print.
>
> Since I am not doing wet prints but am scanning the negatives, it seems
> to me that the N- or N+ development dependent on the scene brightness
> range is, mostly, irrelevant.  By setting the black point, setting the
> white point and scanning the negative am I not mapping the entire
> density range of the image to a numerical range of 0-256 or 0-64k?
> This mapping would take place independent of the absolute density any
> particular zone.
>
> As a hypothetical example lets assume a scene contains a 8 stop range
> of brightness.  Three images are similarly exposed to capture that
> brightnesses range. The three images are given different development
> times and produce density ranges of  (1.0-0.3=.7), (1.4-0.4=1.0) and
> (2.0-.5=1.5).  When the images are scanned each one will produce a full
> histogram from 0 to 255 and a scene brightness at the 6th of the eight
> stops will show up at the same place in each of the histograms.
>
> Soooo, can't I simplify the zone mantra to "expose for the shadows and
> let the highlights fall where they may with normal development".  Also,
>   wouldn't it be better to generally use N+1 development times so that
> the numbers from the raw scan occupied more of the scanner's range?
>
> Thanks for your help
>
>
>
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