Digital BW, The Print

Hello Bruce,

I experienced a lot of inconsistency in scanning b&w negatives until I
adopted a workflow I'd read about from a couple of different sources - David
Brooks is one I recall.

I use a film scanner - Minolta Multi Pro II - but the basic technique will
be the same for your flatbed. basically, I deliberately scan the negative in
as a color positive. I scan at the highest in to out resolution in 16 bit
mode and usually set the number of passes between 8 and 16 depending upon
the amount of noise I expect, then get and reset it / rescan it until I'm
happy with it.

Once it's in Photoshop, I'll make level and curve adjustments in reverse -
it helps if you have a contact or small print from the lab. Once it looks
like you have a good tonal range go to Image>Adjustments>Invert and you
should have a fairly decent b&w image to tweak from there.

This is far from an automatic process and does require some getting used to
working "inside out". But it has resulted in dramatically improved scans for
me.

Mr. Brook's article may still be on the Shutterbug site. If so I recommend
giving it a read.

-----Original Message-----
From: btvarner [mailto:btvarner@...]
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 11:32 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Scanning Black & White Negatives




I am new to this newsgroup & I hope this topic is correct for the
group.

I have gotten aware from black & white since moving to mainly digital
capture.  I am now attempting to re-enter producing black & white
images in the digital darkroom.  I am not new to digital, just to
digital b&w.

I currently have an Epson 2450 scanner which works "ok" for medium
format transparencies.  When I attempt to scan b&w negative film
however, the results are horrible.  Here is my two current questions.

1)  How do you get good scans of b&w negative film?

2)  When I scan b&w negative film and then open it in Photoshop, the
file is still a negative.  It has not been converted to a positive.
Also, the exposure is wayyyyyy off!  Always to dark, even though
during the scanning process the exposure looks fine.  What am I doing
wrong?

My work flow is:
Epson 2450 scanner
Viewscan 7.6.18 scan software
Photoshop CS
Epson 2000 printer
Quadtone for Windows b&w printing software

By the way, I can print b&w fine with desiderated color images.

Bruce Varner
Kansas City metro area







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