Digital BW, The Print

I have had some images of trees that look, in color, like backgrounds
for film animations; one image from the Quinault rain forest looks
like a background for "Bambi". This is true both for the screen image
and the print. When examined in detail they look like photos, but the
overall effect is of a very detailed cartoon. 

The images are 8 or 16bit RGB scans of medium format Kodak & 
Fuji color negatives and I remember having seen the effect on some
images over several years with different films and scanners. I've seen
the effect with Vuescan on a ScanMultiPro and ScanMaker4 and also with
ScanWizard on the SM4. I also have some scans from a PowerLook 3000,
but I haven't examined them for this effect.

I wonder if it could be some kind of subtle posterization effect. I
see it in images that show nice smooth histograms and more heavily
manipulated ones that are a bit "combed", so I don't think it is a
defect in my processing. 

Nothing I have been able to do to the images has reduced the effect -
all suggestions welcomed.

Frank


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bernie Ess"
<albatros-@g...> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> Having printed quite a lot these days on my 2100/UT7 I found that
> certain gray tones are difficult for me to print in a satisfying
way: 
> 
> It is foliage of trees. I like to shoot trees, but it often happens
> that it gets a kind of "painterly" effect later in the print, it
looks
> more like a painting than really like a photo. Of course it is not a
> lack of detail, but its the tones. Have you experienced that?
> I even find it hard to well convert trees from color (digital) to
b&w.
> But also when I scan film (120 film) I often find that the foliage
is
> the most difficult part to adjust. Strange enough, skin tones in b&w
> are far more easy to do (in color that would be different of
course).
> 
> Regards, Bernhard