Re: [Leica] Naive question re scanning

["Mark E Davison" <dmark8@qwest.net>]

Anthony A writes:

> In terms of resolution, yes, easily.  In terms of dynamic range, no.
Monitors
> have more dynamic range than paper prints, so you can't exploit the range
of a
> monitor fully without a scan directly from film.  However, if it's a good
print

After you scan the print, you can expand the dynamic range in photoshop to
anything that you want. Use the Photoshop Image / Levels command. There is
certainly no reason to not use the entire dynamic range of the monitor. The
fact that the optical density range of negatives is greater than the
reflectance density range of prints is a bit of a red herring. What is true
if you make prints carelessly (as most automated labs do) you will get
uncontrolled range "clipping", i.e. either blown highlights or unintentional
black shadows. The beautiful images on Ralph Gibson's website
(www.ralphgibson.com) are all scans from prints. He uses quite a bit of
intentional range clipping to good artistic effect.

Mark Davison