Help me understand one thing re. b&w and exposure error

[crispy12]

The best print will come from a histogram that uses the full dynamic range of your scanner (in my case 14bit, for instance); you don't want the histogram to be "empty" on the left or right. It should look similar to this right out of the scanner:

This is really important if you scan. Scanners have a much more limited dynamic range, you will end up wasting a lot of time postprocessing instead if you negatives are too dark/dense. I also err on underdevelopment rather than overdevelopment.

You could apply zone system thinking... Look at the shadow areas; add fill light or make sure you have enough exposure so that you don't lose detail in the shadows.

I got great results with this method. Zone exposure can be confusing initially but was much easier as I got some experience.