I started with analog cameras in ~ 1958 and later moved to digital, only to come back to shooting film two years ago, so I'm not exactly in the same boat, but I'll try to extrapolate your expectations.
Assumptions:
- You shoot 35mm film exclusively like I do.
- You used Tri-X because you love shadow detail (I take that from your love for Tri-X).
- You're new to developing film @ home (Only very few folks develop chromogenic BW films and color films at home).
- You haven't had a lot of exposure to digital image processing. You explicitly said so.
Don't worry, many of us were faced with these issues. Unfortunately, selecting the best scanner does require a little technical background.
What scanner
Consider the scanner to be part of the image making tool chain - the weakest link determines overall quality - especially if you are exclusively using a hybrid lab workflow, and if you're using 35mm film. In this case, don't waste your time experimenting with flatbed scanners. They may offer sufficient resolution if you shoot MF or LF film, and/or if you exclusively intend to publish your work in the internet. But as soon as you want to have good large-format inkjet prints, a film scanner is mandatory.
If you agree with the above, then look for a scanner that features a native (hardware-based)
geometric resolution of 3000 dpi or higher (flatbeds can't deliver on this). Also, look for a scanner that can capture the highest possible contrast range (the corresponding parameter is called 'D' for density). Good film scanners feature a 'D' value of 3.6 to 4.0 (choosing higher values means having to spend more money).
This very often calls for a certain
illumination technique during image capture - transmitted light. This lighting technique corresponds to slide projection: The scanner's imaging device looks at the film, which is illuminated from the back (unlike 'reflected' illumination which corresponds to looking at a paper print, whith the illumination coming from tha viewer side).
Inherently, 'transmitted' illumination helps to capture a far wider range of image densities than possible using 'reflected' illumination. BTW, only a small minority of flatbed scanners feature 'transmitted' illumination.
If you choose to use a hybrid lab workflow, you won't do 'wet' printing, but you rather do all of your post-processing on your computer. This leads to one more requirement - the data resolution of the individual image dot's tonal value. Our computer screens are rather crude tools - they use a
data resolution of just 8 bits per color channel (red, green & blue), i.e. they just feature 256 possible values for every color channel between 'no' color and 'fully saturated' color. Films (and good digital cameras for that matter) offer a tonal value resolution that is larger than this by far. So, following the 'weakest link' argumentation from above, go for the highes possible data resolution: Good contemporary scanners can produce image files with much more resolution than just 8 bits - they often feature 12 or 14 bits of resolution and store their files in a standardized 16 bit file format (while not using the entire numerical potential of the file format). I'll come back to this issue later, when I'll talk about digital image editing ...
This is why I chose to use a Nikon Coolscan V ED, a film scanner exclusively for 35mm or smaller film formats, which admittedly isn't cheap, but in my eyes is a very viable compromise if you want to avoid any 'wet' printing. There are other alternatives, but I can't offer any links in English at present - maybe someone else could fill them in...
Which film
Ooops - I don't want to start any religious wars here, so I won't recommend anything. Just some observations:
Whether a film will meet your expectations or not will depend on more than just the kind of film you use - but rather on the type of images you want to make. E.g., do you prefer high-key images (those which offer most density detail in the bright areas) or low-key images (with a maximum of detail in the shadows)?
From my experience, Tri-X is a very interesting choice not just for flexibility (pushing/pulling capability), but above all because of its rich reproduction of shadow tones. It has a downside, however, and that's grain.
The Tmax films feature much finer grain, but less richness in shadow tonality. Recovering shadow tones is already tricky when these films are used at box speed.
Chromogenic films like BW 400 CN or XP2 IMO are somewhat similar to Tmax films: Nice light/highlight tonalities, difficult for shadows.
You see, you will have to find your own way here, with some experimentation in relation to your own tastes... And then there's a completely new realm of additional challenges (developer choice, developing regimes, effective film speed choice) to be discovered...
Scanner Software
Scanner control and image editing inherently are two very dissimilar tasks, and I don't know of any software that can do a satisfactory job at both. There are some offerings that attempt to find a compromise, but I feel they end up doing a poor job at least in one of the two domains.
Scanning software is the equivalent to a remote-control program for your scanner - it ought to be capable of using your scanner to the max. Consider that your scanner is the equivalent to a camera - you can control cropping, light balance, exposure and contrast measurement, illumination, dust removal, grain reproduction and color reconstruction (think faded colors in old slide films) and many other parameters.
If you want to get good image quality, be prepared for some learning curve - I'm sorry, there's no magic here, just knowledge to ba acquired.
When I started researching film scanning, I reviewed three scanner control software packages:
Viewscan (compatible with many scanner models, even older ones, and supports many computer operating systems. Reasonably priced, but clumsy user interface),
Silverfast (tries to also offer image editing capabilities beyond scanner control. Strange, inflexible pricing and licensing policy, but this software sure has its following) and
Nikon Scan (part of the Nikon Scanners' scope of delivery. Unusual user interface, mainly concentrates on scanner control).
I ended up with both Nikon Scan and Viewscan, and I use Nikon Scan most of the time (because mastering one strange user interface is more than enough for me).
Digital Image Editing Software
If you used a 'wet' darkroom in the past, then you'll eventually love the power of digital image editing. Going into a detailed discussion of software features and software recommendations would break my time limits for writing this post, so let me concentrate on what I think the core features will be with regard to processing scanned ilm images.
Contrast manipulation - the equivalent to using paper gradations in the past is to use gradation curves in an image editor. A gradation curve describes the before/after relationship of a contrast manipulation step in an image editor. Unlike with paper and wet processes, the gradation curve does not only manipulate contrast, but can limit contrast changes to a desired brightness range - very handy once you have understood the concept. Changes in contrast can quickly reveal deficiencies in an image file's data - you can produce banding or posterization if the file's data resolution is too coarse! This is where the scanner's tonal value data resolution comes into play - a correctly scanned 16-bit image file can produce much smoother tonal ranges than one produced in 8-bit resolution only!!
Localized Image Manipulations - this is the equivalent of dodging or burning. In an editor, you do this either by using 'temporary masks' or 'layers' in conjunction with e.g. gradation curves, and this concept allows you to go far beyond just dodging and burning, once you've mastered the software. This is because masks and layers can also be applied to sharpening, color manipulations or a lot of other manipulations.
Retouching - this is where the image editing magic really starts. You have gunk or dust particles on your film? No problem, you can edit them out and automatically reconstruct your film's grain structure where previously there used to be a big white blob (speaking of an inverted, scanned negative). That is, you don't just copy some neighboring part of the image into the place where you had gunk, but you automatically adjust the new spot's brightness, color hue and structure, so that the retouched spot effectively becomes invisible. Good image editors can even work across contrast borders and geometric patterns and help you save hours of work (when I decribed this to my octogenarian mother, a former professional photographer, her eyes lit up and she spoke about long working hours spent retouching her prints under a big magnifying glass, using minute squirrel hair brushes. She then continued that this alone would have been reason enough for her to use a computer if only she were 20 years younger).
So, what you need is a software that can process 16-bit TIFF files, that can do gradation curve manipulations, that can do those manipulations based on either masks or image layers, and that offers a choice of 'healing brush' type retouching functions.
Integrated editor / image management packages like Aperture or Lightroom might do the job. More control can be had using dedicated (but more expensive) editors like Photoshop CS5. A freeware editor alternative might be The Gimp.
Since I have a digital photography background, I use a Nikon Capture NX2 editor, which incidentally has a 'healing brush' retouching function that is IMO sensational - but II'm sure there are alternatives, too.
