When everything is gray....

[anitasanger]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I'll take them all into account for sure! That's what I like about photography, it's a constant learning process.

 

[anitasanger]

Okay, nice tip. Tis makes a lot of sense.

 

[ruby.monkey]

You can make your life easier by scanning frames individually and adjusting black and white points for each one. I've found that most scanning software is very good at completely screwing up odd frames when scanning in a batch.

 

[gb hill]

In your first post of this thread you wrote: "The shots were from the same roll with, Tri-X exposed at 200, souped in Rodinal 1:50."

If you're shooting Tri-X @ 200 you are already over exposing by one stop. Additional overexposure will only serve to further flatten the tonal scale.

Exactally my thoughts when I read this & saw the photos. I don't think it's a scanner issue at all. I've shot enough b&w where as I got that same level of gray that lacks that pop as I call it. Like this one.

This is HC110 & Gekko 100MW. I think my problem is too much agitation. I have some Rodinal that I want to try some stand developing with. I've seen some incredible results from this guy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/holdenrichards/

 

[calebk]

Exactally my thoughts when I read this & saw the photos. I don't think it's a scanner issue at all. I've shot enough b&w where as I got that same level of gray that lacks that pop as I call it. Like this one.

This is HC110 & Gekko 100MW. I think my problem is too much agitation. I have some Rodinal that I want to try some stand developing with. I've seen some incredible results from this guy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/holdenrichards/

I'm not so sure. Agitation would actually increase your contrast. Actually, a flatter negative with the fullest possible range of tones is easier to work with and manipulate post scanning. Scan with the best tones, and increase contrast from there.

 

[steelydam]

another Epson V500 user

another Epson V500 user

You can make your life easier by scanning frames individually and adjusting black and white points for each one. I've found that most scanning software is very good at completely screwing up odd frames when scanning in a batch.

I use the Epson V500 too and found by trial and error that this bit of advice quoted is very useful. When I'm just scanning whole strips to make a proofsheet I don't sweat it, but when I scan with the goal of making an individual image look as good as possible, I tweak the histogram on an individual frame after "preview" but before clicking "scan". Often it will look darn good just with that and then I'll have very little additional work to do in Photoshop. I feel like I'm starting to get some good results & have posted some examples the past 1-2 days in Words/No Words under "Trees" and "Photos with Water".

 

[Keith]

I don't see anything in the OP's pics aside from a slight over exposure that's out of the ordinary. Careful post processing brings these back into line very easily but when you first start scanning I think sometimes you expect a better result straight out of the scanner.

Chris Crawford gave a very good demonstration in a thread ages ago of one of his before and after images. The first image was quite flat but it had a lot of information to work with to get the final result.

 

[gb hill]

I'm not so sure. Agitation would actually increase your contrast. Actually, a flatter negative with the fullest possible range of tones is easier to work with and manipulate post scanning. Scan with the best tones, and increase contrast from there.

Perhaps your right, but I posted this because it was the 1st roll of b&w I developed using HC110 which I agitated every 1 min. A friend who saw this photo sent me an email with a method of getting more contrast using a semi stand method requiring less agitation. I still haven't perfected the method, MOF I have some photos in my flickr stream that are probably more gray scale than this one shot with Tri-X even. I'm still learning! Like the original poster I'm up for any good advice but don't want to steal away his thread.🙂

 

[calebk]

Perhaps your right, but I posted this because it was the 1st roll of b&w I developed using HC110 which I agitated every 1 min. A friend who saw this photo sent me an email with a method of getting more contrast using a semi stand method requiring less agitation. I still haven't perfected the method, MOF I have some photos in my flickr stream that are probably more gray scale than this one shot with Tri-X even. I'm still learning! Like the original poster I'm up for any good advice but don't want to steal away his thread.🙂

Cheers! I am also a newbie to development. I will communicate with you via PM.