How do you scan color?

[Pete B]

It does in fact happen. The Fuji Frontier is an automatic printer it needs no buttons pressed and is calibrated to the international standard-the same one Kodak uses.
The machine even does self check 'bulls eyes' which are read on an inbuilt densitometer.
As a former Prolab owner I know the Frontier uses the same aims as we do I've owned two of them-that's how we match across different machines.
Using standards keeps our prints 'standard' the idea that everyone is printing to some arbitrary aim driven by individuals is crazy talk.

I thought something like that must have been agreed, I just wonder if the operator swaps between different algorithms depending on what film is going through. It sounds like it's all taken into account to rule out operator error. I suppose that gives the standard output that the recipient can modify to his or her desire, as Edge100 suggests.
Pete

 

[Photo_Smith]

Pete the machine does a thing called an MBL where the standard patch is generated every 2 hrs and read by inbuilt densitometer then checked against a known standard (that edge says doesn't exist) for calibration.
Here is how to balance an Agfa DLab to Fuji chemistry, you can see some of the objective aims and MBL and PBL tests in this PDF
How to Balance the Agfa Dlab for Fuji paper
Something Tilburg sent as a guide to engineers after Agfa went bust-I don't think it was for consumer consumption–you seemed interested though.

Current machines don't see a difference between negative film types, but back in the day each film type had a channel that needed to be set up by the technical staff with LAD references called 'bulls eyes' you set a master channel for a given paper and each film type was set as a subset of that to give good colour across different films.
When I printed a Kodak Vr100 it had to be set on Channel 11 Vr 200 was Channel 12 VR400 channel 13, Fuji HR 100 was Channel 21, HR 200 channel 22 etc all had to be set up with LAD on a weekly basis-now all automated by the new machines.

BTW I'm NOT arguing that people can't modify the standard rendering-obviously they can and I've got to know many customers preference over the years, subjectivity and objectivity sit side by side in many photo engineer tests.

What Edge is arguing is there is NO standard rendering for colour negative materials that it is ALL down to subjective and that the standards DON'T exist.
Well here is the game set and match:

No sensible person could claim no objective standard exists if they look at that standard, I think edge is one of those people who needs to see to learn-rather than use science or maths.

 

[edge100]

Are you listening?!?!?! Of course there is a standard: an ARBITRARY, manufacturer designed standard, as valid as any other because it has no basis in physical reality beyond what the manufacturer WANTS!

 

[edge100]

Pete the machine does a thing called an MBL where the standard patch is read and used for calibration.
BTW I'm NOT arguing that people can't modify the standard rendering-obviously they can and I've got to know many customers preference over the years, subjectivity and objectivity sit side by side in many photo engineer tests.

What Edge is arguing is there is NO standard rendering for colour negative materials that it is ALL down to subjective and that the standards DON'T exist.
Well here is the game set and match:

No sensible person could claim no objective standard exists, if they look at that standard, I think edge is one of those people who needs to see to learn-rather than use science or maths.

That explains my PhD in molecular biology. You know...an actual science.

 

[Wburgess]

Ok, for the last fricken time:

This is not the same with a slide. When I project a Velvia chrome, it looks like what it looks like precisely because of the characteristics of the film. If you scan it, you have a reference to match that scan to, WHICH ACTUALLY EXISTS IN THE REAL WORLD AND ISNT JUST SOMEONES ARBITRARY ASSESSMENT OF 'CORRECT'.

But even on slides someone designed how the emulsion would react to different colours, hence why different slide films have different characteristics.

Also, a slide is as much as a reference as a neg. The colours seen on a slide or when projected depend heavily in colour temperature of the source light and the ambient viewing light.

It just so happens that the neg isn't automatically perceivable in it's humanly recognisable colours until it's been through a set algorithm. It's just one more step between the source and the destination.

 

[edge100]

But even on slides someone designed how the emulsion would react to different colours, hence why different slide films have different characteristics.

Also, a slide is as much as a reference as a neg. The colours seen on a slide or when projected depend heavily in colour temperature of the source light and the ambient viewing light.

It just so happens that the neg isn't automatically perceivable in it's humanly recognisable colours until it's been through a set algorithm. It's just one more step between the source and the destination.

All true.

But with a slide, the photographer has no input into the tonality of the final product. Velvia has a real look; Portra doesn't, except as a negative.

This goes beyond colour balance, too. Ever wonder how Portra 400 gets all of those 17+ stops of DR crammed onto the film? It compresses the highlights into a very low contrast negative (which anyone can clearly see if you just invert a negative). The user has to restore the desired contrast.

Slides have no such process. You get what you get.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Some people just can't see that both slides and negatives can have references that can be read by sensometic machines to measure dyes. Because he can't 'see' it means he's blindsided by his argument hence his denial of the existence of standards-if they're not human readable they obviously don't exist!

I think edge is very rigid in his dichotomy, almost to a point of denial. Even his slide 'rendering' depends on many different metrics.

 

[Wburgess]

All true.

But with a slide, the photographer has no input into the tonality of the final product. Velvia has a real look; Portra doesn't, except as a negative.

Well, surely it depends.

If you are scanning a slide, you have already made an input into the tonality of the final scanned image. The light source, the way your scanner sees each colour.

Thanks to the people who develop negative film, we actually can have the same level of input as slides because of the way they designed the film.

For example, Mr Portra is designing his new film. He knows how RA4 paper reacts to a certain light to, say, give a primary red. Because he knows this, he can design how the film reacts to that colour to generate the desired outcome on the paper. With pro labs we have the same sort of things but just in an A/D process.

And the negative has a look as real as the negative, it's just... for a word, encrypted.

 

[edge100]

Well, surely it depends.

If you are scanning a slide, you have already made an input into the tonality of the final scanned image. The light source, the way your scanner sees each colour.

Thanks to the people who develop negative film, we actually can have the same level of input as slides because of the way they designed the film.

For example, Mr Portra is designing his new film. He knows how RA4 paper reacts to a certain light to, say, give a primary red. Because he knows this, he can design how the film reacts to that colour to generate the desired outcome on the paper. With pro labs we have the same sort of things but just in an A/D process.

And the negative has a look as real as the negative, it's just... for a word, encrypted.

The purpose of slide film is projection, and the purpose of neg film is a print.

You have no control over the slide once you've exposed and developed it. The look you get it entirely dependent on the film itself.

That isn't true of neg film. In the print making process, you (the printer) interpret the neg as you desire, according to some set of parameters that you (or someone else) have defined.

To be clear, NONE if this has anything to do with an accurate representation of the real world; all films alter reality in some way. This is only about there being no true objective standard for negative film prints; the only standard that exists is as subjective as any other.

Negative film doesn't "look" like anything until it's interpreted by the user.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Yep mr Burgess you nailed it! Because people designed the negative to be a part of a whole process (normally print) they know exactly how the dyes react and will come out on the print if known standards are used.
I've laid out the methods used, multiple times; all edge has to see is that the way your print looks when printed to a known standard is not 'arbitrary' but measured stimuli in the observer mapped by a colour model then applied by using dyes to match the visual stimuli by the engineers (and colour scientists) who make the film-we're not talking mystery meat here but a very exact and controlled process.

So if you have a standard input under a standard lighting say 18% grey under D65 lights it will have a standard density on the negative (measured by densitometer) that will give a rendering on the paper equating to the input. Or do you think the figure of 18% is wholly arbitrary?

Or a light measuring 530nm wavelength perceived in the user as green really can be created as dyes that result in the same stimuli in the user-a measured and controlled system based on a model of the mapped human visual response (in this case Munsell) isn't exactly what most people would call 'arbitrary'-but then according to some 'photographic science' isn't proper science anyhow...

 

[edge100]

Some people just can't see that both slides and negatives can have references that can be read by sensometic machines to measure dyes. Because he can't 'see' it means he's blindsided by his argument hence his denial of the existence of standards-if they're not human readable they obviously don't exist!

I think edge is very rigid in his dichotomy, almost to a point of denial. Even his slide 'rendering' depends on many different metrics.

I liked it better when you were ignoring me.

You've apparently convinced all the other sheep of your ridiculous notions. Perhaps it's time to go back to the basement and keep churning out bog standard prints for the plebes.

 

[Wburgess]

The purpose of slide film is projection, and the purpose of neg film is a print.

You have no control over the slide once you've exposed and developed it. The look you get it entirely dependent on the film itself.

That isn't true of neg film. In the print making process, you (the printer) interpret the neg as you desire, according to some set of parameters that you (or someone else) have defined.

To be clear, NONE if this has anything to do with an accurate representation of the real world; all films alter reality in some way. This is only about there being no true objective standard for negative film prints; the only standard that exists is as subjective as any other.

Negative film doesn't "look" like anything until it's interpreted by the user.

As someone who worked in front of a Noritsu and Fuji Frontier for 5 years, I can tell you that the printer does not choose how to interpret the negative. Change colour balance and density, yes. But the actual signature of the film, no.

The person who designed the negative is the same person who designed the slide.

SLIDE: "Ok I need to design a film that will be projected, so I need to make a film with clear base and posses colour that is close to what is seen by the human when taking it."

NEGATIVE: "Ok I need to design a film that will be printed, but they way the paper works means that I will have to record the colours differently on the film so that they can be printed with colour that is close to what is seen by the human when taking it."

Because the person knows that colour A is recorded as colour B on the film to be printed back as colour A he knows how to obtain those REAL colours out of the negative.

A -> A is no different to A -> B -> A, its just a slightly longer journey!

Hope that helps.

 

[Wburgess]

I liked it better when you were ignoring me.

You've apparently convinced all the other sheep of your ridiculous notions. Perhaps it's time to go back to the basement and keep churning out bog standard prints for the plebes.

How dare you, I have my own knowledge from my own experiences/learnings and will type through my own will.

Try and keep above the low level chat and have a meaningful discussion no matter how someone else has talked to you.

 

[edge100]

How dare you, I have my own knowledge from my one experiences/learnings and will type through my own will.

Try and keep above the low level chat and have a meaningful discussion no matter how someone else has talked to you.

Oh please; this know-nothing-know-it-all comes in here touting ridiculously meaningless credentials, espousing a clearly nonsensical position with respect to the mind-numbingly obvious difference between a subjective and objective reality. He does all of this, and this thread fills up with a bunch of yes men, lining up behind this poseur 'scientist', without giving a second thought to the possibility that he's DEAD WRONG, despite his advanced degree in...well...nothing in particular.

I'll say it again: threads like this explain, in graphic detail, why sites like Flickr continue to fill up with banal crap.

 

[Wburgess]

This has now passed into the realms of the personal and I will be alerting a moderator.

My views are my own, I am not a yes man. I don't know Photo_Smith, but I do know my own credentials. All my posts have taken what you have said into consideration and I've tried to explain my understanding. Never personal, never attacking. There is no reason for things to go this far.

Always try and take the upper ground, if you don't, you join the very person you are arguing with.

 

[edge100]

This has now passed into the realms of the personal and I will be alerting a moderator.

My views are my own, I am not a yes man. I don't know Photo_Smith, but I do know my own credentials. All my posts have taken what you have said into consideration and I've tried to explain my understanding. Never personal, never attacking. There is no reason for things to go this far.

Always try and take the upper ground, if you don't, you join the very person you are arguing with.

True. When a man argues with a fool, two fools argue. Mea culpa.

Moderate away, Field Marshall. I've done nothing wrong. Who did I personally attack? The scientist? Random Flickr users?

Grow a pair.

 

[Ranchu]

You've apparently convinced all the other sheep of your ridiculous notions.

You're actually the sheep here, bud. The line you're repeating was created out of thin air to make it easier to market photo software, by Adobe in particular. Now I guess ColorPerfect as well. It's propaganda.

Maybe read back through your posts, you're saying that even though there IS an intrinsic look, curve, color, that doesn't mean that there is an ACTUAL intrinsic look, color, curve, so wtf let's goof around with sliders and call ourselves artistes, and if that doesn't work for us we can hope Adobe or Colorperfect will grace us with some more sliders.

 

[edge100]

You're actually the sheep here, bud. The line you're repeating was created out of thin air to make it easier to market photo software, by Adobe in particular. Now I guess ColorPerfect as well. It's propaganda.

Maybe read back through your posts, you're saying that even though there IS an intrinsic look, curve, color, that doesn't mean that there is an ACTUAL intrinsic look, color, curve, so wtf let's goof around with sliders and call ourselves artistes, and if that doesn't work for us we can hope Adobe or Colorperfect will grace us with some more sliders.

Wow, I've never been called a corporate patsy before. First for everything.

Believe whatever you want. Make your photographs look exactly like Kodak and Fuji intend. I'm sure there's a suburban mantle on which your pictures will fit in nicely. Or maybe an Ikea or a Target; you know, photography for the soccer moms.

Sheep. I stand by the moniker.

 

[Ranchu]

Wow, I've never been called a corporate patsy before. First for everything.

Believe whatever you want. Make your photographs look exactly like Kodak and Fuji intend. I'm sure there's a suburban mantle on which your pictures will fit in nicely. Or maybe an Ikea or a Target; you know, photography for the soccer moms.

Pitiful. I am so much more cynical than thou.

🙂

But really, you're going to learn it some day. I imagine you'll forget all about this conversation at that point.

 

[edge100]

Pitiful. I am so much more cynical than thou.

🙂

But really, you're going to learn it some day. I imagine you'll forget all about this conversation at that point.

I've already forgotten about it. It's the sheep that seem not to be able to let it go. I could not care less if you want to produce banal, mind-numbing "photographs" (but with oh so accurate colour).

Baaaaah, on.