Why do my colors stink?

[rogue_designer]

Choosing the white balance, black and white points, etc. do affect how the slide/neg is scanned. Especially the black and white points. Generally it is not just an adjustment to the scanned data after the fact, but actually affects the data incoming.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Choosing the white balance, black and white points, etc. do affect how the slide/neg is scanned. Especially the black and white points. Generally it is not just an adjustment to the scanned data after the fact, but actually affects the data incoming.

Sweet, thanks.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Would the best way to get the most accurate colors from a C41 color negative be to scan as a positive and then invert/set black and white points in photoshop?

(I mean accurate to what the colors actually are on the negative, even if they are wrong due to the lighting not mathcing the white balance of the film)

 

[IK13]

When it comes to color film there's no such thing as "accurate" to start with!
Each film has a preset reaction curve. Heck, even the same kind of film from two different batches will be different.
Add the mentioned lighting.
Add the scanning and in case of a negative - compensating for the orange mask and inverting the colors and the "accurate" gets even further away.

So does that mean you're doomed?
Not necessarily. Yes, there's no absolute accurate, but there can be more or less accurate...according to YOU!
Color is much more about numbers then it is magic. As such it can be manipulated (provided you don't have channels going burnt or completely black). It's much easier to do that if you have a reference.
As R_D told you - if you can reliably pick white/gray/black points - it'll make your life a lot easier. Profiling your equipment and media helps a lot (though as far as media target go it's pretty much available for slides only).

Plug-ins like this one might also help http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

P.S.
WoolenMammoth, I can't agree with you more !

 

[JeremyLangford]

When the scanner software compensates for a color negatives orange mask, is it basically just picking the black/gray/white points for you?

 

[uhligfd]

Jeremy,

you are repeating your question(s) at least a handful of times. What for, why?

The only way to get an answer is to do what WoolyM said so clearly: learn to work and game the color system. Period. No more questions. Just get experience, please! And do listen also, please.

 

[rogue_designer]

When the scanner software compensates for a color negatives orange mask, is it basically just picking the black/gray/white points for you?

No. It's just stripping out the orange. That can act like setting a new black point, but the black point doesn't affect color balance as much as the white and grey.

Re-read Wolly's post. Experiment.

 

[JeremyLangford]

I've read his post like 5 times. No matter how hard I try to make the Coolscan scan look right, I can't do it. The more editing I do, the more grain pops out, which makes it where I can't get the end result as sharp.

I think that I need more control over the scanning process.

With the Walmart scan, his face looks like the right color.

With the Coolscan, his face is purple/red.

I think that the Coolscan did too much correcting to get rid of the orange mask that it drained the scan of the aqua colored walls and left the whole thing with a purple/red cast that I can't get rid of.

 

[rogue_designer]

I think that I need more control over the scanning process.

That's the important part right there.

Either that, or be willing to deal with compromises in image quality (the grain popping, etc.) to get the tones you want.

However, I do think that with some serious editing, you can get where you want without the problems you describe.

 

[JeremyLangford]

I can pretty easily get a result I like with the Walmart scan.

(I did this one just now)

But when it comes to the Coolscan scan, his face just stays extremely purple/red and the tiles on the wall do a really bad job of changing from their gray color into the real aqua color.

But after everyones help in the thread, I think that the problem is that I need more contol over the colors in the scanning software instead of letting the colors scan badly and then trying to fix them in Photoshop.

 

[JeremyLangford]

I think I might try E6 to see if it's an easy way out of all the trouble of C41 scanning.

 

[MikeL]

I think I might try E6 to see if it's an easy way out of all the trouble of C41 scanning.

Jeremy, I think you might find digital to be even easier. Have you thought about going digital and letting the camera software do the work (auto white balance, etc.)?

 

[JeremyLangford]

Jeremy, I think you might find digital to be even easier. Have you thought about going digital and letting the camera software do the work (auto white balance, etc.)?

The whole reason I started out in photography is because my dad bought a Canon 30d dslr. I learned a lot from using i but I quickly turned to film so I could have a cheap full-frame body and fast prime lenses. Once I turned to film I started to really love street photography and took a B&W class at my high school.

I love film just as much as you guys. I'm just still learning. Hopefully when I get as old as you guys (I'm 17), I won't have to ask so many questions.

 

[Pherdinand]

the older you get, the more questions you have.
:angel:

 

[Pherdinand]

by the way, E6 scanning is not much easier. It is more consistent, but it is a pain to get the high contrast of slide film through a less than top class scanner without blocked shadows and scanner noise.

 

[JeremyLangford]

the older you get, the more questions you have.

by the way, E6 scanning is not much easier. It is more consistent, but it is a pain to get the high contrast of slide film through a less than top class scanner without blocked shadows and scanner noise.

:angel:

That's discouraging

So is this the real reason all you guys love B&W?

 

[amateriat]

by the way, E6 scanning is not much easier. It is more consistent, but it is a pain to get the high contrast of slide film through a less than top class scanner without blocked shadows and scanner noise.

On top of this, you really need to be on top of your game, exposure-wise, with slide film as opposed to color neg, especially if you're metering manually (although you shouldn't always take autoexposure readings straight-on, either). One virtue of most color-neg emulsions is exposure latitude: you simply have more wiggle-room in situations where you might not have all the time you need to get your settings dead-on. With slide film, overexposure is your enemy; with color-neg, it can be your ally..

Slide scanning can be somewhat easier than color neg on account of the WYSIWYG advantage. Of course, if what you see on the light box isn't much to your liking, there's not much you can do in the mix. You have to start with a top-notch image on that little chip of film.

I used to shoot nothing but slide film once (and most of that was Kodachrome). Now, color neg accounts for about 80% of the color I do still shoot.


- Barrett

 

[rogue_designer]

set your white and black points - scan as a 16 bit tiff - open using Camera Raw. Tada!

It's not quite the same, obviously. The use of film precludes getting "raw" data. There will be limits and inherent casts set by the emulsion, exposure, etc.

Even with RAW, it's still better to get the exposure and whitebalance close than to have to make a massive shift in post processing. you can certainly do it, but you'll get color artifacting and hurt image quality.

Shoot more.

 

[Pherdinand]

About neg scanning:
i went through the ColorNeg pages following the link suggested here above, moreover i downloaded the plugin as well.
It is interesting, the guy is a bit arrognt by saying nobody else does it correctly but he does have a point here and there.
The plugin also seems to work quite okay, although it does not give those easy-and-perfect positives from the colour negative, as he says that in majority of cases it should. It is definitely easier though, than messing around in Photoshop with different channels to get to an acceptable positive.

He does have problems with the concept of color management and color spaces, though. He suggests to just scan and "assign your favorite color space" to the image, which is a total bullocks, since scanning gives an image in a certain color space and if you don't use that, it's a mess from the start and it can never be correct.
SO actually you have to make sure to scan into adobe rgb and work in that (it's the only color space his plug-in correctly handles, and he forgets to say this clearly) OR scan to any color space and CONVERT to adobe rgb (but not ASSIGN as he suggests - assigning a different color space breaks the image immediately).

So,with some precautions, the plugin might actually help handling C41 scans.