About Scanning Negatives

[kalun_leung]

HI everybody,
Sometimes when i develop my negatives, i will also ask the shop scanned for me as index (in Hong Kong, with that low resolution scanned image is cheap, only added about $2 USD for a roll of film other than the developing fees), Yet, i do find that the color of the picture scanned by the shop is quite difference from what i scan (I use Nikon Coolscan V), this problem usually happened in Negative Film scanning but not Slide. as i have no reference to follow (when i scan slide, i can actually reference the slide), I feel it is difficult to scan the true color of the negative , I want to ask if negative really have some color? if not, i mean, if what i scan is totally different from other scanning, then why do i pay extra money for higher grade film which has better color? Anybody can share their experience towards negative film scanning? is negative film really have much advantage in terms of dynamic range over positive ?

Sorry for so many Questions, and thanks in advance for answering my question.

 

[dmr]

I've found that overall, the scans I make are far superior to those made by the lab.

The main reason I think is that the lab machine is set to a one-size-fits-all best guess set of settings, which does a brutal autoexposure and somebody's vivid imagination of a color correction.

When I do a careful scan, tweak slightly in Photoshop, and print, I find I get the best results.

As to the difference in film and color rendition, each type of film has its own personality and its own way of rendering the colors. Everybody has their own preference on these, and what's better for one circumstance is not necessarily better for another.

 

[mfunnell]

I'm just starting to get into scanning now that I've re-visited film photography. And I, too, am having some issues with colour negative scans. (Actually, I'm having worse issues with colour slide scans, I think because of focus issues due to varying thickness of the slide mount.)

I've been having film developed, printed at 6x4 and scanned at lowish res by a fairly up-market minilab. I've tried scanning myself, at higher resolution (Canoscan 9950) for frames I'm interested in doing more with, or printing at larger sizes. BW scans seem, so far, adequate for my purposes. Colours in scans of colour negatives have been "off" in comparison to the prints (which looked good to me) and the lab scans (which matched the prints). I've been able to correct by eye to match the lab prints using Photoshop but can't see this as being a viable long-term solution as its way too time intensive.

I can see two ways forward here (not mutually exclusive). One is colour calibration of my software/scanner combination. It seems to me that "off" colours imply a lack of calibration. The other thing is use of better software than that supplied with the scanner. I've been told that Silverfast is good and has a version specific to my scanner. I suspect I'll try the software first, then calibration (rather than end up calibrating for two different pieces of software).

I haven't done anything about this yet (I've mostly been doing BW lately) but its getting higher on my list...

...Mike

 

[kaiyen]

Does a color negative have a color? No, not really. Every scan and print is an interpretation of any negative, color or B&W. The difference is that B&W is simpler - just more or less contrast. But color negatives are almost false colors - a red dye cloud doesn't nec. mean a red color on the print.

So...everything is an interpretation. So the trick is to get as much detail as you can, then tweak it into what _you_ want.

allan

 

[mfunnell]

So the trick is to get as much detail as you can, then tweak it into what _you_ want.

Good point, Allan. But what I also want is for most of that to be done for me in h/w or s/w, rather than having to "hand do" each image. I don't mind making a few final tweaks, but for me it would be way too time-consuming to have to hand-construct decent colour for each photo. I suspect that getting the colour close to right early in the processing chain also has benefits (hence my wanting to take a look at the scanning process).

...Mike

 

[kaiyen]

Mike,
Of course, getting a workflow that gets you as close as possible doesn't hurt 🙂. This is what I do with B&W, which I shoot and scan far more than color (for which I use digital, to be honest). I have a workflow that gets me close, then it's just small tweaks from there.

Calibration is critical, and you can also create profiles for your scanner, though I don't think they have them for negative film.

allan

 

[amateriat]

As Allen hints, it's all in the workflow, which starts with getting your scanner, computer, and monitor (and, eventually, printer) to agree with one another (that's the calibration bit...ideally done with some relatively fancy spectro gear, but you can get close enough with the software and hardware you already have). The next thing is to profile for the film you're scanning; this is where settling on just a few film types for the bulk of your shooting can save you a lot of grief, particularly with color. Once you've more or less gotten a handle on this, there's the matter of what you're making these scans for. In most cases, these files ultimately end up being used for making high-quality prints. Any file that's good enough for making prints you'll actually be showing to others will be good enough to use for other purposes (websites like this one, for example), so that's really the bar to shoot for, IMO.

And, contrary to popular opinion and/or wishful thinking (with a little help from Madison Avenue), the hardware and software ain't going to do it all for you, if you want your work to look "just so." Like traditional processes, it requires intelligent input. But it's less messy at least. 🙂


- Barrett