Digital BW, The Print

(message posted also in Nikon4000ed group)

I 'm trying to scan the Portra 400 BW film with a Nikon coolscan IV.
My problem is that I always have a file without a complete histogram. The black point is always about 80% of the full range.
I tried with the analogic gain control of the scanner but I can find changes only in the light; I can't move the black point of histogram.
I think it is the scanner software that removing the film orange mask remove also the blacks (or reads the blacks as a 75% grey).
I tried setting the scanner for BW neg and colour neg without any difference (greyscale output). With colour setting I have a file with less sharpness in the lights and mid tones but without differences in the shadows.
I tried to correct with PS layers moving the black point to the starting point of histogram but my file looks like the shadow range was compressed, loosing details in the dark areas.

I'm thinking to scan this film as a positive in RGB mode, but how remove the orange musk without loosing details? 

So I don't know how to scan this film that looks very interesting for the possibility of use ICE.

Marco Fogarolo



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--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Marco 
Fogarolo" <fogmarco@t...> wrote:
> (message posted also in Nikon4000ed group)
> 
> I 'm trying to scan the Portra 400 BW film with a Nikon coolscan 
IV.
> My problem is that I always have a file without a complete 
histogram. The black point is always about 80% of the full range.
 
Hello Marco;

I've found the best way to scan a negative film with the Nikon 
software is to scan it as a positive, in greyscale in this case. You 
will find that the histo data has lots of space on each side, 
nothing clipped. Set the black & white point sliders very close but 
not on the B&W points, and do the rest, including inversion in 16-
bit in Photoshop.

Steve K.

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