Digital BW, The Print

George,

> 1.  A camera shop guy says I can't make contact sheets on an inexpensive
> scanner because they only have one light source and all I'll get
> is the center
> third of the negative strips. Anyone out there scanning neg
> strips for contact
> sheets?

I have no idea what you asked the camera shop guy, or what he was trying to
say, but I use a flatbed scanner to scan my negative sleeves, and it works
great.

> 2. The same camera shop guy said the Nikon V scanner isn't acceptable for
> B&W because of the light source. He says I have to have the Minolta 5400,
> which is $300 more, of course. Is he right? I want to scan B&W
> negative film
> and some color slides. I want to make 13 X 19 prints.

I don't see why the Nikon V scanner would be any worse/better at scanning
B&W over color because of the light source, so I think he may not know what
he's talking about.  Perhaps others here have more intimate knowledge of the
Nikon V and can give some feedback on their use of this scanner for B&W.

Keep in mind, most every scanner scans B&W in RGB, and converts it to B&W
using a "canned" mix of RGB inside the scanner (or driver).  There are other
methodologies for having the scanner return RGB to PhotoShop and using, say,
the channel mixer, to do the conversion.  Your results may vary.  I have a
scanner that scans B&W as B&W, so I don't have these issues ;-)

Regards,

Austin