The Perfect BW Scan

I get a lot of questions on how I do things, what software I use, why I do things the way I do them.

I can explain it every time, or write a generic how-to that I can refer to. I wanted to write it down for a long time now, so here we go.

I work almost exclusively on black and white negative film, and I found that scanning the film, processing the digital negative and printing the digital output gives me a much better print than the traditional fully chemical silver printing process. I do make silver prints from time to time (and I did for 40 years), but only to have a base-line original that I use to check the quality of my digital prints. I know how to create a great silver print, but they don't come close to the quality of my digital prints, and let's not mention the cost of refining your silver print by printing another version every time ...

But, for a good reproducible print you need a very well defined work-flow.

It all starts with a good negative, I will discuss that somewhere else, but after that, you will have to get a first-class scan.

Do your own scanning

In my view, commercial scanning is not all that good. Everybody seems to be wanting to mess with the negative during the scanning process and I just want a clean scan that I can use for my own processing. I want to be in full control. It's my work, my photograph, I decide.

So I have to do my own scanning.

I have a huge archive of negatives in various formats, from 4"x 5" to 135 mm of mostly black-and-white film which means that I need a versatile scanner that will give me a good enough result to print on A3+ or smaller.

The obvious answer for me was the Epson V750.

I also use the Variable Height Mounting Station from BetterScanning.com (the version for dry mounting). The web site is a little old-style, but his product and service are excellent.

Film is taped to the glass plate (film side up)

This mounting station allows you to 'focus' the Epson by changing the hight of the film plane, allows for a completely flat film surface, makes it easy to scan any format that will fit onto the glass plate and gives me a scan with the film edges included. The original Epson film holders are just not good enough, I can clearly see the difference in my scans. Removing dust is a lot more work, though.

BW Scanning

We will fix the film to the glass plate from the mounting station and mount that plate the right way up. We will then make a 16 bit Black-and-White negative scan that can be processed with any digital image processing software.

Tape the film

Assuming that you already configured the mounting station (a one-time job), start by cleaning the glass plate on both sides. Next, clean the film as good as you can without introducing scratches and tape your film face up to the matted (anti-Newton) side. It is mounted properly if you see the lettering in reverse.

It is really important that all surfaces that you are going to scan (glass plate on both sides, film on both sides, the scanner glass plate and the light-source surface) are as clean as possible. I use a brush, air from a blower usually does not do the trick for me, and I am reluctant to use compressed air. I also use cotton gloves whenever I touch a negative. Never the less I need to clean the glass plate from time to time with a cleaning agent to remove finger prints.

It will never be completely clean, there are simply to many surfaces involved, you will have to do some spot re-touching, but the cleaner you work now the less work later.

Mount the glass plate

Now, take your glass plate with the negatives and place it film-down in the mounting station on the scanner. The mounting station can rotate (it stands on top of the scanner glass plate), so try to align the negative strip to allow your scans to be as horizontal (straight) as possible, this will make the cropping later a little easier.

Glass plate and film are mounted on the mounting station (glass side up) before scanning

Once more, softly clean all surfaces that you can reach and close the scanner.

I don't use any light masks, I cannot see any difference in flare, but you should test that for yourself.

Scan

I use SilverFast scanning software, the AI version, but you can use whatever version that allows to scan 16bit HDR RAW. See the SilverFast manual for all the details.

For a 35mm negative I scan at 4800 ppi, TIF output, 16 Bit HDR RAW. 

No sharpening, no anything, just a straight scan.

This will produce a clean 16 bit Black-and-White negative without any changes made by the scanning software, a true original, big enough to print on A3+. I am not going into a discussion into what ppi should be enough for what print format, this setting works for me.

You can scan in batch if you like, so you can start working on your images while the next scans continue in the background.

When the scan is finished, you end up with a scan that looks exactly like the negative. The scan still has the full greyscale of the original.

Next: Processing your scan