Digital BW, The Print

A good Pyro neg will have less overall density and is particularly useful
for conveying detail in the higher end of the tonal scale. It is very useful
to scan the negs as RGB. Try to make the negative a neutral as possible as
you scan. The scans can seem a bit flat compared to other film and dev.
Combos. But if you use the  Channel mixer to convert to Grayscale you have
an opportunity to take the best properties of the Red and Green channels and
augment them to achieve a great file. There are many ways to use the channel
mixer to create files. a good and simple one is described in Michael
Kiernan¹s ³ Photoshop Color Correction² Chapter 8. he uses a curve on the
Red channel and a separate curve on the Green channel to augment the
inherent contrast in each channel.  The two curves adjusted channels are
then mixed together ( think multi-filter printing) in the channel mixer. The
blue channel is avoided as that is where most of the noise resides. This is
not the most advanced application of the channel mixer but it works well to
help retain the spectral contrast hiding in the pyro neg.

Pyro negs are pretty smooth to scan. I shot with it for 10 years but I now
prefer to shoot with Tmax 100 .It is a lot smoother and a lot more detail
with just about any dev.

> I use Ilford HP5+ and TMax 100 in 4x5  sheet film and Arista 400 (which is
> supposed to be HP5+) in 8x10 sheet film. I process in D76 1-1, then scan,
> edit, and print. I use the same times, temperatures, and agitation methods
> as I did when I printed in the darkroom (i.e. the negatives that worked well
> for darkroom printing seem to also work well for scanning).  Since I use
> sheet film and you must use roll film if you're using APX 100 (APX 100 was
> discontinued in sheet film a few years ago) I don't think there'd be any
> purpose in going through my procedures.


--
Steve Smith
photosmith@...
401-453-1596 




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