LeicaStan Posted January 26, 2011 Share #1 Posted January 26, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Assuming one is planning to scan photos into b/w, would you recommend shooting color slide film or b/w negs? I am leaning to slides. The recommendations for digital cams are to shoot RAW color rather than b/w because there is so much additional information processed. But with film, perhaps there might be a discussion? Scanner would be an Epson V750. Thanks for any insights! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 26, 2011 Posted January 26, 2011 Hi LeicaStan, Take a look here Shoot b/w neg or slides when scanning to B/W?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
tobey bilek Posted January 26, 2011 Share #2 Posted January 26, 2011 If end point is B&W, then use C41 B&W from Ilford or Kodak. Ilford`s is called XP2. Second choice is a low contrast color neg, kodak Portra. Convert to B&W. Third is a true silver retained film that scans well. Tri X T Max and develop to a low contrast. Some scan way better than others even if all print well, strange but true. Last choice is a low DR film like a slide film. Forget scanning and inverting. LOW CONTRAST is the key all the way. If you can not pick up both highlights and shadows in one pass, the film has too much contrast for the scanner. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted January 26, 2011 Share #3 Posted January 26, 2011 If end point is B&W, then use C41 B&W from Ilford or Kodak. Ilford`s is called XP2. Second choice is a low contrast color neg, kodak Portra. Convert to B&W. Third is a true silver retained film that scans well. Tri X T Max and develop to a low contrast. Some scan way better than others even if all print well, strange but true. Last choice is a low DR film like a slide film. Forget scanning and inverting. LOW CONTRAST is the key all the way. If you can not pick up both highlights and shadows in one pass, the film has too much contrast for the scanner. Hi If you want a mono print then the only choice is C41 mono or conventional mono (retained slver), it is not like digital where you covert, yes you could do it but... The mono negative allows scanning or wet printing. The C41 mono films (Fuji, Ilford and Kodak) have a wide exposure latitude, and the scanners dust and debris removal mechanism can be used. The Kodak C41 mono is less easy to wet print. The conventional mono has grain which looks nice (unlike pixels) but the scanners dust and debris mechanism needs to be inhibited, and any problems cloned manually.... Wet prints are more archival and nicer, but more diffoicult to do, I got all my wet print kit for free.... If you have high contrast environment for pics use the C41 mono, the conventional film will have absent shadow or burnt high lights, note both are princes compared to digital. If you want to use conventional you may need to use soft working developers like D23 or POTA, or shorten the dev times, as earlier post sugests. They used POTA for thermo nuclear bomb post warhead assembly instrumentation pics, the book title was 'brighter than 1000 suns'. If you make a bad mistake you might have to wet prnt or make an intermediate negative. Some people lke mono. Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted January 26, 2011 Share #4 Posted January 26, 2011 Black and white negatives for me. I've tries XP2 but never liked the look - too smooth and not very sharp looking IMHO. Still, it's easy enough, and cheap enough, for you to try and then make up your own mind. Personally I prefer traditional silver based films such as FP4 and Tri-X. Spotting can be an issue, but doesn't take that long if your negatives are clean and you use the spot healing tools in Photoshop. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted January 26, 2011 Share #5 Posted January 26, 2011 Black and white negatives for me. I've tries XP2 but never liked the look - too smooth and not very sharp looking IMHO. Still, it's easy enough, and cheap enough, for you to try and then make up your own mind. Personally I prefer traditional silver based films such as FP4 and Tri-X. Spotting can be an issue, but doesn't take that long if your negatives are clean and you use the spot healing tools in Photoshop. Hi Steve I've found the camel haired brush and 4B pencil more effective on silver bromides... but the signature of the C41 monos is different. Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybob Posted January 26, 2011 Share #6 Posted January 26, 2011 Sorry to over simplify...If you scan a traditional B&W negative in to your digital system treating the film to be scanned like it's color you'll get better results. Use a "color negative" setting when scanning. If you use the setting for any B&W film, you're in greyscale, and will NEVER get usable quality from your ANY scan, any tiny adjustment just blows them up. Greyscale offers up to 256 shades of grey per scanned pixel. ONLY 256 levels between pure black and pure white. RGB offers potentially 16.7 million variations of colour per pixel. That's where your "more information" is. A side benefit for using color during scanning, is the ability to use of Digital ICE to deal with scratches or spotting on the neg. In my opinion, there's no benefit to C-41 or E-6 films quality wise. Speed of process, maybe. Jay Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted January 26, 2011 Share #7 Posted January 26, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Think you may have simplified a bit... Sorry to over simplify...If you scan a traditional B&W negative in to your digital system treating the film to be scanned like it's color you'll get better results. Use a "color negative" setting when scanning. If you use the setting for any B&W film, you're in greyscale, and will NEVER get usable quality from your ANY scan, any tiny adjustment just blows them up. Think this is over simplistic if you scan a silver mono or Kodachrome you should inhibit the ICE other wise the scanner will get indegestion on the grain and the resultant image will be poor. The ICE is normally enabled for C41 mono or color. Or that is what my scanner manual says. This is independent of scanning in greyscale or color, but to see the independence you need to enable advanced options. Greyscale offers up to 256 shades of grey per scanned pixel. ONLY 256 levels between pure black and pure white. RGB offers potentially 16.7 million variations of colour per pixel. That's where your "more information" is. are you sure about this? A side benefit for using color during scanning, is the ability to use of Digital ICE to deal with scratches or spotting on the neg. no you can use digital ICE with mono C41 And if you scan a retained silver negative or Kodachrome with digital ICE you will enhance the grain see 1st comment... In my opinion, there's no benefit to C-41 or E-6 films quality wise. Speed of process, maybe. The C41 is fast but only cause of the mini lab elevated temperatures if you use 20C it is the same. E6 is kinda slow. The C41 mono and the retained silver mono are apples and oranges, in all departments, best to pick the correct one for your shoot. Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Henry Posted January 26, 2011 Share #8 Posted January 26, 2011 Black and white negatives for me. I've tries XP2 but never liked the look - too smooth and not very sharp looking IMHO. Still, it's easy enough, and cheap enough, for you to try and then make up your own mind.Personally I prefer traditional silver based films such as FP4 and Tri-X. Spotting can be an issue, but doesn't take that long if your negatives are clean and you use the spot healing tools in Photoshop. Leicastan, I'm like Steve I only use b&w, grain and pictures are so beautiful, if i want my photos in b&w. If I want color, I take a film color but I rarely mix that in turning color in b&w. In addition, I do not like processing software Henry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpitt Posted January 26, 2011 Share #9 Posted January 26, 2011 ...Greyscale offers up to 256 shades of grey per scanned pixel. ONLY 256 levels between pure black and pure white. RGB offers potentially 16.7 million variations of colour per pixel. That's where your "more information" is. .... Jay AFAIK a 12 bit scanner will offer actual 4096 gray levels if you set it to 16bit gray, 14 bit will give 16000 and 16 bit will give 64000. In colour scan mode you will get the same amount of levels for R G and B. That is three times the info, but not necessarely better. Sometimes it pays to determine the sharpest colour channel and dump the other channel. On my scanner, I get the sharpest results when scanning in full colour and then only retaining the B channel info. A grayscale scan of a will give you kind of an average of the RGB channels. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted January 26, 2011 Share #10 Posted January 26, 2011 Greyscale offers up to 256 shades of grey per scanned pixel. ONLY 256 levels between pure black and pure white. If you scan as an 8 bit greyscale that's true. However if you scan as a 16 bit greyscale - as I do - you get a lot more levels of grey. Of course, Jpeg can only support 8 bits per channel, but why would you scan as Jpegs rather than Tiffs? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted January 26, 2011 Share #11 Posted January 26, 2011 Who scans 8 bit anything? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted January 26, 2011 Share #12 Posted January 26, 2011 A side benefit for using color during scanning, is the ability to use of Digital ICE to deal with scratches or spotting on the neg. Forgot to mention, this is also incorrect. Digital ICE has nothing to do with whether you scan as colour or black and white, but everything to do with the type of film you are using. If you are scanning traditional silver films then you can't use ICE regardless of whether you scan them as colour or black and white. If you scan colour films as black and white then you can still use ICE. The only complication is Kodachrome Most scanning software won't allow the use of ICE, but Vuescan has an option for noise reduction when scanning the film. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted January 27, 2011 Share #13 Posted January 27, 2011 Forgot to mention, this is also incorrect. Digital ICE has nothing to do with whether you scan as colour or black and white, but everything to do with the type of film you are using. If you are scanning traditional silver films then you can't use ICE regardless of whether you scan them as colour or black and white. If you scan colour films as black and white then you can still use ICE. The only complication is Kodachrome Most scanning software won't allow the use of ICE, but Vuescan has an option for noise reduction when scanning the film. Well digital ICE can be used with any fllm type, the problem being it wont work with retained silver (or similar grain films), it detects the grains as debris and removes it, and introduces noise which make the grain worse. If you scan retained silver negatives silver positives (which you can home brew) or Kodachrome you should turn off the ICE - unless you like the effect, the Kodachrome dye is very similar to silver grain... C41 color negative C41 mono negative E6 color posotove E6 cross processed as C41 turn on ICE unless you like the dust. You may have to go to advanced modes. Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted January 27, 2011 Share #14 Posted January 27, 2011 Noel, as I say Vuescan allows noise reduction with Kodachrome, I seem to remember it having something to do with the grain structure - I could be wrong. Also, from memory, Vuescan doesn't use ICE, it has it's own dust/scratch system, though it uses the same IR channel as say Nikonscan. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmas Posted January 27, 2011 Share #15 Posted January 27, 2011 Noel, as I say Vuescan allows noise reduction with Kodachrome, I seem to remember it having something to do with the grain structure - I could be wrong. Also, from memory, Vuescan doesn't use ICE, it has it's own dust/scratch system, though it uses the same IR channel as say Nikonscan. Hi STeve The advanced modes should allow such an (indeed any) option however the result may be strange, not what is wanted, whatever. Kchrome has a very strange signature.. Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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