Share your colour neg workflow?

[Paddy C]

Haven't been scanning any colour in a long time I guess. I've been at this lately. Trying out different workflows to see what's best.

So far turning everything "off" in Vuescan and generating a linear scan in RAW format (so it's not positive) seems to be the best. I then open it in photoshop and work through a few steps to get to final.

Just wondering if anyone has a method that they feel really works. My main issue with the above is that there is a decent amount of fiddling after the fact and, although the results seem decent, the PS workflow remains slightly trial and error and certainly a bit different from neg to neg in some cases.

 

[charjohncarter]

I use the auto on my scanner, I tried the off and I had more trouble late getting the image so I liked it. So, I then take it to PSE6 and try color correction. If that doesn't work I try CFS Color Perfect (plugin), one of those usually gets me in the park. If I see a color cast then I use the color variation tool in PSE6. If all else fails, which seems to be often, I try Picasa3 auto color. I find color very hard. I'm almost never totally satisfied.

 

[Paddy C]

I use the auto on my scanner, I tried the off and I had more trouble late getting the image so I liked it. So, I then take it to PSE6 and try color correction. If that doesn't work I try CFS Color Perfect (plugin), one of those usually gets me in the park. If I see a color cast then I use the color variation tool in PSE6. If all else fails, which seems to be often, I try Picasa3 auto color. I find color very hard. I'm almost never totally satisfied.

I tried Color Perfect recently after reading a tutorial on it posted by a member here (tutorial was on his site), but found it useless (for me). Everything comes out contrasty with a muddy veil that's impossible to correct. It is good at preserving highlights and thus holding detail. I'm not saying the software is bad (necessarily) just that I don't know how to coax anything decent out of it.

 

[Tim Gray]

Paddy, I do the same as you. Actually I send most of my stuff now to either Precision Camera or NCPS and don't feel the need to rescan 95% of it. But the stuff I do, I do a Vuescan Linear scan and do the rest in Photoshop. It ends up being easier for me since I'm always working from a consistent starting point.

The key for me is two parts. First, you need to convert the linear gamma scan to a roughly gamma 2.2 image. I do that through color profiles, but something like image magick works fine too. Doing that in Photoshop levels can be a bit funky. The second key is to make a curves layer and move the endpoints of the RGB curves, both high and low, until the color looks pretty good. Then move the midpoints if you feel the need. Playing around with the various auto color settings can give you some ideas too.

It ends up looking much more complicated than it actually is. I just have a PS action that makes all the layers I need, and I make a couple adjustments, and I've got a pretty good looking image.

I wrote some of this up for someone on this forum (or another forum) a bit ago. Maybe it is useful?

http://www.125px.com/articles/photography/digital/invertingraw/

 

[Paddy C]

Thanks for that Tim. I've bookmarked your tutorials and will give them a go on the weekend. I'll see about posting some examples next week once I've given it a run through.

 

[bensyverson]

For 35mm negatives, I scan with a Nikon Coolscan as slides (due to a bug in the Coolscans). For larger formats, I use an Epson flatbed and scan normally, trying to do the bulk of the Levels work in the scan software (Epson Scan).

I think people make negative scanning seem more complicated than it really is... It's pretty straightforward. I made a screencast a while back of my color correction process for a 35mm negative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oqA298hSMM

 

[BillBingham2]

1) Shoot film
2) Rewind film
3) Take film to Costco
4) Light candles and sacrifice goat in hope they will not trash negatives
5) Hold party for Non-Scratched Roll
6) Put CD, negatives and prints into large 56 QT plastic bin for storage in basement (above 1000 year flood line)
7) Load and repeat……

I am in the process of trade marking my process so adopt it know while you still can.

B2 (;->

 

[franswa]

What scanner are you using, Paddy?

I just acquired an Epson V750 Pro and the Epson OEM software does a great job...easy to use also. Almost similar to Tim, I have the software aim for a 1.8 gamma and it's done wonders for me.

 

[franswa]

For 35mm negatives, I scan with a Nikon Coolscan as slides (due to a bug in the Coolscans). For larger formats, I use an Epson flatbed and scan normally, trying to do the bulk of the Levels work in the scan software (Epson Scan).

I think people make negative scanning seem more complicated than it really is... It's pretty straightforward. I made a screencast a while back of my color correction process for a 35mm negative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oqA298hSMM

I, too, find that scanning is pretty straight forward. Keep things simple. Do you have a version of that video with audio?

 

[charjohncarter]

I tried Color Perfect recently after reading a tutorial on it posted by a member here (tutorial was on his site), but found it useless (for me). Everything comes out contrasty with a muddy veil that's impossible to correct. It is good at preserving highlights and thus holding detail. I'm not saying the software is bad (necessarily) just that I don't know who to coax anything decent out of it.

Someone needs to write a step by step for Color Perfect. There is plenty of stuff in the software, but it is very complicated.

Color perfect like most color correction works best with Gamma 2.2, so I try to get close with that too.

I like, I think it was, Pappy C's idea of doing levels on each color histogram. I'll have to try that.

Sorry, just checked it was Tim's.

 

[bensyverson]

I, too, find that scanning is pretty straight forward. Keep things simple. Do you have a version of that video with audio?

Not right now—I might do a few slightly more in-depth videos at some point with voiceover though

 

[Ranchu]

I'm curious what is the bug in the Coolscans you mention, Ben? Thank you.

 

[Paddy C]

For 35mm negatives, I scan with a Nikon Coolscan as slides (due to a bug in the Coolscans). For larger formats, I use an Epson flatbed and scan normally, trying to do the bulk of the Levels work in the scan software (Epson Scan).

I think people make negative scanning seem more complicated than it really is... It's pretty straightforward. I made a screencast a while back of my color correction process for a 35mm negative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oqA298hSMM

Well, certainly looks easy. You have a very good file right after inversion however. So that means you're doing most of your work in the scanning software?

Most of what I've read regarding scanning in general leans towards getting a flat file out of the scanner. IE having the scanner do nothing but record as much info as possible. This is also Tim's method.

I would be curious to know what your scanning software workflow is as a result.

I have an Epson V700 and Vuescan.

 

[nightfly]

I use the Epson Twain Driver within Photoshop to import from my 4990. I basically let it do it's thing. Then just make adjustment layers for curves, levels and color balance and push and pull till it looks right.

Lately been shooting a lot of Portra 160 and it looks pretty good straight out of the scan. Not much work required. Almost like a color version of Tri-X where I usually spend about 5 minutes per scan.

 

[bensyverson]

The bug in the Coolscans is that in negative mode, it increases contrast greatly, clipping blacks and whites. I'm convinced that it's a hardware/firmware problem, because it happens in Nikon Scan, VueScan and SilverFast.

If you just scan the negative as a slide, it obviously doesn't clip, because any slide has much more contrast than a negative.

The key to getting a great file before inversion is the R,G & B analog gain on the Coolscan. I find it easiest to do in VueScan. I just play with the analog gain until the film base (orange mask) is scanning pretty neutrally. It will just look white. I don't do anything else on the scan except ICE.

Then you can just bring it into your image editor, invert, and do your final color correction. The advantage of this method is that your file has 100% of the recorded brightness range of the negative. And there are no multipass HDR scans to worry about.

With the Epson, you don't need to do this fancy footwork—it can see all values on the negative without a problem. The key with the Epson is just to get it looking pretty neutral using Levels before you hit scan.

 

[Ranchu]

That's very helpful, thank you. I had noticed all the contrast, but I didn't know there was a solution! I will try it, thanks again!

 

[przemur]

I am using either ColorNeg (here is nice tutorial http://www.colorneg.com/oldneg.html?lang=en ) or a small utility - negfix8 - http://sites.google.com/site/negfix/ . The latter is just a script using ImageMagick, which proceses files in a batch removing color mask, inverting the image and applying correct gamma. It is my current tool for processing large quantities of scans, but if I want something perfect (e.g. for printing) - I use ColorNeg...

 

[atlcruiser]

I develope all mine at home then scan on V700. I ususally use the onboard softwear for the epson set to the lowest adj setting. About 90% of the time these are fine. If so I take them to LR3 and LR3 balance as needed...usully just a little if any required.

For the other 10% I take them to vuescan, remove the clr cast and set my blk/white points thenscan into LR3 and try to adj I generally get an OK result with this method.

This is 160NC scanned on the v700 with the onboard sotwear then a slight tweak in LR3.


cc mid324.jpg by urbanlandcruiser, on Flickr

 

[charjohncarter]

Of all the negative films I've scanned; Portra 160NC is the easiest. Maybe that is is a good answer to the OP's question.

 

[Tim Gray]

I am using either ColorNeg (here is nice tutorial http://www.colorneg.com/oldneg.html?lang=en ) or a small utility - negfix8 - http://sites.google.com/site/negfix/ . The latter is just a script using ImageMagick, which proceses files in a batch removing color mask, inverting the image and applying correct gamma. It is my current tool for processing large quantities of scans, but if I want something perfect (e.g. for printing) - I use ColorNeg...

I wrote my own version of negfix at one point, after trying ColorNeg/ColorPerfect. I ended with the process outlined on the link I posted above. It's really not rocket science at the end of that day. The key is getting the gamma right and setting the end points of the histogram correctly for each channel. Once you fiddle with those parameters, you can get basically any look you want. All this stuff about "Ektar's cyan cast" and similar stuff just goes away.