Scaning B&W negs with Nikon 4000ED

[remoteplaces]

I have 15 plus rolls of B&W film (Kodak Tmax 100 to 3200 ASA) to scan.

I would be grateful for help with scanner settings Nikon 4000ED). Intuitively I set it as follows:
- Negs Mono
- Greyscale
-14 bit
- x 2 passes
-4000 dpi

I then played and scanned as above but in RGB color. The RGB has slight warmth which I liked. With Digital ICE on (when using RGB), the scans were terrible. Why does it not give you the ICE option in greyscale and why so bad in RGB?

The images are for various print and electronic products. I need the highest quality scans and drive space for storage is not an issue.

My feeling is to scan in RGB as this will give me the flexibility of converting later to greyscale, but I keep the slight warmth of RGB.

Any advice appreciated before I spend the next few weeks scanning them in. Here are two of the images I just did. The man reading is with TMAX 3200 and scanned in greyscale. The woman’s face is Tmax 100 and scanned RGB. I added a slight sepia tone to the woman face.

[Trevor Ash]

I'm sorry you haven't received any repsonses yet. I used to have that scanner as well. Apparently they've fixed the software interface because they used to let you select ICE for B&W but the scans would come out as two tone black and white images. At least they don't let you select it now.

Anyway, I always had better results scanning in RGB for B&W so I think your approach is the wise one. You can convert to greyscale later if need be and with the 14 bits of RGB info you're getting more detail in your scans anyway.

I don't know why turning on ICe gives you bad scans. Could you post a sample with and without ICE so I can see what you mean? If your negs are clean it doesn't usually hurt turning it off as it saves scan time anyway. A little healing work in Ps takes care of that.

Summary: Scan in RGB even when B&W. I don't know why ICE is giving you bad results. At worse, it just softens the image slighly (but not nearly like GEM does).

[remoteplaces]

I've done a little research since this post.

RE: ICE I believe that it works by scanning in IR. Color film is poque to this whereas B&W is not. It interprets info in the B&W negative and dust and scatches and adjusts with disasterous results.

RE: RGB vs greyscale. The online help did not mention whether to scale B&W in RGB or greyscale. However, I went back and read the manual. Its says to scale B&W in greyscale.

I have been scanning as follows: 14 bit, greyscale, and Neg mono. I'm quite pleased with the results, although even the slow (100) film seems grainy.

[remoteplaces]

Sorry my previous post seems like I was drunk..........I have two machines on a small desk and right now the keyboard is at a horrible angle to type.........my typing is two fingered and horrible too.

poque = opaque

You can guess the rest : )

[Franglais]

I've done a little research since this post.

RE: ICE I believe that it works by scanning in IR. Color film is poque to this whereas B&W is not. It interprets info in the B&W negative and dust and scatches and adjusts with disasterous results.

RE: RGB vs greyscale. The online help did not mention whether to scale B&W in RGB or greyscale. However, I went back and read the manual. Its says to scale B&W in greyscale.

I have been scanning as follows: 14 bit, greyscale, and Neg mono. I'm quite pleased with the results, although even the slow (100) film seems grainy.

Sorry to say this but "classic" black-and-white films ARE (relatively) grainy compared with colour films, which have dye clouds rather than silver grain and look smoother. And as you've pointed out you have to spot them by hand to remove dust because ICE is incompatible.

Hint - if you want a black-and-white film that has finer grain, more detail and that is compatible with ICE - try a chromogenic black-and-white film like Ilford XP2 or the much-regretted Kodak T400CN. They don't look the same as classic black and white, you can't really push-process them but I find they're very flexible.

Charles