Helen Bach
(K=2331) - Comment Date 9/20/2005
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It sounds like a contrast issue. Do the original prints have more 'punch' than the scans? When you do the scan how do you set the black and white points?
Unless the HP5 has a stain image as well as the silver image (from a staining developer) there shouldn't be the kind of issues associated with converting colour film to B&W.
First, if you haven't already done so, check that the scan has a full range of tones from 0 to 255. Then try applying an adjustment curve that is shallow at the top and bottom and steeper inbetween - this mimics the non-linear response of a lot of printing paper. Alternatively, try one that is shallow at the bottom (shadows) and steep from the middle to the highlights. Play around a bit with the contrast. Then let us know if that is more like how you want it to look.
Best,
Helen
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Bad Site
(K=979) - Comment Date 9/21/2005
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???
A B&W negative is grayscale. Sounds like you need some work on learning how to scan. It takes years to master the darkroom, same with digital/scanning.
BTW, what scanner and software are you using?
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 9/22/2005
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Did you actually scan in greyscale?
Many scanners will scan in 32 bit colour even if you have black and white film, leading to colour artifacts.
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Lars Tjernagel
(K=1188) - Comment Date 9/22/2005
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Helen,
Thank you very much for the information and also on what to check. I will give what you mention a try and see how it works out. Yes also on the prints from negative. They seemed to have a little more "punch" to them then the scanned images.
For the questions on the scanner that Ace & Jeron asked; my scanner is the Minolta DiMage Elite 5400. One of the options is for me to specify what kind of film I am scanning. In this case, I selected the 35mm B&W Negative.
However, I usually use the batch scan feature as it takes a while to scan the images and I can do other things. I can use the regular scan feature and it allows me to change some things before the image is scanned. I will go and take a look at this as well and see if I can get the desired output with my scan that I am looking for.
Thanks again everyone for the suggestions so far. As mentioned, I will post an example here in a couple of days after I go through all of this again and see how things come out.
Lars
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 9/23/2005
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The B&W film option is the correct one for the scanner, indicating the problem is at the software end, probably your image processing software.
TIFF (which is what most scanners produce) doesn't usually contain pallet information (and most scanner software isn't smart enough to create palettised TIFF files when needed, instead saving everything in the same format which is usually 24 bit RGB), and most software isn't capable of differentiating between TIFF files containing colour information and TIFF files that do not.
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Helen Bach
(K=2331) - Comment Date 9/23/2005
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Lars,
Are you seeing image colour(s) other than neutral white, grey or black?
On a different subject to the greyscale issue, you mentioned sharpening before you mentioned Noise Ninja - is that the order you work in?
Best,
Helen
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Lars Tjernagel
(K=1188) - Comment Date 9/24/2005
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Hi Helen,
Yes, I usually run the USM last before I process it through Noise Ninja. After Noise Ninja, I save a copy of the file as a completed version at 300 DPI and then whatever size it is.
After this when I want to display on the web, I will then change it to 72 DPI and usually anywhere from 500 to 650 px on the long side. After this resize for viewing on the web, I will usually run USM on it again, but only at around 30 to 40 percent.
I finally had time today to go back and work on one of my images and I used the adjustments you mention above. There was a huge difference in the final output and it is more where I was wanting it to be and looks more like the contact print.
To show this, attached here is the origanal image as processed where I received some comments back with regards to the amount of gray in the image.
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Origanal with no levels and contrast adjustment
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Lars Tjernagel
(K=1188) - Comment Date 9/24/2005
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BTW, thank you very much for the information on what to do. I am still learning B&W and these are some of the first rolls of B&W film I have ever shot. I find it to be a lot of fun and now I am in the learning phase on the scanning of those images. Your help is much appreciated :)
Here is the same image procssed with adjusting contrast and levels as you described. As can be seen, it has a lot more "punch" to it and looks more the way that it should (at least in my view).
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