Hi, Austin,
Thanks for your thoughtful and helpful reply.
A couple of questions re: red, green, blue channels.
1. I've been thinking that the blue channel is the "least sharp," or
can introduce the most unsharpness into photography, not the
red, because of the nature of blue light and what happens
especially with telephoto optics - unless low-dispersion glass is
incorporated in the lens design. I also thought that this had been
discussed earlier on the Piezo and Digital B&W groups, and I
thought I had understood that the blue channel was least
desirable (am I mistaken?).
2. When I look at the histograms individually for the red, green,
blue channels from a B&W negative scanned as a color negative
on the Multi Pro, the histogram for the red channel seems to
have the highest "spike" in its curve, higher than either the green
channel or blue channel. This is what led me to consider that the
red channel, on the Multi Pro, may be giving the most contrast -
more than the green (which in turn seems to provide more
seeming "contrast" than the blue channel). Of course, this could
also mean the red channel is providing more data in particular
regions of the scan, and that this is not an indicator or measure
of contrast at all.
3. What is the basis for the red channel being "fuzzier" and "less
sharp" than the green? I certainly am happy to use the green
channel: I'd just like to have a little more theoretical and practical
information why.
4. What do you know about Vuescan, in terms of how it
translates the raw scan data into a 16 bit B&W output: does Ed
Hamrick just select for a single channel? If so, is it the green
channel? (Perhaps I should ask him directly; just thought you
might know. Vuescan does list support for Leafscan; do you use
Vuescan sometimes?)
As for film developer, I have used FG-7 with sulfite at 1 to 15
most of the time for the past 15 years (I also use Ilfotec when I
want/need to push HP-5). This is a compensating developer. It
has worked very well for me (or at least it did in the chemical
darkroom). I may switch to a more straight line developer, as I've
largely abandoned the chemical darkroom in favor of Piezo now.
Most of my work is editorial and documentary (social, political,
environmental). I exhibit my documentary work fairly widely (30+
solo shows to date).
Best regards,
James
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Austin Franklin"
<darkroom@i...> wrote:
>
> Hi James,
>
> > I'm finding that I'm getting "better" (cleaner & less grainy look)
> > when I scan my B&W silver negs (Ilford HP-5 & FP4) as color
> > negs.
>
> That makes perfect sense, since scanning in color will typically
make for
> softer scans, and therefore will take the "edge" off the grain,
smooth it
> out... What developer are you using? Might I suggest D-76
1:1?
>
> > (the red channel seems to give a little
> > more contrast than the green;
>
> That doesn't make sense. The red channel is inherently the
fuzziest, as
> well as the green has inherently the best contrast...typically.
Green is
> also the sharpest...
>
> > The
> > scan using the B&W setting looks like it was partially
solarized;
> > the scan from the color neg setting looks clean and "normal."
>
> That certainly could be part and parcel of the software...
Remember, no
> matter WHAT you select, B&W or color, the scanner will scan
EXACTLY the
> same, it will scan IN RGB, and convert to B&W using its own
mix, if you have
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> selected a B&W output...
>
> Regards,
>
> Austin