Which B/W film to go for ?

[gt1]

"I have no trouble scanning any of the films in an Epson V700."

 

I develop traditional B&W at home, I also use a V700, I'm careful to get my negs as dust free as possible before placing in the scanner, I scan as positives using SilverFast at 2400 or sometimes 3200PPI, and invert in Photoshop. Yes, silver halide negs take more care to get good scans from than C41 but it's not impossible and it definitely does not take me 3 to 4 hours.

 

I am much happier with my current digital prints than from when I was scanning color, or shooting digital, and converting to B&W. But for B&W none of my digital prints are anywhere near as pleasing as my traditional prints and I've barely scratched the surface with traditional printing.

 

And so far, purely as far as scanning goes, Pan F+ with Rodinal 50+1 has been the easiest to work with. I'm still a newbie to developing so now I'm testing with Xtol. I haven't gotten back to Pan F+ yet since I mixed up my Xtol.

[JamieK]

Thanks Lex, but I still think that statement is absolutely fatuous and more than a little smug. Mary Ellen Mark is probably

the most successful art photographer living, and her reputation will almost certainly outlast most others. Her prints don't

look anything like conventional "fine art" prints. Whose "fine art" prints is someone supposed to be familiar with - hers or

someone more conventional but decidedly inferior?

 

On a more basic level, how could not knowing what something good looked like make it more difficult for a person get a

print that was acceptable to himself or herself? Surely being ignorant of flaws makes one tolerant of them.

[jimsimmons]

Greg, I think you'll get good results with the Xtol. It's my favourite commercial developer these days, although I am now using a similar homemade developer, PC-TEA. I scan my negs with Vuescan, set to B&W negative, Neutral, with white clipping at .01% and black clipping at 0.1%. Because of these settings, and because I rate my film down to about 2/3 the manufacturer's rated ISO, my photoshop files are initially fairly flat, but since they are 16-bit, it is very safe and easy to boost the contrast to whatever level I want. I used to go the "scan as positive, invert in PS" route, but don't need to with this approach.

 

I find it harder to get good scans from C41 negs, but just because I'm never happy with any software's interpretation of the colours and spend a good bit of time tweaking that. My transparencies are easier.

 

My B&W inkjets are finally looking better than my original silver prints, now that I am printing on the new semi-glossy fibre inkjet papers. Not quite the surface depth of a silver gelatin print, but just as nice from a foot away.

[gt1]

Thanks for the Vuescan tips.

 

"My B&W inkjets are finally looking better than my original silver prints, now that I am printing on the new semi-glossy fibre inkjet papers. Not quite the surface depth of a silver gelatin print, but just as nice from a foot away."

 

Which printer are you using for your B&Ws? Are you using a B&W specific ink set?

[lex_jenkins]

Kraft, you're reading into statements things that haven't been implied and raising defenses where no conflict exists. Please stick to the topic or refrain from commenting.

[JamieK]

Lex, sorry if I'm off base, but it would be interesting to know your answer to the two questions I asked. I can see you have

been on the site for a long time, and I can imagine that many who have a lack of knowledge of beautiful prints might also

have a lack of knowledge about getting high quality scans, but neither you nor Russ has made a credible connection

between those two disparate possibilities. Is there any connection?

[jimsimmons]

Greg, I use MIS inks (the full colour set, not the 6-grey set) in an R2400. I've had good profiles made for my favourite papers, and the B&W papers come out quite neutral as a result. If I want to tint them in a certain direction, I can, but I prefer neutral B&W prints. Fake selenium or gold toning does not interest me. I used to use the MIS EZ inks in a an Epson C84, but this R2400 approach is superior and easy. I get more precise results than I did using the Advance B&W method too.

[gt1]

Thanks Jim.<p>

 

I'm using a P2200 and recently started using black only after <a href="http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn3b.htm">reading this article</a> which I'm fairly happy with. I was never very happy with any of the profiles I created with my friend's Print Fix Pro using the full color set, particularly with metamerism.<p>

 

I might try one of MIS black sets, though, which should give me even better results.