Color way off with Nikon Coolscan V ED?

[Godfrey]

By the way.. this is Vuescan, with Kodak Gold 200 profile, uncorrected. It looks similarly green in Silverfast.

Is it expected that the uncorrected scan is that far off? Or am I too picky?

Hmm. There are four or five different Kodak Gold 200 profiles in VueScan 9.5.16.

I get better default results using the Generic color negative setting with the rest of the Color panel left to its defaults.

Top Row GENERIC
Bottom Row Kodak Gold 200 gen 2​

Not only does the top row have closer to proper color, but it corrects more easily. It's a little darker but that pulls up easily in LR even with the JPEG output.

Try resetting VueScan and doing a setup from scratch. Stick to GENERIC color neg, and use the sliders on the "Graph B/W" display after previewing to set the white and black points.

G

 

[charjohncarter]

My Gold 100 done with ColorPerfect (ColorNegative):

Kodak Gold 100 ColorPerfect (colorNEG) by John Carter, on Flickr

Kodak Gold 100 ColorPerfect (colorNEG) by John Carter, on Flickr

After you learn it, it is so simple.

 

[Tijmendal]

Looks great John!
I've been debating getting Colorperfect for a while, as most people seem to be getting good results with it.

How do you scan the files in Vuescan?
I just got a Coolscan 5000ed and am trying to get a good workflow going. With Vuescan, my colors are also really bad. When using Nikonscan (in Windows XP trhough VMWare on my Mac), it doesn't see the strip: just the first frame. From the tutorials I've read it should gobble the strip up (which it does) and spit it out again, after which it should give me some thumbnails to look at; problem is, it doesn't!

 

[jbielikowski]

- choose right profile in negafix (Kodak Gold 200, Kodak Ektar, ..)
- reset the RGB color adjustments to center of the color circle

I use SF8 with a flatbed Canon but using right profile is not always right, most of the times I choose a different one to get colors right. Also I'm not sure if I understand why you reset the color adjustments, does the profiles are not supposed to take care of the adjustments? All the tweaks I'm doing later in PS.

 

[charjohncarter]

Looks great John!
I've been debating getting Colorperfect for a while, as most people seem to be getting good results with it.

How do you scan the files in Vuescan?
I just got a Coolscan 5000ed and am trying to get a good workflow going. With Vuescan, my colors are also really bad. When using Nikonscan (in Windows XP trhough VMWare on my Mac), it doesn't see the strip: just the first frame. From the tutorials I've read it should gobble the strip up (which it does) and spit it out again, after which it should give me some thumbnails to look at; problem is, it doesn't!

The only problem with ColorPerfect is you have to throw out many of your old ideas about color. I have a V500 (Epson) and I use their Epson Scan (their packaged software). If you have Vuescan then you can turn everything off and get a linear scan. I do just about the same with Epson scan.

So, after scanning a slide or color negative you will get a 16 bit TIFF file. I run mine through a ColorPerfect add on program called Make Tiff although this is for RAW digital files, they recommend it to give a finally stripping of interfering material for your TIFF files. Then you will have either a dark looking slide scan or a dark looking C-41 scan. Open the slide in ColorPerfect and the C-41 in ColorNegative (pick your film) and then you will just have light editing.

If you decide to get it I'll be happy to run you through the rest of the editing details which are very few but don't necessarily translate to the language of PS.

Here is one of my friend's Harley. After I opened with CP I did one click adjustment and then saved:

Kodak Gold 100 ColorPerfect by John Carter, on Flickr

 

[Ranchu]

I can't really remember for sure, but I think you need to pull the corner of the window the thumbnails are in so it's larger...

 

[philipus]

New Yosemite Macs won't run Snow Leopard even on an external drive. 🙁

Generally the oldest version of OS X that can run on a Mac is the version that it was installed on it, when you bought it.

Ah, I wasn't sure the OP uses a modern Mac. That is a limitation of course, though running SL (or Windows) virtually would work, I guess.

The mouse pointer will color cast correct. And you are practically done.

Clicking on neutral grey parts of the photo is usually the easiest but sometimes it doesn't work because of how the image is.

Another option, which I've recently begun to use quite a bit, is the "Ring around" feature. This presents the image in a 3x3 grid with the current colour in the middle and other versions - akin to the LAB colour space works, it seems - around it. Clicking one of the other versions adds, for instance, a bluer cast to the middle image etc.

The Auto colour feature (I think that is the name) is also useful but works better on C41 than on transparencies. Very often it will be spot on when selected, but if it is not using the slider will always find the right colour balance.

I don't use the film profiles in Color Perfect because they always look unnatural to my eye. The Gold 200 profile, for example, is way too saturated.

My workflow, in brief, is:

1. Scan as linear scan (as described on the CP site)
2. Open resulting TIFF in CS6. Dust spot and crop as necessary. Save digital original.
3. Set colour space to sRGB and open image in ColorPerfect (I know views vary as to whether it is good to use sRGB here).
4. Select correct mode: ColorNeg or ColorPos (I almost never use TouchUp). Then pick L mode (for linear). Sometimes, however, I find that G is better even though I scanned linear. And very often, even if L is better than G, I will not use the colour space sRGB but instead tweak the Gamma setting (usually 1.8).
5. Adjust the Black and White sliders, all depending on the image (very subjective).
6. Adjust colour as outlined above by clicking on something neutral, using the Ring around feature or the auto colour feature.
7. Ok out and continue editing in CS6 as necessary.

br
Philip

 

[willwright]

I'm using yosemite with vuescan successfully...

 

[charjohncarter]

Ah, I wasn't sure the OP uses a modern Mac. That is a limitation of course, though running SL (or Windows) virtually would work, I guess.



Clicking on neutral grey parts of the photo is usually the easiest but sometimes it doesn't work because of how the image is.

Another option, which I've recently begun to use quite a bit, is the "Ring around" feature. This presents the image in a 3x3 grid with the current colour in the middle and other versions - akin to the LAB colour space works, it seems - around it. Clicking one of the other versions adds, for instance, a bluer cast to the middle image etc.

The Auto colour feature (I think that is the name) is also useful but works better on C41 than on transparencies. Very often it will be spot on when selected, but if it is not using the slider will always find the right colour balance.

I don't use the film profiles in Color Perfect because they always look unnatural to my eye. The Gold 200 profile, for example, is way too saturated.

My workflow, in brief, is:

1. Scan as linear scan (as described on the CP site)
2. Open resulting TIFF in CS6. Dust spot and crop as necessary. Save digital original.
3. Set colour space to sRGB and open image in ColorPerfect (I know views vary as to whether it is good to use sRGB here).
4. Select correct mode: ColorNeg or ColorPos (I almost never use TouchUp). Then pick L mode (for linear). Sometimes, however, I find that G is better even though I scanned linear. And very often, even if L is better than G, I will not use the colour space sRGB but instead tweak the Gamma setting (usually 1.8).
5. Adjust the Black and White sliders, all depending on the image (very subjective).
6. Adjust colour as outlined above by clicking on something neutral, using the Ring around feature or the auto colour feature.
7. Ok out and continue editing in CS6 as necessary.

br
Philip

Very good about what I do, but you have more stamina than I. I'm too lazy to give a long description.

 

[Dwig]

... Clicking on neutral grey parts of the photo is usually the easiest but sometimes it doesn't work because of how the image is. ...

Often film images, and hence the scans from them, exhibit was is sometimes termed "crossover error", where the color balance is differs from shadow to highlight. I generally compare the results of clicking in three different areas; one in the highlights, one in the mid-tones, and one in the shadows. With the highlight and shadow tests you need to avoid a spot that is too near (not within 10) either 0 or 255. I then set the overall color balance at some compromise value and trim the highlights and shadows using different curves in each of the 3 channels as necessary.