Someone in this group opened a thread on Mike Johnson's piece on "The Glow." See: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/sm-02-04-28.htm

I found this to be a very interesting statement about a desirable quality to be achieved with b&w photography and printing. My question is whether the quality that Johnson speaks of can be achieved by scanning black and white negatives and printing them from a photo-oriented printer? In other words, can glowing b&w prints be accomplished digitally? Let's assume the camera is an M6 Classic with a 50 summicron-M and the film is Kodak Plus-X. If you have achieved such results, what scanner(s) and printer(s) can you reommend? Thanks for any ideas on this.

-- Dennis Buss (dbuss@rider.edu), May 28, 2002

Answers

Just as with wet lab results, finding that magic combination is not easy. Glowing B&W prints can be achieved if you work diligently to achieve them.

Film is less of an issue, as is what scanner you use ... The real issue is understanding how to use Photoshop or whatever your preferred image editing software is, how the particular printer inks and paper interact, and how to get the best out of them.

I have produced a series of small prints taken with a Hasselblad 903SWC on Ilford Delta 100 and Kodak Tri-X film, printing to Pictorico Glossy paper using Photoshop and an Epson 1270 printer. The negs were scanned at 2400 ppi using an Epson 2450 flat bed scanner. I kept the print output files to 360 dpi and spent some time with a custom .ICC file correcting them for proper grayscale tonalities.

They definitely glow, and are about as indistinguishable from darkroom produced prints as anything I've ever seen.

Godfrey

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), May 28, 2002.

With a good scanner to capture all the tonal differences in the entire range of the neg (quite possibly multi scans at different exposures ) and a good deal of knowledge in photoshop it is very possible to get a digital file that can emulate the tonal qualities described as 'glow' in the article. However I have yet to see an inkjet that can produce the fine differentiation and subtlty of tone in the highlights that you can get with a traditional fiber print. Additionaly you could also produce the 'glow' as described with almost any camera - Leica 'glow' as I have seen it has been the result of flaring highlights from uncoated optics and old , silver rich ' emulsions of yesteryear.

-- Johann Fuller (johannfuller@hotmail.com), May 29, 2002.