Digital BW, The Print

On 04/10/03, Manuel Toledo(mtoledo@...) wrote:

>I just bought an HP S20xi film scanner and want to use it  
>to produce b&w prints. I am thinking to buy the Epson 1280
>but wonder if I would be able to get good quality prints 
>larger that 8x10in with the resolution the scanner provides. 
>Is the Epson 890, which can produce 8x10 prints with the 
>same quality and is less expensive, a better choice?

Manuel,
I have used an earlier version of your scanner and produced v. good 11x17 
images (on 13x19 paper) using an 1160 with quad black inks. Prints at this 
scale came from a number of different films -- mainly Pan-F 50, Delta 100 
and Delta 400 with Pyro developer, and T400CN (with regular C-41 processing).
For it's price, I've found the HP to be an unusually good scanner. To get the best 
result with b&w negatives, use the "BLACK & WHITE SLIDE" scan mode 
@ max ppi (=2400) -- this will give you a 16-bit RAW-like grayscale image 
that contains much more tonal gradation than you'd have thought possible 
from a low-$$ scanner. (The "B&W SLIDE" setting gives a much better 
result than "B&W NEGATIVE"; and also much better than doing an inititial 
48-bit color scan with later conversion to B&W in Photoshop/plugin). Also, 
before executing the final scan, use the HP software's feature that can show 
you whether you've clipped off any high or low values -- you can then adjust 
your placement of black and/or white points as needed, since the scanner's 
density range is larger than necessary for all but extreme contrast b&w negs. 
W/r to inverting the image in Photoshop so it no longer looks like a film negative:  
I do the bulk of my work with LEVELS (to get the image into the usable range 
of lightnesses) before inverting the image, and I normally do it in steps rather 
than in one shot -- fine-tuning w/ LEVELS, CURVES,  etc comes after inverting. 

One last note, I try to use Genuine Fractals software for all changes to the size 
of my images. When a 35mm image comes to Photoshop from the HP software,
it's only around 1" wide. I do all my editing at that scale; (I do do temporary 
enlargements for proof printing, but I apply any changes suggested by the proof 
to the 1x1.5" image). The tests I've done showed the GF software maintaining 
image quality better than the Photoshop-based enlarging methods (sometimes 
the difference is quite noticeable). 

It sounds like you'd like to print images larger than 8x10. I think your HP 
scanner will readily support good results to at least 11x14 (and a little larger),
so I'd get the EPS 1280.

John Gittins     
           


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