Adobe CS2 Scanned B&W negs saved as JPG darker than orig

[minnie98]

I am scanning B&W negs and importing them into Photoshop CS2 for conversion to JPEG files. Somehow the JPG image always turns out a shade darker than the PSD file.

A consensus of net wisdom suggests that the best results results come from scanning the B&W neg as an RGB profile positive. Then to import this into Photoshop for inversion and Greyscale conversion.

When I convert this PSD Greyscale image into a JPEG, ( and JPGs are always RGB profile) the resulting image seems a touch darker then the original PSD file. I opened the two images, side by side, and enlarged them to 1600% so I could look at individual pixels. I moved the 'eyedropper' tool across both images. This gives precise values for the colours of the pixels with the same X/Y coordinates, This confirmed what my eyes were telling me. The JPG is a shade darker for just about every pixel position looking at the numeric readouts. This is true regardless of monitor differences.


JPG conversion throws some pixels away and converts the Greyscale file into an RGB file and therefore has a different palette of available colours. But why should this result in an overall darker image?.

PS - I tried using a TIFF Greyscale file and the same thing happens.