Digital BW, The Print

Martin,

From what I have seen, most scanners that have a RAW mode will produce dark scans with the data "bunched" up at the shadow end.  Silverfast has a fairly easy solution to the problem. They have  a gamma gradient that is applied to the raw scan before exporting it out for use by other programs or Silverfast HDR.

Under the Frames tab select Option/General and put a check in the "for HDR output" box. Set the Gamma Gradation to 1.5, 1.8, or 2.2 depending on your working space. Basically the program distributes the data across the histogram allowing for easier adjustments later.

I find that I can do the adjustments in SIlverfast HDR or in Photoshop. Of course Photoshop converts my 48bit RAW HDR file to a 16 bit file.

Basically your "kludge" is doing the same thing.
Regards,

Michael J. Kravit, AIA
Architect/Photographer
www.kravit.net/photography


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