Digital BW, The Print

Dana, I have a Nikon 9000, and Epson V750, and 3200 and I have operated a
Flex Tight II/Imacon, a Nikon 8000 and  have had them scanned on a drum
scanner and a local Heidelberg. A scan is a scan regardless of the scanner
used.  Sure there are differences as to how the grain is interpreted by the
scanner, but it just is not the same as the film to print process. I have
scanned film stock from B&W, Color, XP2, T400CN, etc 110mm to 8x10. negs. 

 

And while I speak strongly for the quality of direct B&W prints, I am not
saying that very good interpretations of the captured image are not being
made with scanners. I think you'll recall seeing my name around for awhile
and a variety of the list discussing B&W. My head is NOT barried in the
sands of time.  You should not take my words to be an indictment of the scan
to print paradigm. 

 

AS to the dust and grain, it is well known that scanner don't handle the
grain of B&W film well with ICE. It is how they work or don't that sets that
up as I understand it. It doesn't see the grain as much as it interprets
light and dark. 

 

In making my digital negs for contact printing, I try hard to get prints
that have the grain feel. AS it would have been from the original source. 

 

At this point I much prefer RealGrain to help in that process.  

 

Eric

 

Eric Neilsen   

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 Dana H.
Myers
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:13 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] That film look

 

Eric Neilsen wrote:

> 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.

How are you scanning B&W? My experience is different. I found
that, once I started scanning at a reasonable resolution (4000 dpi
in a Nikon LS9000), I'm quite happy with the results with a broad
range of film but it pays to optimize a bit, really not that different
than optimizing for condensor vs. diffusion enlarger.

Scanners will favor a somewhat thinner neg in my experience; about
a one-stop pull is good, and this also reduces the impact of the
real problem, which is Callier effect (dense, grainy negs are the
worst for that).

> It is just not the same
> thing. If scanners could reproduce the grain of B&W they could get rid of
> dust too,

I don't follow this at all - that doesn't seem to make sense.

> but the way the light get turned into pixels, just leaves this
> darkroom printer cold.

I'm sure it's a matter of personal taste as well, but I've seen
far too many outstanding prints made from scanned B&W negs to indict
the process in general. Like any process, there's a learning curve
that rewards the diligent.

Dana

 



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