Digital BW, The Print

Glad everyone is having fun with the Farm Security Administration -
have to say I was blown with the quality of the print of the Migrant
Mother I was able to get.

I think I'm getting on top of my B&W print workflow.

I'm now starting to look at the scanner end of things.

I have a Nikon 4000ED with roll film adapter - and I have both Nikon
Scan and Vuescan.

There seem to be 2 problems with the Nikon / Nikon scan.  The first is
that Nikon scan insists truncating the histogram - starting from 30 in
the shadows - on negative scans.  The second is focus can be a little
out - due to a combination of limited depth of field, slight curvature
of the negative in the glassless holder and possibly autofocus
problems on some images. (I flippantly remarked on my old LS20
producing sharper scans than my 4000 and someone pointed this out)

I'm also a little unsure of the analogue gain function - there seems
to be some suggestion it doesn't affect the lamp brightness in B&W,
simply operating on the post processed image.

The type of workflow I was thinking of is this:

- use Nikonscan rather than Vuescan
- scan B&W negatives as a 16 bit colour positive;
- preview the negative
- make slight adjustments to analogue gain if the negative appears
over or underexposed (i.e significant clipping or bunching up of values)
- use manual focus to focus at the centre of the image
- use GEM to reduce grain (taking up Paul's suggestion)
- use multiscan as and when required (especially archival images and
images with problems with shadow definition)
- possibly, use multiple scans with different GEM and analogue gain
settings
- convert to B&W in Photoshop - using the colour combiner.

I've also ordered an Anti-Newton ring glass carrier insert for my film
strip holder.

Can anyone help me here?  Is there anything I should be doing
differently?  This is largely guesswork based on reading a few things.

And does anyone think I should be using Vuescan instead?  The big
advantage to Nikonscan seems to be GEM.  And I might need to calibrate
the Coolscan to get the best out of Vuescan - meaning I need at IT8
target!  Don't suppose anyone has an ICC for Coolscan 4000ED?

Not quite sure how I combine the multiple images.  I have Photoshop
CS2.  Paul mentioned the cloning tool...  Paul, do you have open
multiple images and clone between them?  Or am I just totally missing
the point.

Thanks
Gareth