Digital BW, The Print

Hi Peter,

I tried T400CN and XP2 with my Minolta 5400 but didn't find either of them to
be sufficiently smooth. They are a little better because the dye clouds are
somewhat softer-edged than the metalic silver in a traditional film, but the
random structure is similar and that's what causes the problem IMO.

Barrett, re your comments I don't mean to say that the 5400 doesn't produce
good results in its own way, but doing a comparison with a wet print it's
obvious how much more "gritty" the look is. It's contrastier than the older
Nikons (not to mention the flatbeds), which isn't always desirable.

-= mike =-

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter A. Klein [mailto:pklein@...]
Sent: 16 August 2004 18:51
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Shadow noise in scans


Mike:  Thanks. I was afraid it was something like that.  The film is 
T400CN, which is supposed to scan better than traditional silver 
films. But its weakness is that the darker things get, the grainier 
it gets.

Since I posted the problem, I even tried scanning as a color slide, 
then inverting the image and desaturating through various color 
filters.  I got a slightly better initial image that was easier to 
tweak into the right tonal range.  But the problem remained--the 
images were virtually identical once I matched the first scan's 
curves.

Multiple-pass scanning did not help, either, so I guess it's just 
interaction between whatever's on the film and the scanner.

--Peter

<snip>

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