Digital b&w quality?

[mark liddell]

Is anyone getting quality results by scanning b&w negs and printing

them?

 

I scanned some delta 400 developed in ilfosol s and the results were

truly awful, horrible grain and tonality, poor highlights and

totally unprintable. I put it down to the film, (I?m not a fan of

delta) so I recently tried hp5+ rated at EI160 and developed in

perceptol 1:3 with the time cut by 30%. I scanned the negs both as

negs and slides. As a slide, the results were marginally better but

still pretty horrible grain and tonality.

 

Scans were done on a coolscan 4000 with GEM, ICE and ROC and

whatever else all off.

 

I?m more than happy with the digital prints I?ve got from scanned

slides, but b&w? I think I?ll send my prints out to a local b&w

specialist to do it traditionally on fibre paper until scanner

technology gets there, if indeed it ever does.

 

Is fine art quality possible from scanning negs?

[mattalofs]

Probably depends on what you mean by fine art quality. I have seen a number of digital b&w prints that were at least as good as well done wet prints. And I know that my digital b&w prints far surpass anything I could ever do in the darkroom.

[bobmichaels]

Yes is the simple answer. It's not a point and click process. I suggest valid comparisons would be:

 

1) compare your first digital b&w prints to the first prints you made in a wet darkroom

 

2) send your negs off to be professionally scanned and printed and compare them to your local b&w specialist.

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

Mark,

 

I scan a lot of Delta 400 and HP5 on a Nikon 4000ED with rather good results. I develop in

Xtol 1:1 and scan as a B&W neg using Vuescan. Something you dont mention is whether

you are unhappy with the initial scan or you cant get a good image after adjusting.

 

These two images are the straight scan and the adjusted version in HP5. I find that almost

ever scan of a B&W neg starts off looking like this - basically very low contrast but with a

lot of information available for PS to work with.

 

Bottom line is just dont expect great B&W images straight from the scanner...<div></div>

[bruce watson]

<i>Is fine art quality possible from scanning negs? </i>

<p>

Of course it is. You didn't decide that bicycles were impossible to ride just because you fell off once or twice did you?

<p>

That said, none of your darkroom experience will help you when it comes to scanning, and scanning isn't intuitively obvious. Like most things that are worth doing, there's a learning curve. Whether or not you want to make the effort to climb that learning curve is of course up to you.

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

Mark,

 

I scan a lot of Delta 400 and HP5 on a Nikon 4000ED with rather good results. I develop in

Xtol 1:1 and scan as a B&W neg using Vuescan. Something you dont mention is whether

you are unhappy with the initial scan or you cant get a good image after adjusting.

 

These two images are the straight scan and the adjusted version in HP5. I find that almost

every scan of a B&W neg starts off looking like this - basically very low contrast but with a

lot of information available for PS to work with.

 

Bottom line is dont expect great B&W images straight from the scanner...<div></div>

[jordan_w.]

Mark -- I am in a similar predicament and there have been some discussions about this on photo.net in the past (especially recently). For me, the real problem is the insanely magnified grain in a digital print from a scanned B&W negative -- far more grain than in a conventional darkroom print at the same size. For what it's worth, I have found the best scanning combinations in B&W conventional film to be FP4+ or HP5+ developed in HC-110, and although they still aren't great, I find that these films scan "sharply" enough that they don't need any grain-boosting post-scan sharpening to make the image look good.

 

I don't have as many problems with tonality, though. I generally scan the negs as slides and check histograms so make sure no information is being 'clipped', then do levels and curves adjustment in Photoshop later. This works well for web display, but again, printing the files brings up the grain problem.

 

Solutions as I see them are:

 

(1) Shoot a chromogenic B&W film where there are no silver 'grains' to be enhanced in scanning and magnified in printing.

 

(2) Shoot colour negative or slide film, convert the scan to grayscale by desaturating or channel-mixing.

 

I've had good results doing B&W digital prints using both of these techniques, but you of course lose the convenience factor and ease of developing B&W at home.

 

What I really want to know is if inkjet printing 'smoothes' out the grain at all relative to digital prints from Noritsu or Frontier machines. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with a decent inkjet setup so I have no means to compare (any volunteers?)

[fp1]

Hi. Mark, I used to feel the same way about all Delta films I used. Now, Delta is my absolute favorite film. Delta 400 is actually a superb film to work with. What changed my mind about it (as well as the quality of my images) was first, dumping Ilfosol S as a developer. It is the absolute worst, in my opinion, for black and white photography I have used. (I've tried tmax, mipcrophen, perceptol, and ilfosol, which I do not use any longer.)

 

Try rating Delta 400 at 400, and developing in Perceptol. Follow the suggested dilution/development time on the package. If done properly, I can just about guarantee a DRAMATIC difference in the quality of your negatives. I cannot for the life of me understand why a company such as Ilford manufactures such superb films...and Ilfosol. Delta 400 is also great rated at 800--grainy but very nicely so. It is quite versatile, and far more malleable as the Kodak (tmax 400) equivalent, in my opinion.

 

If you want a dramatic increase in tonality as well as reduced grain, try Delta 100, or Pan F 50 in Perceptol. Microphen works well too, but, as is probably evident, I have a marked preference for Perceptol. It is meant to be used with fine grained films.

 

Chromogenic films, in my opinion, resemble desaturated color film. It is NOT the same as silver based black and white film. You do NOT have to use chromogenic black and white; you do NOT have to desaturate slide film or color print film. Excellent black and white scans of black and white film are possible. It's all about adjusting work flow and materials to see what works for you.

 

Please try this before you start converting color to black and white. Despite what I've read/heard from others, this is NOT the best option.

It's sort of like saying you can get the same black and white effect using a digital slr...I think many people WANT it to be the same. It ain't.

 

 

f.

[sjmurray]

I agree fully with Hogarth. I made silver gelatin prints for years. I now have been making digital prints for years, using many of the same negatives, including Tri-x 35mm. With the same neg I can make a digital print that side by side looks as good as its silver (darkroom print) cousin. I do not see an increase in grain when scanning negatives, BTW. If you control the contrast and density (black point, white point and brightness) you should get a full range scan without increased grain. My folders here are full of such scans.

[ivan_dzo]

I had the same problem when I first started scanning negatives. I shot and developed a test film of every b&w film in most developers. The traditional issues of sharpness are not so important in PS, but grain is vital. I found that nothing touches Xtol 1+2 for fine grain with delta100. Remember this will be a faster film than delta400 in perceptol (when using xtol). This scans beautifully and is very fine grained. I've also had good experience with hp5+ and xtol (I won our last camera club b+w competition, against traditional prints with an HP5+ in xtol negative scanned and digitally printed). So the answer is yes, but some work refining the process is necessary. Sometimes I find that hp5 in xtol is so fine grained that I add a little grain in PS to add some atmosphere!

[mark liddell]

A few of you guys have recommended xtol with delta so I might have to give delta another go in that.

 

I thought that pulling a film 1 1/3 of a stop in a very fine grain developer like perceptol, and cutting the dev time for EI160 by 30%, would scan better than this though:

 

http://www.sukitesurfing.co.uk/section.jpg

 

An unresized section of the 4000dpi scan. Take a look and tell me if you guys are getting better scans and if so, the film/developer/times you are using.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions so far too.

[mattalofs]

That's pretty grainy. I usually shoot tri-x at 1200 in diaphine, and it doesn't come out near that grainy when I scan on my epson 3170. Scanning B&W seems to be a bit of trial and error process. I have had the best luck scanning at 300 dpi for whatever my output size is. Above that seems to be waste.

[scott_eaton]

Many things I'd like to comment on here.

 

First, Ilfosol is a rotten developer for anything but the slowest films. We've been over this literally dozens of times in the B/W forum, and next to Jack Daniels or goat p1ss I've yet to encounter a worse developer. It causes a loss of speed, increase in grain, muddy midtones, and blocks up highlights. It's Rodinal with a hangover. Stuff reminds me of that nasty PressMax stuff that came out years ago as a cheaper alternative to TMAX developer. That sucked as well. Dump it.

 

Xtol is a much better developer than Ilfosol. Microdol/Perceptol are also outstanding for HP5 and Delta. My own personal favorite is HC110 with Delta/HP5 which gives you full speed, nice grain, and a superb tonal range for scanning. We've had a lot of exellent posts here on Photonet showing 35mm HP5 combined with HC110 yielding exellent scanned images, and Delta is a very close cousin to HP5 which responds to the same developers.

 

The second part of this reply concerns scanning B/W film, and you knew it was coming. Why many of you insist on putting both hands on a brick wall and smashing your forehead against it repeatedly till you bleed (akin to trying to scan conventional B/W film) is beyond me. You've confirmed you get good results with color chromes and color negs, but will still insist on fiddling with conventional B/W film.

 

Most film scanners do not have dedicated profiles for handling conventional B/W film because of it's unique density range and tonal curve, so the result is often muddy shadows and extremely grainy/gritty shadows. You'll either have to manually move your black/white points to where they should be, or scan as a positive.

 

Scanning conventional B/W film as a positive sounds corny, but it often works because slides have more approximate density range akin to conventional B/W film. Basically you scan your B/W neg as a color slide, then invert and desaturate it in photoshop. This generally cleans up the grain and gives you a better tonal range that usually requires just a bit of level adjustment in Photshop.

 

Otherwise, I'd much rather scan 100 speed slide films like E100G or Astia, desaturate, and send those scans out to be printed on true B/W paper like Millers is doing. Having somebody else print *my* negs on fiber doesn't justify using conventional B/W film in my book because he's the artist and not me. Might as well have him do the shoot as well.

[scott_eaton]

<I>Please try this before you start converting color to black and white. Despite what I've read/heard from others, this is NOT the best option.</i><P>Fine. Show us some of this superb work, big mouth. My 8-yr old niece also uses her *real name* on the internet, and likely has better photographic work. Pretty sad when a little girl has more balls than you do.

[bobmichaels]

Mark: I used to shoot exclusively Delta 400 in 35mm but recently changed to Neopan 400. Used D-76 1:1 for years, recently switched to HC-110B. Scan as grayscale. Used to use an old Minolta ScanDual II, now have a Minolta MultiPro. I use no grain disolver software, GEM, ICE, ROC or any of that stuff. Everything is about a plain vanilla as it gets but it works the best for me.

 

I just don't seem to have a grain problem. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I do get accepted in juried shows. Maybe it's just because I've shot, developed, scanned and printed a lot.

[almagnus]

I do mainly B&W work. I started using BW negs. Except for the exceptionnal fine grain Fuji Acros, I don't see any more reason to shoot BW negs when using my workflow (Coolscan, Inkjet). More grain, more dust (no ICE available) muddy blacks. Now, if you still insist, and why not, I had very poor results with Delta 400, without knowing the reason. I now shoot exclusively Reala and Sensia/Velvia. Look at my portofolio for some exemples. Yours, AM

[jordan_w.]

Scott, I know part of that first post of yours was directed at me. :) I use a lot of HP5+ and FP4+ souped in HC-110 after reading recommendations from you and another poster some time ago on the B&W forum. I agree that these two combinations scan well, relatively speaking, and I recommend them to others as well -- I get negs that give a full tonal range and just require simple levels settings and a contrast boost with curves (I scan B&W negs as slides also). Scans on the screen look great until I go to print the file at the local Noritsu or Frontier house.

 

The reason why I persist in banging my head against that brick wall with B&W scans is because of convenience and cost. It is just far cheaper and faster for me to shoot B&W and process it at home. In addition, I occasionally make prints in a rental darkroom, for which I need a traditional or chromogenic B&W neg.

 

Today I picked up some prints (6x9" from 2800 dpi neg scans of 35mm Pan F and Delta 100) done on a Frontier that looked great. I wonder if I have to abandon the coarser-grained FP4+ and HP5+ if scanning is my main goal.

 

As a final note, I used to use Ilfosol with HP5+ on a regular basis. While not ideal, it got the job done (though with far more grain than necessary). I have made some scans from this combination that look okay on the screen. I eventually ditched Ilfosol for developers with longer shelf lives.<div></div>