Hi Mark, OK, then what we have here is probably a difference in the way the scanners work. I don't know all the technical jargon, but the Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED (4000dpi, etc) does a great job w/traditional B&W. I know that the Minolta uses a different light source than the Nikon, and, of course, the older HP ,ay not have the range needed to capture the full range of contrast or information on the negative.
We've tried a test using grain reduction on the Nikon, and the results are quite poor. The sharpness inherent in a well-processed B&W negative is mitigated to a degree that's unacceptable. It may be that you just don't like grain, but even those who are not very familiar with photography felt that using the grain reduction on the Nikon degraded the image. I wonder if what you're experiencing is grain aliasing. IAC, my experience with scanning B&W is just the opposite of yours ... it's been easy and quick, almost 100% automatic, and the results have been excellent. Mark Cassino wrote: > > I get very grainy images with traditional B&W on both my Minolta Scan Elite > and rather old HP Photosmart (original version.) Far more grain that what > you'd see in a regular print. Tonal range is also a bit of a problem - > loss of highlight details unless contrast is set fairly low. I've been > using Veiwscan recently with the "grain reduction" enabled and that helps > the grain quite a bit, but I haven't tested it to see if it is hurting fine > detail or not. -- Shel Belinkoff mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/ http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/darkroom-rentals/index.html - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
