On my monitor it appears that your shadow speckles are confined to only 2
or maybe 3 levels. This suggests that somewhere in your processing you have
'stretched' the brightness/tonal range considerably at this point of the
histogram, and that the affected area is very low actual exposure on the
film. If so my suggestions are a combination of what has already been
suggested:
I wonder if you are expecting too much from what is originally a high
contrast shot - perhaps you shouldn't expect to see any detail in that
shadow? In which case you only need to reset your black point a little as
Tony suggested. (I don't even have PS at the moment to try)
Rephrasing...
Try more exposure if you are really interested in that shadow,
AND:
Scan in 16-bit to get more levels to "stretch" (if you expect to see any
meaningful detail within, and if you haven't done this already)
OTHERWISE:
reset your black point to just above the speckle. From what I can see here
you won't lose any meaningful detail.
One other thought - you might find useful info if you examine the film in
that area with a microscope. If there is no detail there (it will be
nearly clear of course) then you have no choice but to declare the area
"black", or increase exposure.
Julian
At 12:37 02/04/03, you wrote:
>on 4/1/03 6:40 PM, Peter Klein at pklein@2alpha.net wrote:
>
> > I love CN Black and White film. It has a beautiful look and tonal range,
> > and it scans well. But there's one problem. Take a look at the following
> > picture, a crop of a larger scan, reduced 50%. It's a picture a friend
> > took of me with strong sidelight, on Kodak Portra 400 B&W. It's 138K, no
> > adjustments besides the size and conversion to Jpeg.
> >
> >
> >
> > See how the shadow side of my face is all speckled?
Julian
Canberra, Australia
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