Digital BW, The Print

pdcorlis wrote:

>I looked through the archives of the Epson scanner forums but couldn't seem to find a 
>direct answer to my question so here goes...
>
>I use an Epson 3200 to scan B&W negs for printing and have generally scanned my 4X5 
>negatives at their original size and at 1600 dpi - so when the day comes, I can print 
>11x14's at 600 (or so) dpi. I'm new to this brave new world so I'm wondering if other large 
>format photographers in the group have a different take on this. I want to scan at a high 
>enough resolution to preserve detail, but not too high a resolution to aviod HUGE 
>Photoshop files.
>
>Thanks for any help you can offer
>
>Phil C.
>  
>
With many scanners you must be aware that selecting a lower resolution 
that is related to the highest scan resolution with a factor 2/3/4 etc 
the chance exists that the software let the hardware skip steps in 
between. The 3200 probably has a true optical resolution of 1800 PPI 
max. but that's only obtained at its highest resolution setting and not 
when the hardware skips readings in between. I do not know whether that 
also happens at the 1600 PPI setting in this case but there are two ways 
to avoid it: the obvious one is scanning at the highest sampling 
resolution and downsampling later on in Photoshop, the other one is 
scanning at say 1605 PPI. With the last the scanner will use the highest 
hardware sampling resolution it has and the driver software will do the 
downsampling.

With my 3200 I use a wet mount method that I developed and refined over 
the years, much of that can be found in the archives of the 3200 and 
4870 list on Yahoo. To sum it up for the 3200:

Find the focus for your 3200. See Norman Koren's pages.

Cover the entire area of the glassbed with a black mask as thick as the 
focus you found and keep a less than 4x5 inch window in the middle of 
the lamphouse area. Masking is important, the internal reflections play 
a role in quality.

Wet mount the film with an extra sheet of polyester to an extra sheet of 
2 mm floatglass. Emulsion side to the glass.

Lay the film-glass sandwich with the film at the underside on top of the 
mask, the film is below the glass then and doesn't get the heat of the lamp.

Get an extra sheet of glass to prepare the next film for the next scan.

Ernst