I can't give you any links, sorry. But I'm shure that Gaussian has overlooked this thread by accident. He is a photographer, and he knows the whole internet by heart. So I'm shure that he can help you with a series of good links.
I haven't got much time right now, so I can't start a discussion on exchanging techniques. Yet you can find my methods scattered over these forums. Later on, I'll gladly start a thread in the tips and techniques forum.
The main problem with greyscale, because black and white means bitmap or one colour, is that we only have 256 hues, black and white included that can be remembered by a comp. This means that the complete gamut from the utmost black to the intensity of sunlight has to be reduced to 256 hues...an impossibility. That's why they now work to launch a new standard in 16bits/channel and HDRI images.
I have uploaded a ramp here on the QT&tech forum with the RGB values/zones. It must be easy to find back with the search engine.
shortly said:
Good scanning starts with a well calibrated monitor and color profiles for every piece of hardware included, from scanner to monitor to printer.
I never use the mode>greyscale, but I always use the channel mixer to set to greyscale.
I always scan in LABmode because this offers me a separate channel for the intensity of the light without affecting the colour information.
I do ALL correction in the scanner software. PS only serves for manipulation of the scanned material, not for correcting it because corrections in PS are always destructive. I explained why in another thread.
'till soon,E.