Process B&W differently if intended for scanning?

[alanrockwood]

A lot of people recommend lower contrast for film you are going to scan. One thing about scanning is that you can really bring out detail in thin negatives that are scanned by playing with histograms and curves in softwared.

Now I am going to engage in a little speculation. Scanners tend to accentuate grain, though not in a particularly good way... the good grain vs. bad grain concept. Perhaps lower contrast negative end up being less grainy.

As far as capturing dynamic range is concerned, I am pretty sure that scanners have little or no problem with capturing the dynamic range available in a high contrast negative, but high contrast negatives have regions of high density, which means more grain (in the dense regions) than if the image were captured in a low contrast negative. This applies to conventional black and white negatives, not other types of films.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I usually bracket +1 and -1 all my medium format shots. I've found that properly exposed BW and color negatives and chromes scan the best and are the easiest to post process.