Digital BW, The Print

Alex-


> What I actually meant about scanners capability to change exposure 
> time is
> that I think they have it at least internally, i.e. they can adapt to
> different images:

I see what you mean.  I think that the density range of virtually all 
silver negatives that you would want to scan are within the range that 
a current model film scanner can handle without  resorting to changing 
the exposure.  The histogram of values read directly from the 
electronics will 'always' fall somewhere in between the minimum and 
maximum values the scanner can handle.

The 'auto-exposure' function usually takes over from there so that when 
you look at the histogram in a preview window the x values that you see 
are a subset of the scanners range that corresponds to the range of the 
negative.

> whether or not this setting can be modified by the user is
> another matter (BTW it would be interesting to see how Vuescan behaves 
> with
> such scanners that do not let the user change exposure time: is the 
> "lock
> exposure" checkbox still visible? How does it affect scans?).

The box is still there but I haven't tried it to see what it does to 
the scan.

--
Kevin