Digital BW, The Print

Paul Grant wrote:
> 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.

Two scanners I have the Nikon LS8000 and the Epson V700 can 
only scan in RGB hardware wise whether the software is set 
on greyscale or color.  Vuescan will emphasise the green 
channel but still pick up part of the other channels in the 
conversion to greyscale if I recall some messages by Ed.

My old Agfa  Horizon Plus A3 has a monochrome sensor that 
needs 3 passes for color and isn't very good for that work 
anymore but it has a one pass Greyscale setting where the 
color filter is replaced by a ND filter that works very 
good, 1200 PPI only but up to A3 if needed. I use it mainly 
for old graphic films.

Related to that, we see all kinds of B&W conversions of 
color devices: printers that are changed to quad inksets, 
cameras that are stripped of their Bayer filters, but no 
scanners that have their sensor filters removed for B&W 
scanning. Could be impossible if the filter is within the 
glass of the linear sensor strips. But if possible one could 
even partition the 3 sensors with 2 grades of ND filters and 
one without to increase the dynamic range. RGB filters have 
different density levels but not as ideal as it could be.


-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten,  Ernst


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