Digital BW, The Print

> 
> It seems that Black and white film is tough to scan.  Does anyone 
> here use color film or color slide film scans with conversion to 
> black and white in photoshop for strictly black and white digital 
> printing?
> is there a loss of quality in the final print when compared to 
> traditional black and white film.
> 

I use a Nikon ED4000 scanner which is probably one of the hardest 
scanner around for achieving *good* scans of traditional B&W film due 
to the LED light source being very collminated.

Initially I tried the B&W film scanning and achieved very 
unacceptable results - lacking smooth tones, clumpy obvious grain, 
not even sharp - and, in conjuntion with other various responses I 
came across, began to conclude that (at least for the Nikon scanners) 
B&W film was not a scanning marriage made in heaven. As such I 
resorted to scanning colour print film (looking for the greatest 
exposure lattitude outside of B&W) and I was managing to achieve 
*good* B&W conversions - having colour information is great for tonal 
manipulations. But like many things in life, the more you become 
acustomed to something on a regular basis, that initial shelf-appeal 
that attracted you begins to fade and you begin to look for 
characteristics that offer more substance. This is where I've arrived 
at with colour conversions.

They can still periodically impress me but I really miss be able to 
have the high levels acctuance that traditional B&W film can deliver 
with that midtone *glow* - something that even the C-41 chromogenics 
fail to achieve. Even the expected B&W deep shadow detail and wide 
exposure lattitudes easily become compromised when using a colour-neg 
as a base.

The conclusion I have arrived at from chasing my own tail on this 
point over the last 18 months is that scanned B&W film remains in a 
class of its own. The problem tends to arise when you think of [film] 
as just film, of which you have many choices; [development] as 
development for achieving a neg for the wet darkroom; and [scanning] 
as a process for digitising film.

It can take some experimenting but B&W films need to be matched to a 
developer and development objective (that of being scanned) that 
should almost be considered as part of your digital workflow. For 
example, I find HP5 in Rodinal scans with very ugly grain clumps that 
you can almost count on the monitor when scanned with the Nikon 
ED4000; however, in Tmax developer it scans creamy smooth.

Obviously its all personal in the end but once you realise there are 
a number of non-digital variables involved in achieving a B&W scan 
that need to be tuned (even on the Nikon) I am now of the opinion 
that colour conversions just dont deliver that *traditional* B&W 
tonal quality.

regards
Craig / Beijing