Digital BW, The Print

>One thing I've noticed in scanning in general, is that scanners vastly
>prefer underdeveloped film to overdeveloped.  If you've been used to
>making bulletproof negs for blasting in the darkroom, you'll be very
>disappointed when you try to scan them.  I have gotten perfectly usable
>images from wrongly-exposed chromes (forgot to change the ISO or
>something), where there appeared to be virtually nothing on the film.
>To my amazement, the scanner scanned the film quite well!  Conversely,
>I've had some negs that looked great on the light table, and would have
>printed fine in an enlarger, that the scanner scanned ok but not as
>well as expected.  So, if you're setting up to test carefully, don't be
>surprised if the scanner likes negs that are thinner than you would
>normally make.

Amen to that. My scanner is an inexpensive Minolta Dimage IV, and it is
capable of extracting astonishing amounts of good-looking image from the
merest hints of density in a negative. Conversely, it yields nasty
blocky-looking tones from higher-density areas. Since I'm partial to
shooting in low light, this suits me fine!

-- Nick

NICHOLAS HARTMANN
Technical and scientific translator
(414) 271-4890
nh@...
http://www.nhartmann.com