Digital BW, The Print

I for one can tell you that it does make a difference in Staining developers
to scan in RGB mode. There is a visiable difference and it can be easily
seen when printing in the darkroom.  That is the point of using a staining
developer.  Separately it is my understanding the the majority of scanners
all scan in RGB and the scanner software whether it is Vuesan,Epson or
Silverfast just convert the RGB image to greyscale in software.   Frankly I
would rather take charge of that conversion myself and do it in Photoshop
with whatever method I chose.

 

Paul

 

-----Original Message-----
From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of djon43
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 7:31 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Scanning Black and White With Vuescan

 

First, even stains in negatives usually prove inadequately removed
antihalation dye...insufficient fix/wash. It's equivalent to fog when
printing or scanning..it reduces contrast evenly but may suggest the
negative wasn't adequately fixed/washed.

Second, very few people use staining developers, probably nobody with
TriX/Holga. Staining developer ideas simply confuse things here. 

COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC>>>It happens that I've inquired of folks who DO
use staining developers and scan...they've told me scanners treat the
stain identically to silver..it's considered colorless density by the
scanner when in B&W mode, just as it is when using an
enlarger...that's the whole point of a staining developer! (some say
the stain color is faintly noticed by polycontrast paper but not
significantly.

Just to make the point about file size, a B&W neg that I just scanned
as as if it was a chrome is 120.3MB...(can be inverted in Photoshop to
look like a positive...not necessary with Vuescan, best practice with
Nikonscan). The same neg scanned as a B&W neg produces 40.1MB and
won't have to be inverted. 

John



 



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