Digital BW, The Print

Ken,

I have a LS-2000 and virually all of my scans are B&W.  I find that 
scanning as a B&W neg produces poor results.  I scan all my negs as 
RGB and then convert in PS immediately.  Try scanning a negative in 
both modes and I think that you will see the difference.  As I do 
most of my adjustments in PS rather than with the Nikon software, 
having a brownish prescan is not a problem.

Steve


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Anthony 
Atkielski" <anthony@a...> wrote:
> 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).