Digital BW, The Print

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:07 PM, frankg_photo <frankgross@...> wrote:

>
>
> I'm renting time at a lab on an Imacon with flexcolor 4.8.6 (Mac) tomorrow
> and need help to optimize the settings for scanning black and white
> negatives (+I'm not too familiar with the program.)
>
> Firstly, is there any benefit to scanning RGB rather than Greyscale?
>
> I understand that if I was converting from a col transparency or col neg to
> black & white, I'd have the advantage of selecting the best of the three
> channels for my B&W image. But if the original is a B&W neg, then is there
> really any advantage? After all there is no col info in the neg to begin
> with. Or am I mistaken about hoe the software scans and converts to B&W?
>
> I intend to scan at max optical res,16bit, Tif files
> Thanks
>
>  _
>
I haven't used that scanner.  If the negative was developed in a staining
developer, such as Pyrocat, PMK..., then scanning in color can be useful.
In addition, usually a scanner does best with one of the channels, which is
normally the green channel.  The way to know is to scan as RGB and examine
the channels in photoshop.  There will likely be some big differences.  The
scanning software will probably allow you to specify what channel/channels
go into a grayscale rendering.  Once you've figured out what is best, you
can then scan that way directly.


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