What can scanners do for B&W?

[ymc226]

Just moving into digital for 135 but committed to B&W film in 120. Have been developing and printing my own films.

Digital has excited me as I can manipulate white balance, sharpen, change tone/contrast with a RAW file using LR4 as well as print in color.

If I scan a B&W MF negative instead of wet printing it in a darkroom, what parameters can I alter and to what extent in a digital darkroom such as LR4? Don't want to start Photoshop yet.

 

[mdarnton]

Once you have a B&W digital file, you can do everything you can do in color, except the color things.

If you learn how to work the software, you'll find out that you have many more options for adjustment, either globally or locally, than you do in the darkroom, because in addition to brightness and contrast, and equivalents to burning and dodging, you can also increase or decrease contrast and brightness in independent areas, or in whole tonal ranges. For instance, you can pick out, all at once, all of the brightest areas of the picture which may be lacking in contrast--for instance nearly-blown out clouds and skintones in the same photo, and increase only their contrast, and perhaps darkent them a bit, also, to obtain gradations in the highlights that you didn't have before. Or you can do what is effectively dodging and increasing contrast in all shadow areas of the picture all at once, without having to hold 15 dodging tools in different places all at once as in printing.

And, of course, once you do everything and get it right, you don't have to do it all again for the next print of the same picture.

 

[Bobfrance]

You can do pretty much the same with your scanned 120 images as you can with a digital RAW file. The secret is getting a decent 16 bit scan in the first place.

 

[Bob Michaels]

...................... what parameters can I alter and to what extent in a digital darkroom ..........................

I find the biggest thing is the ability to adjust contrast / tonality in the highlights or mid-tones or shadows separately, immediately see the impact on the screen, then undo or redo your adjustments in seconds.

 

[PatrickONeill]

if you dont want full blown photoshop, at least become familiar with photoshop elements.

an afternoon with either and you will learn 98% of everything you need to know about it.

 

[ymc226]

Thanks for all of the replies. I think I would miss printing chemically but now that I use LR4 and do additional B&W conversion and processing with the Silver Ex Pro 2 plug in that lets me select specific areas to enhance, I feel I can really optimize my photos, be it from slightly improper exposure or to fit a particular vision.

I'm reading about the anticipated Plustek scanner in a tread from this forum and hope it comes out soon. Might just have to put away my enlargers for a while.

 

[ymc226]

I have another question. Does scanning a film negative with the final output being a print produce more tonal range than a completely digital capture workflow? In other words, what differences can I expect from a injet print if the original source is a DNG file vs a negative? I would be using Neopan 400 in 120 (have about 500 rolls frozen) using Xtol replenished.