scratches in darkroom vs scanning

hi,
has anyone found that smudges or scratches like these show up more on a scan, but not as much on a darkroom print? the scratch on this second one is pretty deep, but i kind of remember some smaller ones don't show up in a darkroom enlargement as much, maybe?
thanks,

smudges:


scratch:

FWIW - I have always found that my scanner can see and record the grains of silver in my 35mm B & W negs, which to me is not very nice BUT my 8 x 10 silver prints (made in a darkroom) produces beautiful smooth looking images with barely perceptible grain. I would assume that something similar might be happening with your scratches; i.e. scanners tend to be unforgiving and sometime too sharp for their own good. I seem to recall reading an article somewhere on the net from a shooter in Scandinavia, I think, who wrote about reducing resolution to a point he worked out mathematically to avoid that issue. But for the life of me I cannot recall where I saw this........ sorry.
cheers,
Sam

A diffuser enlarger will produce smoother / softer images that is forgiving to scratches and other blemishes. A condenser enlarger on the other hand will show these problem areas much more so. To me it sounds like you are using a Diffuser enlarger.

Ben

Scanner really accentuates any scratches for some reason. water spots too.

Diffuser-smoozer... With cheap enlarger you could still focus on emultion, which is often isn't scratched.
Cheap scanner sucks it all, undamaged emultion and scratches, expensive scanner will suck in grain from emulsion which you would not get on darkroom print.
I have extremely scratched BW negative from eighties. Scanned it, total crap. Nothing but scratches. Printed on 8x10 under cheap enlarger.... Night and Day.

samcomet said:

FWIW - I have always found that my scanner can see and record the grains of silver in my 35mm B & W negs, which to me is not very nice BUT my 8 x 10 silver prints (made in a darkroom) produces beautiful smooth looking images with barely perceptible grain. I would assume that something similar might be happening with your scratches; i.e. scanners tend to be unforgiving and sometime too sharp for their own good. I seem to recall reading an article somewhere on the net from a shooter in Scandinavia, I think, who wrote about reducing resolution to a point he worked out mathematically to avoid that issue. But for the life of me I cannot recall where I saw this........ sorry.
cheers,
Sam

Click to expand...

It's called grain aliasing. You need a rather extreme film scanner to truly resolve film grain, somebody mentioned about 4,000 dpi actual optical resolution, not Epson V700 style, but more like a really good Flextight or a drum scanner. Very few scanners actually show you what's actually in the emulsion.
An enlarger will resolve your grain, so what you see in a silver print is the actual grain of your film. Use an APO enlarging lens in a well aligned enlarger if you want to be able to really see the grain at 20x enlargement too and keep the integrity of the film in the print.

hmmm, these are from a noritsu lab scan, but yeah i do feel scans can look grainier due to grain aliasing,

but what do you think those kinds of smudges are?
here's another smudge detail:



the lab told me the scratch is actually static, and i actually don't see it on the negative now that i look at it through a loupe.

however, the one on the top of this frame, that's a scratch i see with a loupe. and it goes through the space in between the frames as well, maybe that would not show up in a darkroom enlargement?



also what do you think causes a scratch like this? it's not perfectly horizontal, which makes it think it's not from the camera, but more likely from the handling, like the sleeving process, or something before sleeving...