Processing DSLR scans of Porta negatives

[Steve Ruddy]

I recently saw a lot of landscape color lazer prints and really liked the color palette. The photographer told me he uses Portra 400. I didn’t think I would ever go back to color film but after seeing his prints I am reconsidering. I did my normal DSLR scans of the negatives, just like I do for my black and white film. I shoot RAW and use a studio flash. After that the normal stuff in LR. However with the film base being so orange the color temp needs to be cranked all the way just to get an exceptable color. I guess my question is for all of you DSLR scanners is this the same for you and do you find that even though your WB is maxed out your happy with the color. I’m thinking about having my next roll printed so I can see what to expect from the colors when using portra. The other thing I haven’t tried is using C1 instead of LR as C1 will go outside the slider range when using the WB dropper tool, which will give me more control.

 

[brbo]

Have a look here.

 

[Huss]

I recently saw a lot of landscape color lazer prints and really liked the color palette. The photographer told me he uses Portra 400. I didn’t think I would ever go back to color film but after seeing his prints I am reconsidering. I did my normal DSLR scans of the negatives, just like I do for my black and white film. I shoot RAW and use a studio flash. After that the normal stuff in LR. However with the film base being so orange the color temp needs to be cranked all the way just to get an exceptable color. I guess my question is for all of you DSLR scanners is this the same for you and do you find that even though your WB is maxed out your happy with the color. I’m thinking about having my next roll printed so I can see what to expect from the colors when using portra. The other thing I haven’t tried is using C1 instead of LR as C1 will go outside the slider range when using the WB dropper tool, which will give me more control.

Hey Steve.

I use LR and do the base adjustment/reversal there. Yes, the WB will be near to maxed out. What I do is then export to NikFx where I use the ProContrast tool (which allows for colour cast corrections) then reimport back into LR.
This resets all the edit settings, so you can fine-tune/adjust to your heart's content.

But, addressing your original point about the landscape lazer prints, you don't know what the photographer actually did to his Portra negs. How he edited them etc. That would be the question to ask him if you want to get look similar to his.

 

[Steve Ruddy]

Have a look here.

Thx

Hey Steve.

I use LR and do the base adjustment/reversal there. Yes, the WB will be near to maxed out. What I do is then export to NikFx where I use the ProContrast tool (which allows for colour cast corrections) then reimport back into LR.
This resets all the edit settings, so you can fine-tune/adjust to your heart's content.

But, addressing your original point about the landscape lazer prints, you don't know what the photographer actually did to his Portra negs. How he edited them etc. That would be the question to ask him if you want to get look similar to his.

Very good point. The way I’m going about it now is not going to give me the films color palette or the color palette the artist chose when he digitally processed his negs. I think I have a good sense of color but if I choose to process the way I normally do I may not be able to represent the films character and or his look. The artist is an instructor at the local JC and is actually teaching a color class this fall. I’m resisting taking it as I’m sure I know most of the content and it’s a full semester class. Maybe I can squeeze so info out of him privately!



BTW I just tried the images using C1 and it goes down to 800K vs LR 2000K. This is way more room to adjust white balance than LR. I wish there there was a way to get all the sliders to act correctly without exporting and importing as a tif. If I stay in LR or C1 all basic sliders are reversed.

 

[willie_901]

With a well-exposed raw file all the information you need is at hand.

The link brbo posted is useful.

I find Photoshop to be very useful for dealing with color negative scans. I use Vuescan with a PlusTek OpticFilm 7600i. My output are flat 16 MP, TIFF files in DNG format.

After experimenting with several methods I use PS as a LR plug-in.

To find optimum color temperature parameters (cancel the orange mask).

○ Invert it.
○ Eliminate the orange negative mask
○ Create a curves layer.
○ Go to the red channel and alt-click on the black slider and move it until it just starts to clip or slightly before that. Do the same for the white slider.
○ Then do that on the remainder of the channels.
○ This is an effective way to use the histogram to optimize color temperature balance
○ The center adjustment slider below the histogram controls overall contrast I use this as preview to check the color temperature parameter selections. But I import a flat file (no contrast adjustment) into LR.

I then use LR for all other rendering adjustments. This can include selective color temperature parameters for regions lit by different light sources. One example would shaded be areas in an outdoor scene mostly lit by bright sunlight.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Have a look here.

That's to a thread I started which explored the options pretty extensively, many good contributions there, and test sample files are linked. I believe there are several good solutions there for Photoshop.

At the moment, my favored solution for Photoshop is an inversion action by RFF member @adriang and documented in thread "New CN inversion action"

I do not know of a good solution for Lightroom.

And, there's potential in doing this with your iPhone. Seriously. See FilmLabApp.com and some postings here. 12MPx iPhones have plenty of resolution. We don't have quite the right lenses for working with 35mm negatives. The color fidelity with FilmLab is getting closer and closer. I say keep an eye on the iPhone options.