Digital BW, The Print

At 12:52 PM 1/26/2002 -0000, you wrote:
>I have some 6cm x 6cm b&w negatives exposed back in the early '60s on 
>Tri X Pan Professional. They blew up to 20" x 16" quite successfully 
>using a DeVere cold-cathode enlarger. 
>
>Recently I had some of these negatives scanned by a bureau through an 
>Imacon Flextight machine, but grain has become so pronounced that the 
>scans are virtually unusable.
>
>I understand the problem. Light in a scanner is highly collimated - 
>the light beams are nearly perfectly parallel. So the grains don't 
>just block the light - they scatter it creating greater apparent 
>density. The so-called "Callier Effect." And it will have been made 
>worse because I neglected to tell the bureau *not* to sharpen the 
>image!
>
>However I wondered what 'work-round' others in this group have tried 
>to reduce grain on silver negatives. 
>

Thanks for the reminder about light scatter around grain. That explains the
harsh grain effect I am getting from a tungsten lamp neg scanner. Sharpening
definitely makes it worse.
I am finding from the tests I'm doing on the Epson 2450 with a cool light
that the prints remind me of TX developed in a solvent developer. They are
softer yet retain sharpness. I have one example where the sharpness of the
Epson clearly beats the grainier Umax at 1200 DPI. I may test the PS
softening technique on grain with the cool light effect of the scanner to
see if one is better. 

AZ

Maker of Lookaround panoramic camera.

www.geocities.com/soho/gallery/8874/
         or
keyword.com lookaround