Digital BW, The Print

I've done some work in this area and have come to some unconventional 
conclusions. I'm not saying I'm right. What I am saying is that this 
works for me. You will all have to decide for yourselves.

I'm a 4x5 shooter. Currently I'm only shooting Tri-X for B&W. It 
routinely handles 11 stops of subject brightness range (SBR), for 
example, white flower in full sun, according to my Zone VI modified 
Pentax digital spotmeter. It may well handle more, but I've never found 
more in any of my landscape work.

The Zone System would have you pull that 11 stop range down to about 8 
stops (N-3 or even N-4) to better match the dynamic range of silver 
gelatin paper. What I have found is that with a hybrid workflow 
(film-scan-inkjet), this is unnecessary. The hybrid workflow lets you 
really simplify the Zone System.

Basically, you setup your EI and normal development time just like for 
printing in the darkroom. Then, you expose for the shadows (set Zone III 
for the darkest part you want to carry texture), and let the highlights 
fall where they may. Every sheet of film gets "N" development.

You can do this because the scanner will fit whatever the film density 
range is, into the scanner's digital range of 0-255 (8 bit), 0-4095 (12 
bit), or 0-65535 (16 bit). This in turn, is an *exact* match to the printer.

For example, say your FB+Fog occurs at 0.12, and your normal Zone VIII 
occurs at 1.3. You meter that scene with the white flower in full sun 
and find you have a range of Zone I-XI. You take the shot, develop it 
normally, and end up with a Dmax of 2.1 on the film. This negative is 
virtually unprintable in the darkroom. Yet, if you do a good scan and 
set your black and white points well, you get a full range scan with 
beautiful tonality from darkest shadows to brightest highlights. This 
scan prints fairly easily on an inkjet printer, without blown out 
highlights (which are virtually undefined in this workflow).

Of course, there's always a catch. As you drive up density, you drive up 
graininess. The highlights (that white flower) are going to be a little 
more grainy than if you did an N-3 process. But since I'm shooting 4x5, 
a little extra grain is pretty meaningless anyway.

Sounds too easy doesn't it? Well, I'm not asking you to believe it. You 
can prove it to yourself. Shoot a scene twice, and give one negative N-3 
and one negative N development. Scan them both and pull the files up 
side-by-side in Photoshop. When I've done this test, I've found the 
files to be virtually identical, except for the bit of extra graininess 
in the highlights of the N negative. And that's not going to be 
noticeable in a print smaller than about 40x50 inches for me (about 10x 
enlargement). The real test is in the prints though, and I've never been 
able to get anyone to tell me which print is which.

Sacrilege. I know. I've been told before. So... clearly, YMMV.
--
Hogarth Hughes


Pieris Berreitter wrote:

>
> Claude (and others),
>
> You mention you've seen Tmax density from 3 stops to 11 stops. I've
> seen this magical 11 stops (and more) elsewhere, and recall a comment
> saying something like "this is only useful in scientific
> applications".
>
> First, can this kind of range be obtained simply by asking a pro-lab
> to do pull-processing or is other trickery involved?
>
> Second, how useable is such a "high-latitude" negative for a hybrid
> process? In theory, one could scan this negative with a scanner
> capable of reading a Dmax of 3.2 (about max for Tmax according to the
> datasheet), apply curves to reduce range to about 5 stops (thereby
> boosting contrast), and print. Would I be able to match the results
> of this high-latitude negative to a "normal" negative of the same
> scene, assuming the scene does not exceed the latitude of the normal
> negative?
>
> Or (my suspicion), would the tonal range of the "high latitude"
> negative be so long as to make the scan aesthetically ugly (banding
> in dark regions)?
>
> This topic has always been interesting to me.
> -Pieris
>