Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Andre" 
<am1000@v...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "mh" <mh@t...> 
wrote:
> ...The good thing about overexposing negatives is that you will 
always
> have information in there (it is very hard to go to black black)
> whereas if you underexpose it is possible to get nothing but the
> noise of the base material/scanner.
> > 
> > -MikeH
> 
> My experience has been just the opposite with a Nikon Coolscan V.
> Sometimes there is unintentional overexposure followed by normal
> development and the scanned images have little contrast with
> grain/noise being very present. 
> 
> Cheers,
> André

My statement above was in regards to information in the negative, not 
in the scan (well, ideally in the scan I guess). The problem you 
encountered was probably a case like what I talked about: most of the 
information in the negative was in a compressed, dense, range and 
your scanner had to spread (I know that is not standard terminology) 
those tones out more than normal. This results in more noise and less 
contrast.

Contrast is a problem and a tricky issue. The natural contrast of B&W 
film is a somewhat unique thing and if the exposure or development is 
off it can mess with that. The complications arise when a lower 
contrast negative results in a lower tonal range scan. When you try 
and bring back that contrast in Photoshop, the image will look kinda 
posterized (contrasty but still flat tonally) and just not quite 
right. I have to go in and adjust contrast locally in these cases.

But a less contrasty negative is usually a good thing because you 
will be able to capture detail in the shadows and the highlights 
(neither will be "clipped") but if it goes too far then you will end 
up with limited tonality.

To me, making sure that there is complete information on the negative 
and in the scan is the most important part (in the raw scanning 
stage) but sometimes this philosophy will hurt the overall look and 
require extra work in Photoshop. So it might not work in a time-is-
money environment. Another reason why paying someone to scan your 
personal work is not always a good idea (but now I am getting back to 
a topic I just talked about in the scan-hi-end group and not this one)

I'll stop rambling now,

-m