I have been scanning 6x6 B&W negs on a polaroid sprintscan 120 with some success. My normal practice is to scan in RGB colour 16 bit and then edit in Photoshop. Obviously the negs have a colour cast out of the scanner but I have found that scanning in 16 bit colour mode gives better results than scanning in 16 bit greyscale. Once in Photoshop I desaturate the image. However some negs I notice that even when all colour information is discarded there is still a blueish-mauve cast in the 3/4 tones which is visible on my monitor. This persists even if I change the file to greyscale or use the B&W adjustment layer. This makes no difference to the quality of the prints - usually I print on an Epson 3800 in ABW mode.
This makes no sense to me. How come I can see a colour cast in a greyscale or desaturated file? the monitor is profiled and is fine (Apple Cinema 20inch) and shows other greyscale images, gradients etc. as perfectly neutral.
Just a curiosity - any ideas anyone?