I read about a technique for scanning BW negs recently (I forget where) that seems to work pretty well, or at least better that the way I had been doing things. The author recommended scanning the negs as color *positives*, using the scanner's highest bit-depth and resolution. Get the levels approximately correct before scanning, then scan and save. Open the image in photoshop, invert the image and make final levels adjustments there.
A bit convoluted, but it does seem to produce good results. I'm still far form satisfied with scanning traditional BW negatives (I don't use chromogenic BW film) but I'm making progress. Slowly. -- Mark Roberts www.robertstech.com Photography and writing