Digital BW, The Print

I just joined the group a few days ago and sent a message asking for 
general suggestions to help me get going with B&W digital prints.  I 
appreciate all the responses received and think I'll begin with the 
MIS Variable Mix Quadtones for my Epson 1280 using Paul Roark's 
workflow information.

In the responses I received, no one mentioned the scanning end.  I've 
got a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 for scanning my B&W 35MM negatives 
and looking for some general guidelines to follow to optimize the 
digital image I will be working with in PhotoShop 7.  For instance, 
should I set up the scan to create the image size I intend to print? 
If I do, what will happen to the print quality if I later decide to 
change the print size? (I'll be doing 8x10's and 11x14's mostly)  
Should I do the scan in grayscale to begin with or in RGB and should 
I mess with any of the curves within the Nikon scanning options or do 
all of that manipulation exclusively in PhotoShop?

I have been trying to search the archives for tips/workflows, but 
haven't managed to locate this type of information yet.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

With the Nikon 8000, the basic things I do is tell the scanner the negative
is a positive (slide) grayscale (otherwise the AE clips the highlights, and
the other tools are a nuisance to use),  use the driver histogram to set the
white and black points, and scan (& work) at full optical 4000 dpi and 14
bit depth.  That's about all it takes to get a great scan.

Paul
___________________

  -----Original Message-----
  From: daintreeriver2002 [mailto:workmantx@...]
  Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 11:52 AM
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
  Subject: [Digital BW] Scanning B&W 35MM Negatives using Nikon Super
CoolScan 4000


  I just joined the group a few days ago and sent a message asking for
  general suggestions to help me get going with B&W digital prints.  I
  appreciate all the responses received and think I'll begin with the
  MIS Variable Mix Quadtones for my Epson 1280 using Paul Roark's
  workflow information.

  In the responses I received, no one mentioned the scanning end.  I've
  got a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 for scanning my B&W 35MM negatives
  and looking for some general guidelines to follow to optimize the
  digital image I will be working with in PhotoShop 7.  For instance,
  should I set up the scan to create the image size I intend to print?
  If I do, what will happen to the print quality if I later decide to
  change the print size? (I'll be doing 8x10's and 11x14's mostly)
  Should I do the scan in grayscale to begin with or in RGB and should
  I mess with any of the curves within the Nikon scanning options or do
  all of that manipulation exclusively in PhotoShop?

  I have been trying to search the archives for tips/workflows, but
  haven't managed to locate this type of information yet.

  Any help would be greatly appreciated!



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Paul-

How do you handle profiles with the 8000?

Thanks,
Bill

on 7/20/02 6:51 PM, Paul Roark wrote:

> With the Nikon 8000, the basic things I do is tell the scanner the negative
> is a positive (slide) grayscale (otherwise the AE clips the highlights, and
> the other tools are a nuisance to use),  use the driver histogram to set the
> white and black points, and scan (& work) at full optical 4000 dpi and 14
> bit depth.  That's about all it takes to get a great scan.
> 
> Paul
> 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Paul,

Thank you (and thanks to everyone else) for the information on 
scanning.  I've been doing some experimenting today with my Nikon 
4000 and am having much more success than in the past.  I'm assuming 
that once you get the image into PS that, besides inverting it, you 
immediately switch to 8-bit per channel.  A lot of the tools I like 
to use (dodging/burning, etc.) aren't available when in 16-bit per 
channel.

Thanks again.

> I'm assuming that
> once you get the image into PS that, besides inverting it, you
> immediately switch to 8-bit per channel.  A lot of the tools I like to
> use (dodging/burning, etc.) aren't available when in 16-bit per
> channel.

Some may, but I stay in 16-bit as long as possible. Many of the tools 
only available in 8-bit can be approached a different way in 16-bit, 
though indirectly. I stay in 48-bit color as long as possible, before 
even dropping to greyscale.

Tim


-- 
Tim Spragens

http://www.borderless-photos.de
http://www.borderless-photos.com

Paul,
Curious about the clipping of highlights you mention. Am I understanding you
correctly that a raw scan set for neg/mono and grayscale will have less
highlight info visible than one set for positive and grayscale, then
inverted in Photoshop? So apparently you're not unchecking "auto exposure
for negative film" box in scan prefs (which would eliminate any AE
problems)...but are you disabling AE for positive film? Are you using any
gamma adjustments in the scan software? Will do some experimenting on my
4000, but interested to know what you are and aren't doing for comparison.

Also, in response to the original question--just select "reset to factory
defaults" under crop. That will automatically set you up for max res and
image size possible.

Doug

> Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 15:51:42 -0700
> From: "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@...>
> Subject: RE: Scanning B&W 35MM Negatives using Nikon Super CoolScan 4000
> 
> With the Nikon 8000, the basic things I do is tell the scanner the negative
> is a positive (slide) grayscale (otherwise the AE clips the highlights, and
> the other tools are a nuisance to use),  use the driver histogram to set the
> white and black points, and scan (& work) at full optical 4000 dpi and 14
> bit depth.  That's about all it takes to get a great scan.
> 
> Paul

I've tried it both ways on my 4000 and seen no advantage to tripling file
size with RGB vs. grayscale--as long as you do everything in 16-bit for as
long as possible. Bruce Fraser's tutorials on how to do much of the stuff in
16 bit you can "officially" only do in 8 bit are the clearest I've
seen--start with http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/16097.html and
check out the other links that mention high bit.

Using his methods, my 35mm workflow for B&W shots I care about is now:
1) unadjusted grayscale scan at max res, Nikon's 14-bit setting; based on
experimenting and/or superstition, I usually use 4x multisampling, but for
low-key or large shadow areas will crank it up to 8x or 16x; archive your
raw scan
2) save raw as a 16-bit file, *make any crops and do as much dust spotting
as possible now*, archive THAT file, and also save it as an 8-bit "practice"
file
3) make all selections and practice changes in the 8 bit work file using
adjustment layers, then once satisfied, use Bruce's tricks to go back and do
them in a copy of the cropped/despotted 16 bit work file
4) downsample the 16 bit work to 8 bit and save as your "final" file, apply
unsharp mask if you want, do any final dust removal touchups necessary, then
print

Not as convoluted as it sounds with some practice. A CD burner helps to
archive the various work files, which you keep to make any tweaking much
easier down the road. (That's why I learned the hard way to do as much dust
spotting as possible BEFORE everything else--otherwise, the hard work is
lost if you want to make even a minor adjustment after printing).

Hope this helps,
Doug

> 
> From: "Tim Spragens" <t.spragens@...>
> Subject: Re: Scanning B&W 35MM Negatives using Nikon Super CoolScan 4000
> 
>> I'm assuming that
>> once you get the image into PS that, besides inverting it, you
>> immediately switch to 8-bit per channel.  A lot of the tools I like to
>> use (dodging/burning, etc.) aren't available when in 16-bit per
>> channel.
> 
> Some may, but I stay in 16-bit as long as possible. Many of the tools
> only available in 8-bit can be approached a different way in 16-bit,
> though indirectly. I stay in 48-bit color as long as possible, before
> even dropping to greyscale.
> 
> Tim