Best settings for neutral scan on Ls-9000 + Nikon scan

[Roel]

I have recently acquired a Nikon ls-9000 scanner which works pretty good with the Nikon software. (I also have Vuescan).

I am shooting 35 an 120 mm film and more into Color now then before. So 'suddenly' I am interested in getting the real film colors out of my scans and not something the computer/scanners likes to throw at me.

Which settings should i use to get the as real as possible film colors, or the most neutral scan, meaning the colors that are on the negative.

At the moment i put off everything that enhances etc and just scan as tiff and than the highest resolution possible. Light/dark/contrast corrections can be done in Lightroom/PS but i would like to be sue that the colors are the colors of the film and not some corrections that i or the systems have don.

So best to use all features off or should i go the other way ant get the Scan Image Enhancer function to let scanner get the best out of the negative?

Any help from experience with the LS-9000 really appreciated!!

 

[edge100]

I have recently acquired a Nikon ls-9000 scanner which works pretty good with the Nikon software. (I also have Vuescan).

I am shooting 35 an 120 mm film and more into Color now then before. So 'suddenly' I am interested in getting the real film colors out of my scans and not something the computer/scanners likes to throw at me.

There are no "real" film colours on a negative (I assume you're speaking about colour negative film). There are manufacturer-recommended print settings, but, just like with B&W film, the operator's subjective interpretation has always been part of the process.

So while different films will give different colour characteristics when developed, scanned, and processed identically (that is, different films have relative differences in colour profile), there is no absolute "real" colour.

This is in contrast to scans of a slide, where there is an objective target (i.e. the source slide), and calibration slides are available to aid in this process. (EDIT: of course, this presumes you *want* your scans to look like the source slide)

My recommendation is to scan as a linear TIFF and process in ColorPerfect or NegaFix (though the latter requires using Silverfast, the interface of which is, IMHO, abysmal).

 

[k__43]

Exactly .. with negs there is no "real" color. Differences in exposure will yield in different saturations per channel.
I'm using the auto setting with a little headroom in the black and white point settings so nothing clips. Then I correct gammas and the black/white point per channel in Aperture (lightroom/PS for you) with a curve tool so I get a natural look. I try to match certain similarities in the histogram view (grey areas of the shot).

I've never found the film presets helpful, nor the learning of the base color in vuescan.
The biggest discovery for me was to leave headroom in black and white point of whatever software if possible and work on that later

 

[Roel]

Exactly .. with negs there is no "real" color. Differences in exposure will yield in different saturations per channel.
I'm using the auto setting with a little headroom in the black and white point settings so nothing clips. Then I correct gammas and the black/white point per channel in Aperture (lightroom/PS for you) with a curve tool so I get a natural look. I try to match certain similarities in the histogram view (grey areas of the shot).

I've never found the film presets helpful, nor the learning of the base color in vuescan.
The biggest discovery for me was to leave headroom in black and white point of whatever software if possible and work on that later

Thnx for the replies guys. Not exactly what i hoped for ;o)
So what if i you scan for slides and then invert? Does that make sense?

How do you arrange the headroom in Black and white point?

 

[brbo]

So what if i you scan for slides and then invert? Does that make sense?

It does. A lot of us do it that way. You'll find that inverting is the hard part of scanning colour negatives, though.

 

[Roel]

It does. A lot of us do it that way. You'll find that inverting is the hard part of scanning colour negatives, though.

In PS it is just 1 click?!? Or is that to easy thinking?

 

[brbo]

Yes, it takes more than 1 click.

A couple of great guides by our RFF users:

http://www.coltonallen.com/scanning-color-film/
http://4nalog.blogspot.si/2015/09/working-with-c41-linear-flat-scans.html

There are, of course, even more ways (using ColorPerfect, NegFix...), but everything will still require some amount of user input in the "interpretation" of the negative.

 

[k__43]

I scan slides in slide mode and "neutral" in Vuescan - I've profiled my scanner with a color target slide. The slide is made on Kodak film - I find the colors with Fuji film not good so I don't use the profile with Fuji slides only with Kodak. Fuji needs some minor treatment for the brownish cast in shadows.
Expired Kodak tends to give you a purple cast which I usually take as is from the scanner and sometimes correct it later in Aperture to my liking or not.

 

[philipus]

I've given up scanning slides as linear TIFF and using Color Perfect because CP seems to misinterpret the info. Highlights are rarely 'clean' but often somewhat muddy and shadow areas way too contrasty. Instead I'm nowadays scanning slides as non-linear TIFF with colour set to Auto (I forget the exact term) in the pull-down menu (I tried White Balance but it rarely looks good). If necessary I open the file in Photoshop to spot for dust and crop. Then save it as my original TIFF.

Colour negs I scan as linear TIFF and invert in CP. I usually flick through the different options - Optimized, Exact, etc (there's a button in the top-right corner) - to see which gives the best colour (most neutral) for further editing. I virtually never use any other controls (or any film preset) in CP. Instead I OK out, spot the file for dust, crop as necessary and save as my original TIFF.

I do the further editing for both slides and colour neg in Adobe Camera Raw which I have found is the simplest way (I don't have Lightroom).

There are many ways.