Digital BW, The Print

I have been using RealGrain from Imagenomic for several years now to add
grain back into my images. Excellent controls over grain size, distribution
throughout shadows, midtones and highlight and while your there, you can
make the B&W conversion, tone control adjustments and without destroying
your histogram.

 

Paul, I don't think that scanning B&W film is a very good way to get "that
B&W grain look" as the scanning process nearly made me lose my lunch the
first few years I had a scan made of B&W films. It is just not the same
thing. If scanners could reproduce the grain of B&W they could get rid of
dust too, but the way the light get turned into pixels, just leaves this
darkroom printer cold.  

 

 

Eric

 

Eric Neilsen Photography

4101 Commerce Street, Suite 9

Dallas, TX 75226

214-827-8301

www.ericneilsenphotography.com

 

SKYPE   ejprinter

  _____  

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Brad
Smith
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:42 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] That film look

 

Paul,
I worked in a large engineering/architecture operation. Just be aware 
of one thing. Often, architects want large sized prints of images or 
renderings....24X36 and 36X48 being pretty common. When you say that 
they want some "quality b/w as well as digital color", it makes me 
think that they could want really great looking, very large b/w 
prints. That gets me to worrying about grain being obtrusive. I'd 
suggest that if you're going to be shooting film, that you use medium 
format or 4x5. If you have to use 35mm, then use the finest grained 
film you can get. Otherwise, scanning down to the grain level and 
then enlarging to that size will yield a salt and peppery grain-storm.

I have my own darkroom and did lots of 35mm up to 4x5 b/w development 
and printing for years, but if I had that assignment today, I'd shoot 
digital and convert to b/w or shoot 4x5 transparency's if I needed 
perspective control and then scan that. From those scan's I'd get 
both the color and if needed, I'd convert to b/w.

Brad

On Feb 3, 2009, at 7:41 PM, Paul Whiting wrote:

> Greetings all, interesting thread. I share Dana's approach.
>
> I thought about this issue a lot last week. I have a project coming up
> with an architect who wants some quality b/w as well as digital color.
> I began investigating how to get b/w from my digital color files,
> knowing there was more to it than just clicking on "remove color" in
> PhotoShop Elements. The more I looked at options like CS3 or CS4,
> various plug-ins, stand-alone conversion to b/w software and so on, I
> finally ended up thinking heck, why not shoot in b/w film as I shoot
> the color digital. So I plan to shoot the digital color, leave the
> tripod in the same place, mount my b/w film camera and take the same
> shot. Develop the film, scan it, and hey, I've got the film look. Been
> developing b/w film for 40 years so am quite comfortable with it.
> Plus, I would then have a hard copy b/w original which is more
> comforting archivally speaking than a file on a CD when CD players may
> go the way of the dinosaur.
>
> I did some tests, scanning some Ilford FP4+ film, 35mm yet!, and got
> some very fine 8x10's using the MK3 approach on an Epson R1800. A
> friend of mine calls this the hybrid approach. I'm inclined to go this
> way for the time being.
>
> fwiw,
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> 

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