Digital BW, The Print

>> What are the advantages of scanning a grayscale neg as a transparency?
>> 
> Stan,
> 
> A B&W neg is a transparency but the term has been co-opted to mean a color
> slide so some confusion.
> 
> Martin


Martin, 

I was always under the impression (possibly mistaken) that "transparency"
was a term used for positives, such as Velvia or Scala. True that a negative
is transparent... I wonder if the use of the term came from the projection
world.

Jon

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Jon <vze249jf@v...> wrote:
> >> What are the advantages of scanning a grayscale neg as a 
transparency?
> >> 
> > Stan,
> > 
> > A B&W neg is a transparency but the term has been co-opted to 
mean a color
> > slide so some confusion.
> > 
> > Martin
> 
> 
> Martin, 
> 
> I was always under the impression (possibly mistaken) 
that "transparency"
> was a term used for positives, such as Velvia or Scala. True that a 
negative
> is transparent... I wonder if the use of the term came from the 
projection
> world.
> 
> Jon

Jon:  Two basic types of scans, transmission/transmissive and 
reflection/reflective.  Transmission means the light source is on one 
side of the transparancy/positive film/negative film and the detector 
is on the other--light passes through.  Reflective means the light 
source is on the same side of the opaque object as the measuring 
device(example photograph on flatbed scanner)--light is reflected 
back to the detector.

Martin is correct, transparancy is a confusing term.

Jeff Randall

----- Original Message -----

From: "Jon" <vze249jf@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2002 3:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Digest Number 924


> >> What are the advantages of scanning a grayscale neg as a transparency?
> >>
> > Stan,
> >
> > A B&W neg is a transparency but the term has been co-opted to mean a
color
> > slide so some confusion.
> >
> > Martin
>
>
> Martin,
>
> I was always under the impression (possibly mistaken) that "transparency"
> was a term used for positives, such as Velvia or Scala. True that a
negative
> is transparent... I wonder if the use of the term came from the projection
> world.
>

Jon,

In photography that is generally true. However, scanning software always has
two basic choices. Is the material to be scanned reflective or transmissive?
With Silverfast the first choice is Transparency or Reflective and the
second choice then is Positive or Negative.

Terms tend to take on slightly different connotations in different fields.

Martin