Digital BW, The Print

Austin Franklin wrote:

>
> > WHY: The majority of digital cameras, reflective scanners and some
> > film scanners, scan in only one color to obtain a digitized black
> > and white image from the original color photo.
>
> I do not believe that is true.  They actually use a percentage of each of
> the three colors, and yes, green is typically the highest of the mix.  It
> would be nice if the scanner interfaces did allow you to select you own
> "mix".
>
> I do agree that it's better to capture in color (for scanners that do not
> have a REAL B&W mode, like the Leafscanner ;-) and convert in
> PS...but...some scanners have done a great job at determining what "mix"
> works best for their particular scanner...so my advice for scanners, is to
> try it and see which works for you.
>
> Austin

Austin,
In our Howtek (drum), it appears that you have a choice of which PMT sensor
channel you want to use for the B&W capture, and I assumed that any scanner
would just use one of the 3 sensor channels to render grayscale.

Are you saying that the Leafscan uses a 4th sensor to scan grayscale?  I'm not
arguing, just curious.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC





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