Digital BW, The Print

Roger,

 

It’s not a paper question, it’s a film and scanning question.  The film is inherently capable of capturing that huge SBR - fact.  I accomplish this by processing in XTOL @ 1+2 @ 24C for 9 minutes – continuous agitation.  The next step requires the scanner to be able to scan high density negatives – or more specifically, areas of high density – the highlights.  My Epson V700 does that for me.  The scanner captures the whole range from clear film base to the maximum density of the negative and represents it in the TIFF file as a full range 16-bit greyscale scan.  So the huge SBR in the original scene is ‘compressed’ (via my workflow) into the range my paper is capable of – i.e. maximum ink black to paper white.

 

This is really a rehashing of the ‘expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights’.  In my workflow it becomes ‘expose for the shadows and scan for the highlights’.  I’ve abandoned processing N+ and N-.  Scanning for the highlights is my approach to handling that now.

 

Steve Gledhill

www.virtuallygrey.co.uk <http://www.virtuallygrey.co.uk/> 

 

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Sopher
Sent: 07 October 2008 20:34
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re: Getting reasonable scan file sizes w/ MF & LF ...

 

Sorry to jump in to a private conversation Steve, but how do you obtain 17
stops range. When I was doing large format B&W using the zone system, the
difference from dead black to paper white was 8/9 zones = 8/9 stops.
Admittedly I am a dinosaur of the TRI-X, HC-110 era and have been out of
the darkroom for some time but 17 full stops sounds miraculous.

Roger 



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