How do you scan color?

[Paddy C]

Thanks for the tips. It doesn't help that I find CP almost impossible to understand, aside from the most basic things. In fact, none of the scanning software is well designed...I wonder why that is?

I went on a colour neg scanning bender a few years ago. Colour Perfect was, for me, incomprehensible. I can usually figure out any piece of software without aid but CP was/is nasty.

To answer your question, it's because they are all created by engineers/software devs without the aid of anyone with design and user experience skill. The result is ugly, opaque products that are a hassle to use even if you know your way around them.

 

[edge100]

I went on a colour neg scanning bender a few years ago. Colour Perfect was, for me, incomprehensible. I can usually figure out any piece of software without aid but CP was/is nasty.

To answer your question, it's because they are all created by engineers/software devs without the aid of anyone with design and user experience skill. The result is ugly, opaque products that are a hassle to use even if you know your way around them.

Agreed. CP is a very, very difficult piece of software. And the developer can be somewhat standoffish if you press him on it.

That said, I find that I really only use a few tools: Ring Around, Black, and the actual film stock drop down list. With those three tools, I can get everything I need from CP, and do the rest in LR.

 

[Paddy C]

Agreed. CP is a very, very difficult piece of software. And the developer can be somewhat standoffish if you press him on it.

Maybe someday I'll watch the tutorial and give CP another go. But scanning/colour correcting is largely why I gave up shooting colour film.

A couple years ago I sent six rolls of 120 to Richard Photo Lab for developing, scanning and prints. I knew that Jonathan Canlas uses RPL (or perhaps now has the equivalent equipment and process of his own) and, like the OP, I love the colour and quality of his photos. At great expense I got back absolutely beautiful prints and scans. There was no way I was going to match it and no way I could afford it going forward.

 

[PatrickT]

Maybe someday I'll watch the tutorial and give CP another go. But scanning/colour correcting is largely why I gave up shooting colour film.

A couple years ago I sent six rolls of 120 to Richard Photo Lab for developing, scanning and prints. I knew that Jonathan Canlas uses RPL (or perhaps now has the equivalent equipment and process of his own) and, like the OP, I love the colour and quality of his photos. At great expense I got back absolutely beautiful prints and scans. There was no way I was going to match it and no way I could afford it going forward.

It's too bad. I would love to shoot color 35mm, but have given up on it due to cost and due to the fact that I feel like I can replicate it up to 95% with full frame digital. So, no more 35mm for me, sadly.

However, I DON'T feel that I can replicate medium format with digital so I'm stuck trying to figure out an economical way to make it work. It seems that it doesn't exist, unless you do it yourself. Hence this thread :bang:

There are quite a few labs at the moment that are putting out really kick-ass scans...Richard Photo Lab, Indie Film Lab, Photovision, etc, etc. I have to wonder...what are they doing differently that they can get the color the way they get it? It can't be the scanner they use, can it? It has to be the software and the process... I have to assume that they have software resources that we don't? They can't be spending ~30 minutes on each image individually to make them look right...

 

[Pete B]

This is my routine:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2274133&postcount=52

A little more on CP here:
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/film-forum/172106-colorperfect.html#post1644435

Like someone above hints at, I do think different scanners give different results, even with linear scans. I have much more success with Plustek 8100 than I do with Epson V700. I always found best results with a straight Epsonscan scan with the V700.
Pete

 

[Paddy C]

There are quite a few labs at the moment that are putting out really kick-ass scans...Richard Photo Lab, Indie Film Lab, Photovision, etc, etc. I have to wonder...what are they doing differently that they can get the color the way they get it? It can't be the scanner they use, can it? It has to be the software and the process... I have to assume that they have software resources that we don't? They can't be spending ~30 minutes on each image individually to make them look right...

RPL uses Fuji Frontier and Noritsu scanners (which, if I'm not mistaken) are really mini-labs – ie. they process, scan, and print I think. Don't know if RPL uses them as such. I'm guessing the combo of the two scanners/mini-labs, and the tweaking/setup RPL has produces consistent really good results.

You can actually buy these used for not a huge amount of money ($3-5K). But I have no idea what would be involved in keeping them running.

Couple articles here on RPL and the scanners:

http://www.richardphotolab.com/wordpress/category/nvsf/

http://craig-stephen.co.uk/2012/10/fuji-frontier-or-noritsu-film-scans/

 

[Ronald M]

Scanning is all about knowing how to balance color. First do prescan to get density correct, then get blue yellow correct, red cyan, and finally magenta green. Then save those settings and apply to all films of the same type that have the proper white balance in camera.

I have yet to see any automatic setting/program that always gave correct color.

After decades in a color darkroom printing mostly color neg, I can offer this. Buy films in large batches so it is correct or close to correct from one scan session to another.

If using daylight film, expose it to only daylight or flash. Use filters to correct for other light sources. Do not attempt to correct color from missexposed light sources. It will never be right, perhaps close, and it is a pain. Film has one color balance unlike a digital camera that is adjustable.

Get the density and color correct in the scan. All further manipulations are best done in photoshop. Best you do a test frame of a Whi Bal card or Colorchecker so you have reference colors.

Calibrate the monitor.

Working properly, film can look as good as all but the very best digital cameras.

 

[PatrickT]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I just did a couple of test scans, first using EpsonScan, and then using Vuescan (RAW) + ColorPerfect. Here's the setup and results:

First preview using default settings on EpsonScan: Looks pretty good.

Preview with "restore color" checked: Looks better.

Preview with both "color restoration" and "backlight correction" checked: looks worse.

Unchecked "backlight correction" and played with the levels a tad: looks great

Final image: I'm actually really happy with it. Not exactly correct, but looks almost like what I remember seeing. The real scene was a tad warmer.

Onto Vuescan + CP:

Did the procedure for locking exposure and locking film base color as outlined elsewhere:

Color tab:

Output tab:

Into ColorPerfect with default settings:

Changed black value to avoid clipping:

Image brought into Lightroom and "exposure" adjusted up:

This does not look good at all compared to the Epson version. Colors are weird (shifts?), too dark, too contrasty...etc.

So for this particular case, the Epson result was MUCH better, with less work. My question is, why does the ColorPerfect one not look good?

 

[edge100]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I just did a couple of test scans, first using EpsonScan, and then using Vuescan (RAW) + ColorPerfect. Here's the setup and results:

First preview using default settings on EpsonScan: Looks pretty good.

Preview with "restore color" checked: Looks better.

Preview with both "color restoration" and "backlight correction" checked: looks worse.

Unchecked "backlight correction" and played with the levels a tad: looks great

Final image: I'm actually really happy with it. Not exactly correct, but looks almost like what I remember seeing. The real scene was a tad warmer.

Onto Vuescan + CP:

Did the procedure for locking exposure and locking film base color as outlined elsewhere:

Color tab:

Output tab:

Into ColorPerfect with default settings:

Changed black value to avoid clipping:

Image brought into Lightroom and "exposure" adjusted up:

This does not look good at all compared to the Epson version. Colors are weird (shifts?), too dark, too contrasty...etc.

So for this particular case, the Epson result was MUCH better, with less work. My question is, why does the ColorPerfect one not look good?

Any chance you could share your Raw scan? I have an improved LR workflow that I think would do the trick here. Happy to share, but would be best if I could work on this scan to show you what is possible. I comes down to not merely boosting exposure, but to mapping the blacks, shadows, mids, and highlights appropriately. Super easy to do in LR, but it'll make more sense if I show you.

 

[Gregoyle]

Edited my original post.

I would also love it if you could post the original raw tiff (or a link to it maybe). I get very different results when I crop the screenshot you made of the raw negative and run it through ColorPerfect. One thing that immediately looks off is the gamma. I know your screen shows 2.2, but the gamma of the output looks wrong (it looks linear).

-Greg

 

[PatrickT]

Here's the link to the RAW scan, which I think I did correctly... 🙂

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7030288/Linked/_scan problems/400H_test.tif

 

[mszargar]

Sony a7 + Zeiss Ikon reproduction stand for Contax RFs (from 1930s) + Color Perfect. Works like a charm.

 

[Gregoyle]

Patrick, I get Error 404 on that link.

-Greg

Edit: It must have been uploading or something, works now.

 

[mszargar]

If you have a scanner, here is my workflow with VueScan, but with a ColorPerfect replacement called NegFix, available for free... I like the results better than those of ColorPerfect: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2231086&postcount=26

 

[Gregoyle]

Patrick, Here is what I got after loaing Fuji Pro 400H and doing Ring Around a couple times (I think i chose blue and then yellow). I wasn't there when you took the picture, but these skin tones look a little more natural to me. I made it slightly warmer. This is on Imgur, but I've PMed you the deletion link in case you want to remove it. I am not sure why my default gamma looks so different from yours. Ring around is one of the coolest features in ColorPerfect.

-Greg

Edit: now it's looking slightly green to my eyes. I'll try again with Ring Around tomorrow. I think the stuff you didn't like was a result of the gamma.

 

[brbo]

I'd probably do it to something like this...

 

[Photo_Smith]

I think trying to get good colour in the scan software is futile, what you need is a flat looking file that you can work on in Photoshop.
Hope you don't mind I had a try with your shot:

All I did was take your jpg (couldn't download TIFF) and apply a contrast (radius) sharpen and colour and levels.

 

[philipus]

the actual film stock drop down list.

I use a Coolscan 9000, Vuescan and CP and find that CP's list of colour negative films totally destroy the colour on the scanned image. So I don't use this function at all.

But a question to PatrickT -- I don't know how the V500 works but why set Input Mode to transparency in Vuescan?

 

[Ronald M]

People knock Epson scan software. I find it very good.

I admit the color looks a bit cold, but you eye compensates in the original setting just as it does under incandescent . The scene really is blue.

Add some yellow and then bleed in very small amounts of magenta. Actually you are adding pale orange/brown.

Use levels to clip up to the shadow and highlight.

The trick to balancing color when there is no grey reference value, then to use levels on separate RGB channels. Use threshold to find the black and white points then the black and white droppers to set it. You end up setting black & white on each channel.

This a a real time consuming process, but it produces great results

Putting a Whi Bal card in the first frame makes this easier.

At the top of the dialog box, check the box that says "save setting" and give it a name like Portra-window. The next frame, just pick that from the drop down selection and you need not repeat all the work.

 

[PatrickT]

Thanks for the input everyone.

To be clear, I was pretty happy with the Epson scan, and much less so with Vuescan + CP. The Epson version was just a couple clicks away in Lightroom from being perfect.

The Vuescan + CP one was more difficult for me to deal with.

It just doesn't seem like it should be this difficult to get a good scan without spending a ton of time per image. Perhaps (probably) I'm wrong as I really don't fully understand what it takes to get good color and exposure from a negative.

Gregoyle...thanks for taking some time on the image. I think the version you posted is quite yellow/orange to my eyes (and uncalibrated work monitor). Doesn't look all that natural. Was that all done in CP?

brbo...did you do the conversion in CP?

PhotoSmith...your version looks quite good. Like I said above, I know that if I spent a couple minutes in Lightroom, I could make my Epson version look better, more like yours.

Again...the problem here is not necessarily getting ONE good scan...it's scanning an entire roll and getting good, consistent color throughout. I have no doubt that I could take a scan from any software and with enough time and effort, make it look good.