Blocked up highlights with B&W film.

[bonatto]

I've been exposing my negatives a bit on the dense side recently with good results in the darkroom. However, when scanning, for some reason, the highlights, despite being there on the negative, seem to blow out. I read on a recent post regarding this being due to too much silver blocking out the highlights when scanning, not sure how to adjust for this.

Using Nikon Coolscan V and Vuescan.

Straight out of scanner DNG:

-1 stop and a quarter:

Contrast bumped and highlights reduced in order to show issue with highlights:

Vuescan Settings (I've tried messing about with these to no great avail):

Any ideas/experiences appreciated and thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . too much silver blocking out the highlights when scanning, not sure how to adjust for this. . .

Reduce the amount of silver by cutting exposure or development or both.

Or, switch to Ilford XP2 (dye image not silver)

Accept that except possibly with XP2 you are unlikely to get negs optimized for both wet printing and scanning.

Cheers,

R.

 

[DominikDUK]

You can do something it's called farmers reducer for example Kodak R 4a Farmers Reducer which was designed to be used with overexposed negs

 

[Roger Hicks]

You can do something it's called farmers reducer for example Kodak R 4a Farmers Reducer which was designed to be used with overexposed negs

Yes, but it's pretty disastrous if you want fine grain and decent tonality. It was OK in the days of contact printing from big negs (when it wasn't really needed anyway) but it's not a good idea with 35mm (I tried it in the 1960s).

Cheers,

R.

 

[zauhar]

Also, consider reducing agitation when you develop. For a long time I slavishly followed the agitation scheme on the Massive Dev chart, I finally listened to the experience of others and backed off (in may case, 30 sec instead of 1 minute initial agitation, only agitate gently every 'odd' minute, and skip the last agitation).

Randy

 

[elmarman]

Farmer's reducer is designed to act on LOW amounts of silver FIRST so it eats away at the 'Shadow' details which is NOT what you want !

 

[Particular]

I've never had a negative that was too contrasty to scan. In vuescan make sure to lock the exposure by previewing the film base. Don't set black and white points or use any of the film settings. I set the first option in the Color tab to None. Export as 16bit Raw Tiff or DNG, and do all your adjustments in LR or PS. Your scan file should contain the full density range of the neg, and be easy to manipulate with shadows and retained highlights.
I've found that scans where I have set black and white points, I end up having to reduce the contrast in order to get reasonable tonality in the mid tones. I'd rather start with everything there, and inch up the contrast until I like the look.

 

[Nokton48]

I shoot two, sometimes three, varying exposures. Then I have a choice when it comes to scanning/wet printing. Always get something usuable. Of course this only works with static subjects.

 

[FrankS]

You need to develop negs intended for scanning differently than negs intended for wet printing, to get optimal results.

 

[DominikDUK]

Farmer's reducer is designed to act on LOW amounts of silver FIRST so it eats away at the 'Shadow' details which is NOT what you want !

There are several kinds of Farmers but you are right the R-4a was the wrong one R-4b is a proportianal reducer and therefore recommended for over developed negs

 

[lawrence]

Your issue is not the negative but the scanner. All Nikon scanners, with the exception of the 9000, use a light source that is not entirely suitable for traditional mono film. The light source consists of LEDs and the light is therefore collimated (directional) much the same as if you use a condenser enlarger. The 9000 also uses LEDs but there is a diffusion system that gives better light quality. I previously had a Coolscan but ran into the same problem as you and eventually migrated to a Canon FS4000US. Don't just take my word for it, this is what Sascha Steinhoff says in The Vuescan Bible (p.60): 'Black and white film is quite picky concerning scanner lamps. Even expensive scanners like Nikon film scanners do not guarantee a good result. Nikon uses harsh LED light that's perfect for brilliant color slide reproduction. For black-and-white scans old fashioned fluorescent lamps - as used in vintage Polaroid Sprint Scan 120 scanners - are the better solution'.

 

[bonatto]

thanks for all the input.

Lawrence, do you know if the minolta dimage scanners offer an alternate lighting source?

Negatives that are not so dense usually scan without issue, but I like detailed shadows so it has been happening lately.

I guess I can't have my cake and eat it too 🙂

Agitation is already below the recommended dosage, and I don't think they are overdeveloped, rather, overexposed.

 

[brbo]

Lawrence, do you know if the minolta dimage scanners offer an alternate lighting source?

Minolta 5400 ver. I has cold cathode lamp. Ver II. has LED.

 

[mfogiel]

When you do the "preview" in Vuescan, with the INPUT indicated as "B&W film", and you see the histogram on the right NOT REACHING the zero line (like in your first screen shot above), you need to chose as INPUT either "colour film", or - if still not sufficient, SLIDE FILM, in which case, you will have to invert the image at the beginning of editing. (Keep 16 bit grey as output all the time).
This way, you will save the highlights, at the expense of registering less nuance in the middle greys. The end result is normally much better than when you have blocked up completely the highlights.

 

[dxq.canada]

The Minolta Dimage Scan Multi (II and the Pro) use a florescent lamp.
Light Source: 3 Wavelength Cold Cathode Fluorescent

 

[bonatto]

When you do the "preview" in Vuescan, with the INPUT indicated as "B&W film", and you see the histogram on the right NOT REACHING the zero line (like in your first screen shot above), you need to chose as INPUT either "colour film", or - if still not sufficient, SLIDE FILM, in which case, you will have to invert the image at the beginning of editing. (Keep 16 bit grey as output all the time).
This way, you will save the highlights, at the expense of registering less nuance in the middle greys. The end result is normally much better than when you have blocked up completely the highlights.

Thanks for this. I changed the setting to color negative film and added the "multiple exposure" for a couple of extra passes. The results were significantly better in terms of the blocked highlights, and while pixel peeping I could see the slight loss in the middle grays, something that could be compensated by a hair of positive movement in the "clarity" slider in lightroom.

Here are both images with the "Highlights" slider all the way to the left, don't mind the dust.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Change the White Point setting from 1 to 0. That will likely solve your problem while allowing you to keep scanning using the BW-Negative setting. If not, then Marek's advice to scan as slide film will do it.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I just had a thought and I've no idea if this will work...

When I did a lot of wet printing, I used to do split contrast exposure with Multigrade paper, when I had trouble balancing highlights and shadows. It occurs to me that you could make two scans, one for the light areas and one for the shadows, then combine them with your editor.

As I said, this is just a thought experiment and I haven't tried it myself.

 

[bonatto]

Change the White Point setting from 1 to 0. That will likely solve your problem while allowing you to keep scanning using the BW-Negative setting. If not, then Marek's advice to scan as slide film will do it.

Thanks Chris, I had also done this, forgot to mention, and also reduced the gain in all color channels from 1 to .75 and a hair from the brightness as well at some point and compared scans but the difference was not as noticeable in this case as the Color negative +multi exposure scan.

 

[bonatto]

I just had a thought and I've no idea if this will work...

When I did a lot of wet printing, I used to do split contrast exposure with Multigrade paper, when I had trouble balancing highlights and shadows. It occurs to me that you could make two scans, one for the light areas and one for the shadows, then combine them with your editor.

As I said, this is just a thought experiment and I haven't tried it myself.

Thanks for the suggestion! I think the Vuescan software already offers a similar process, where it takes multiple exposures of the negative and combines them together into a single file. In some cases, it does make a difference.