[Leica] Process and scan to disc question

[Gerry Walden]

Thank you Richard for your considered and informative answer. Now I understand. I am not sure Silverfast will scan as any raw format but I will carry on scanning as .tiff for now while I look at things.

Gerry

> On 17 Mar 2016, at 07:41, Richard Man <richard at richardmanphoto.com> wrote:
> 
> Gerry, there are two aspects of B&W scanning that you need to consider:
> 
> 1) scan as negative or positive. Some people scan as "B&W neg" and some
> people scan as "(RGB) positive" then invert in Photoshop or the like. Some
> people claim that certain scanning software ALWAYS clip if you scan as B&W
> neg (I believe NikonScan is one of them) so option 2) gives more fully
> tonal result.
> 
> 2) Save as Raw/DNG or TIFF/JPG. Note that TIFF is "full quality" where JPG
> is compressed, but otherwise they are the same in this discussion.
> Certainly, always save as TIFF rather than JPG as you want the highest
> quality.
> 
> If you save as TIFF/JPG, then usually you have the scanner software
> applying some tone curves and such, so that the image looks pretty good
> already, then it's minor way in LR/PSD to get to the final image. In this
> regard, it's rather like having a digital camera saving the images as JPG.
> 
> If you save as Raw/DNG, then the scanner software will try to maintain as
> much information as possible, e.g. minimal tone curves and exposure
> adjustments, so that it can be processed further post-scan. The downside is
> that it takes a bit more work in LR/PSD to get to the final result. The
> upside is that if you improve your LR/PSD skills or if better processing
> software are to become available, then you can go back to the original
> Raw/DNG file and redo it.
> 
> ***
> Personally, right now I scan as B&W neg or save in TIFF format. With medium
> format /4x5 (I rarely shoot 35mm film any more), there is so much
> information from those scans that I do not think it's worthwhile to use the
> other options.
> 
> YMMV.
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Gerry Walden <gerry.walden at icloud.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> A number (Peter, Lluis etc) have mentioned scanning b&w as either .tiff or
>> even .dng. I cannot see any obvious advantage to this, so could somebody
>> pease enlighten me. I tried a couple to .dng which was a pain in Lightroom
>> as they came out as negatives and the sliders worked the wrong way. I am
>> currently scanning as .tiff but (to be honest) don’t really know why.
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> Gerry
>> 
>> 
>> Gerry Walden LRPS
>> www.gwpics.com
>> +44 (0)23 8046 3076 or
>> +44 (0)797 287 7932
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> // richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
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> 
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