Scanning technique: white balance

[dfoo]

With C-41 film how do you get a decent white balance from a scan? I have both a V700 and a coolscan 5000 ED, and I find it difficult to get a decent white balance with both using vuescan/epson scan and nikon scan. The nikon scan seems to give the best white balance, but its not really very good. With digital I don't have any issues... If the WB is off, I use the WB tool in lightroom clicking on something grey, or just using one of the manual modes (cloudy, daylight, etc). However, with C-41 neither of these works very well. The kelvin numbers are completely off, for example. I've tried setting the film base color in vuescan and that sucks too...

Any tips?

 

[monemmer]

With a roll of C41, I take a picture of my neutral grey card every several frames. Then I use the work flow with vuescan you describe (lock exposure, lock film base color, while using the setting for generic color negative). Now I can do a manual white balance by measuring off the pictures of the grey card (right click somewhere on the picture of the card). That approach gives me pretty good results.

 

[monemmer]

I forgot to mention, this is the grey card I am using:

http://store.rmimaging.com/digitalgraycard-100.aspx

 

[dfoo]

Ah, the old fashioned gray card... I actually have a kodak gray card which I've used when I was shooting digital. Not a bad idea.

 

[mfogiel]

As said before, in Vuescan you can use the same technique as with a grey card in digital, or - if you shoot in bright daylight, you can use the film profile option, which should be fairly accurate. You can also create your own custom profiles with appropriate software and targets.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I tend to just adjust in Lightroom after scanning. I do find it very hard to get good WB, particularly with Ektar. I'm using VueScan and the 5000ED.

 

[not_in_good_order]

I adjust in lightroom using the sliders. If something is grey in the image, I'll try and use that as a starting point, but usually it is all manual with making adjustments with the two sliders until it looks correct. It is time consuming sometimes. I find the presets to be pretty useless a lot of the time.

 

[bagdadchild]

Scan all color negative as positive and it will save you a lot of trouble. Invert in PS and the correct the r g b levels for each color and you're pretty much all set. Make further corrections like curves, selective color if needed or export to ACR for white balance etc.

 

[dfoo]

I don't get this scan as positive and invert. I've tried it with both the CS 5000 and V700 and never found it made any difference. What is this supposed to accomplish?

 

[bagdadchild]

I don't get this scan as positive and invert. I've tried it with both the CS 5000 and V700 and never found it made any difference. What is this supposed to accomplish?

Thats what the scanner does anyway. Basically you will get better control in post processing in having a positive 'raw scan'. Perhaps negative scanning software is so sophisticated these days that it won't make a difference. With older software it does make a difference. I cannot see the point in buying dedicated software just for inverting color negative when it is so easy to do in post processing.

 

[dfoo]

I always set the black point of the negative in vuescan, which I've found gives me very good results for black and white.