To get most out of my black and white negatives, I scan them in 16-bit mode with "Auto Levels" activated in VueScan. The "Auto Levels" function provides a very good tonal range from, yeah, white (RGB 255 255 255) and black (RGB 0 0 0). Actually, I scan in Grayscale mode and save the file as an 8-bit tif to save some harddrive space. I don't see any advantage in keeping a 16-bit file, since the histogram is completely intact. Converting to RGB is the first thing I do in Photoshop since I like to give my photographs a warm tone.
Shown here is the flat scan -yuck- it looks exactly like printed on grade 2 in the darkroom, flat as... you know what I'm talking about.
The most cruicial step for a good looking black and white photo is a decent contrast move, without sacrificing tonal range. How do we do that? Rev the engine, open up the curves and give the flat line a nice s-shape... open up the lighter parts a bit and floor the shadows, without losing too much detail (we'll take care of that later, with a bit of masking).
And don't use the Brightness/Contrast "tool" - it will be destructive as a jackhammer to your photograph.
The sample above looks just like printed with a grade 3 or 3.5 filter in the darkroom. beautiful.
Of course you can adjust the s-curve according to the photo and your taste, this is just a recipe, not the final meal...
<< previous page | Black And White Processing 02 >>
