Digital BW, The Print

Point source and condenser enlargers present the same problem -- very sharp,
and mercilessly so with grain and scratches. Nikon scanners use a small
point light source that has the same effect. Polaroid and others use a
flourescent bulb for the light source, similar in effect to a diffusion
enlarger. 

When I compared a nikon scanner with a polaroid scanner, the nikon was
slightly sharper but revealed much more grain and surface flaws.
My rough guess would be that the nikon was 5% sharper, but revealed 100%
more grain and defects. In Photoshop I could easily use the unsharp mask
filter to sharpen the polaroid image to surpass the nikon image. When I
tried to sharpen the nikon image, the graininess would limit what I could
do.

Jim


On 4/29/03 9:33 AM, "digikdm" <monroekd@...> wrote:

> having scanned many of my B&W negatives recently with a Nikon 4000
> coolscan( digital ICE is off), i noticed that many of my negatives
> have at least one and often multiple micro-scratches of varing
> length. These negatives have not been subjected to any unusual abuse
> that i am aware of. I use an air gun and gently wipe the negatives
> with a clean lint free pad to clean them before scanning.Although the
> micro-scratches can be "cloned" out, i am wondering  about the
> following:       
> 1. Are these micro-sratches present in most negatives that are
> scanned with high-res scanners?
> 2. Are the micro-scratches significant in regards to creating good
> wet darkroom prints in the future?
> 3.Can they be avoided or kept to a minimum?
> 
> thanks for any insights!!
> k.monroe
>