Epson V500 + VueScan: Help!

[nazedayo]

Hey guys,

I just started scanning my own negatives and they look absolutely horrible. Granted I have terrible scanning skills, but I need to know exactly what I'm doing wrong. I'm scanning portra but none of the images look portra-color.

Here is an album of 2 sample scans (scanned RAW from the scanner, and Inverted via Apple+I in Photoshop), and the full list of settings I'm using:
imgur.com/a/lcYY2

What am I doing wrong????

 

[Pete B]

There's no simple answer and you'll get lots of answers none of which are unlikely to be satisfactory for every negative.
I've done what I could with your scan in Photoshop:



With my Epson scanner I get better results with EpsonScan with all adjustments turned off and adjusting the histogram to ensure no clipping of colour channels then adjusting the scan in Photoshop.

With Vuescan you need to profile the negative with these steps to ensure no clipping of the colour channels:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica...canning-vuescan-colorperfect.html#post1425196

but with the scanner set for colour negative film rather than scanning as a positive, to obtain a flattish scan prior to adjusting colour and contrast in Photoshop. Save as a TIFF rather than RAW shown in the link, and prior to saving adjust the histogram for each colour channel to ensure no clipping.
Pete

 

[Mcary]

Other folks may have a had better luck scanning to the VueScan raw format but personally I prefer to just scan to 16bit Tiff.
Generally these are the setting I use when scanning C41 film including the New Portra.
Color Balance: None
Curve Low: 0.0001
Curve high 0.0001
Brightness: Varies
Negative Vendor: Generic
Negative Brand Color
Negative type Negative.
The color are a bit off when the scans are completed but once in LR4 and quick change of the WB from "As Shot" to "Auto" makes a big improvement. If it still off I find a neutral area to take WB from or adjust the sliders in very small increments.

V700 35mm Portra

V600 Portra 120

 

[Pete B]

I'm not sure how my monitor is profile but I changed it to this as your file looked very green on my computer. Perhaps mine looks very magenta to you?
Pete

 

[Mcary]

I'm not sure how my monitor is profile but I changed it to this as your file looked very green on my computer. Perhaps mine looks very magenta to you?
Pete

View attachment 94257

I've always had issue with color vision, which why I generally stick to B&W. With color I generally just cross my fingers that I'm somewhere in the ballpark 🙂

 

[Pete B]

I know what you mean. Colour is where madness lies 😀
Tonight, this colour might look OK to me but tomorrow I'll look at it and think it looks awful. 🙁
Pete