Digital BW, The Print

Ken writes:

> Does anyone else have a Nikon LS2000 35 mm
> scanner that could offer me any tips. At the
> moment scanning the negatives is frightfully
> slow.

I've scanned lots of B&W on the LS-2000.  Is there some specific problem you
are having?  Make sure you turn off ICE; the scans will look really bad if
it is left on.

I've not noticed the slowness you describe.  If you have ICE on (which you
shouldn't, for B&W), the scanning speed will depend in part on the speed of
your computer, because ICE consumes a lot of processor time.  A slow PC may
slow scans considerably.  With ICE off, this is less obvious, but scanning
still depends to some extent on your computer speed, as there is still
processing going on during the scan (and also in the seconds following the
scan).  Overall, B&W scans faster than color.

> There is precious little on Black and White negatives.

I recall that it required some trial and error to get it right for me.  But
rest assured, the LS-2000 will provide excellent B&W scans once you get it
tweaked correctly.  Scanning is part science, part black art.

In the beginning, I had to try tweaking the curves in NikonScan to try and
even out the density on my B&W scans.  Once I got a curve that did what I
wanted, scans came out fine thereafter.  The curve that seemed to work best
was shaped vaguely like a backward L, rising rapidly in the shadows,
flattening out slightly, then a bit more rapidly at the high end, only to
flatten out a little at the very top of the curve.  This was for Tri-X, as I
recall.

I also get much better results scanning B&W that I develop myself.  I
discovered--well after the fact--that the one-hour lab that does B&W for me
has a workflow that works fine for their prints, but produces negatives that
are more contrasty and grainy than I get by developing myself.  I think they
use some sort of high-speed Ilford chemistry for their one-hour B&W service.
The ones they developed produced good prints when they printed the negs, but
I had a terrible time scanning them.

For chromogenic B&W films, be sure to scan them as color negs and then
grayscale, if they have the orange mask.  If they lack the orange mask, I
think that scanning them as black and white negs usually works better.  You
can use ICE on chromogenic B&W film.

Most of the B&W images in my Street Scenes gallery on my site were scanned
with the LS-2000.  Take a look and see what you think.  The first image in
the gallery is at

http://www.atkielski.com/ParisStreetScenes/display.php

By coincidence, the very first image was rescanned on the LS-8000ED, but the
next dozen or so photos at least are all LS-2000 scans, as are most of the
images except for the most recent (last) in the collection.  Most were shot
on Tri-X, but not all; number 10 was shot on Tech Pan, and number 12 was
shot on Portra 400BW, for example.  A handful were grayscaled from color
film (163 was grayscaled from Portra 160NC, and 162 from Provia 100).