Scanning B&W on Coolscan

[craygc]

I have given Vuescan a try more than once and have found that Nikon Scan gives me better results with color neg (and the interface is easier). Haven't tried BW as I use mostly color. I may give it another go with the trial version but the results with bw will have to really blow me away for me to spend that money for this special purpose only.

But dont expect that the result out of this scanner for B&W (and it probably goes for C41 colour as well) will be anything close to a "blow you away" result as an image. It will just give you "good" data that you can process later.

 

[Florian1234]

I'd like to hear about your workflow with either Nikonscan or with Vuescan.
Do you scan, let's say a strip of Tri-X, as dng and alter levels and sharpness later on in PS's raw converter or what do you do?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Scan as a 16bit tiff. DNG gives no advantage for black and white, there's no white balance to change, which is the main attraction to RAW. Do all of your alterations to it in 16bit mode in Photoshop.

 

[sojournerphoto]

One trick I use sometimes to make sure I've got useable highlight and shadow detail is to dial the analogue gain donw in one channel (red or blue) and up in another. Then you can blend two or three black and white conversion layers to give the look you want. Time consuming, but can work wel.

Mike