Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark" 
<paul.roark@v...> wrote:
>  Too often the "negative" scans seem to clip or
> unduly compress the ends of the curve.

This brings up a point I felt should be made about the Nikon; That 
LED light source is adjustable over a two-stop range, something no 
fluorescent tube scanner can do. Dropping the 'analog gain' (why 
they chose to name it something so un-enlightening is a mystery) .5-
1.0 stops takes care of that clipping and compression, centers up 
the data, and allows you to go directly to positive without loss. 
Conversley, turning it up on a dark, contrasty transparency (mine 
are all perfect, I had to borrow one to test the idea-right) will 
extract shadow detail with less noise. And in extreme cases you can 
do two scans, one for each end, by varying the light intensity-that 
covers a much wider contrast range, again with relatively clean 
shadows.

Steve Karafyllakis

http:// www.stevekphoto.com