Digital BW, The Print

Normal neg development. No col staining formula. Since there is no col info in the neg, I wonder what difference there could be in any of the channels. Therefore why RGB vs Greyscale?

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "pdesmidt tds.net" <pdesmidt@...> wrote:
>
> 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.
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>