Digital BW, The Print

On 04/11/2008 glemasurier wrote:
> I apologize if this post is considered off-topic. I've decided to scan
> all of my old B&W negs for printing digitally, but don't have the time
> to spend learning to scan. I've looked at several Web sites that offer
> 4000 dpi scans from B&W negs. 

Even if someone else does the drudgery of actually turning film into 
pixels, you should realistically expect to spend a lot of time 
post-processing if you want any sort of decent image quality. Negs are 
designed for the S-shaped sensitometric curve of bromide, not linear or 
gamma functions found in digital. Then there is noise, dust and dirt etc. 
Scanning and post-prod is enormously powerful if done well, but no budget 
service is going to do all that for you - and even if they did, scanning 
like darkroom printing is an interpretive art.

-- 
Regards

Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk