Help with colour calibration of negative scans

[JonathanPerkins]

I'm struggling a bit with my scans of Fuji Pro160s and wondered if anyone could offer some advice!

I've been happily scanning Provia and Velvia using a V700 and Vuescan on a MacBook. I've calibrated the scanner using one of Wolf Faust's IT8 targets.

Now I'm trying to scan Pro160s, and haven't seen any targets available (I'm not worried about being exactly colour correct as I'm likely to make corrections during post processing anyway), but I'd like to be able to get into the right ballpark. The Vuescan built-in Pro160s "calibration" seems to be miles off (is it for an earlier version of the film?).

Whats the best way to get approximately right at the scanning stage? My photos are mostly landscape.

Thanks,

Jonathan

[Joanna Carter]

I've been happily scanning Provia and Velvia using a V700 and Vuescan on a MacBook. I've calibrated the scanner using one of Wolf Faust's IT8 targets.
I take it you use a different target for Provia than for Velvia; at least, from my experience, there is a marked difference between the two.


The Vuescan built-in Pro160s "calibration" seems to be miles off (is it for an earlier version of the film?).
Are you scanning with the profile or assigning the profile in Photoshop after scanning with no profile?

[Ted Harris]

IMO VueScan just isn't flexible enough for the sort of fine tuning you want. I think you will find that Silverfast Ai is your best option. As for targets, just choosing a Fuji v. Kodak target for our calibration should be sufficient and further adjustment takes place using your film choice settings.

[JonathanPerkins]

Are you scanning with the profile or assigning the profile in Photoshop after scanning with no profile?

Joanna, I'm currently scanning with the build-in profiles in Vuescan for negatives, letting it assign them and convert to ProPhoto on export. I'm not too worried about getting it absolutely spot on as with landscape shots I often want to make minor changes to colour balance during post processing, but I'd like to get a good starting point at the scanning stage. Its just the built-in one seems a long way off my 160s negs.


IMO VueScan just isn't flexible enough for the sort of fine tuning you want. I think you will find that Silverfast Ai is your best option.

I think you might be right Ted, I've downloaded the trial version and will give it go. I'm also not overly impressed with Vuescan on my Acros negatives either (seem to get blocked shadows quite easily), but it has been satisfactory scanning transparencies.

[Joanna Carter]

Joanna, I'm currently scanning with the build-in profiles in Vuescan for negatives, letting it assign them and convert to ProPhoto on export.
Would it be possible to scan without a profile and then assign it in Photoshop? I don't use neg film or Vuescan myself but this is what I would expect to do for trannies. My thinking is that you could try out a choice of profiles without having to rescan every time.


I'm also not overly impressed with Vuescan on my Acros negatives either (seem to get blocked shadows quite easily)
I get excellent results just using the Epson driver for my V700. I even got detail out of an Acros neg that was underexposed by 4 stops!!

[Tyler Boley]

there is no color managed approach to scanning color negs, and no profiles to use for them.
There are presets for some films included with some software, and some automatic ways to move the orange base to black properly, but basically it's all done by eye, and a working space assigned.
Tyler

[Kirk Gittings]

there is no color managed approach to scanning color negs, and no profiles to use for them.
There are presets for some films included with some software, and some automatic ways to move the orange base to black properly, but basically it's all done by eye, and a working space assigned.
Tyler


In addition the individual profiles for color negatives in SF are generally pretty good, but can be tweaked and saved to suit your needs. For instance I find the Pro160s profile to be too magenta in the blue skies. In the expert dialog box of NegaFix in AI Studio I can adjust the blues and save it as a new profile.

[JonathanPerkins]

For instance I find the Pro160s profile to be too magenta in the blue skies. In the expert dialog box of NegaFix in AI Studio I can adjust the blues and save it as a new profile.

Kirk thats exactly what I'm looking for, thanks!

Jonathan

[Tyler Boley]

But technically those negafix settings are not what we generally refer to as profiles, they are presets, editing the color for a specific film that Lasersoft came up with. Not a profile in the sense of an icc profile, like those we make for our scanners for scanning color transparencies. Once these negative presets are used, color space profiles are assigned, not converted to..
Sorry to nit pick this, I constantly have confusing interchanges with people because we are not referring to the same thing when we talk about profiles...
Tyler

[Ted Harris]

Tyler, they are exactly what we call profiles when working with high end scanning software. Silverfast, in many ways, mimics high end software more than it does the software from Microtek or Epson.

[Henry Ambrose]

There aren't any "real" color profiles for color negative film.

A particular software might refer to some setting it possesses as a "profile" but that does not mean its an ICC Profile (a real profile).

The Silverfast settings for color negative do work well, but they're still not icc color profiles.

[Tyler Boley]

Ted, perhaps we have a rhetorical disconnect here, and I don't want to belabor the point, but the presets for negative film in scanner software bear no resemblance in use, or creation, to icc profiles. Silverfast, high end scanner software, or otherwise. Scanner icc input profiles created and made for positive reflective or transparency use, and a color managed workflow, are very different animals, honest.
I don't mean to suggest neg presets they are any less useful for their intended purpose..
As a color management guy, this stuff drives me a bit nuts... sorry.
Tyler

[JonathanPerkins]

Just a quick update - tried the demo version of Silverfast Ai last night, it does what I want. The attached image is not a direct comparison between Silverfast (top) and Vuescan, but its good enough to see a significant improvement which I'm sure can only get better once I've learned how to drive Silverfast :)

Thanks,

Jonathan

[pherold]

Tyler,
Thank-you for your comments. People reading this thread would have gotten the wrong impression about the Silverfast profiles without your input.
-Patrick Herold

[Ted Harris]

Tyler not disagreeing at all .... not when you add icc in front of the word profile :).

[Tim Lookingbill]

So when you use the negative tweaked settings and call that a profile what profile gets assigned or embedded after the scan? Are these tweaked settings applied on top of a canned Silverfast profile?

I thought scanning the neg as positive and using a custom profile for positive filem was the way to go. Then you assign the profile in Photoshop, neutralize the mask and invert or vice versa.

[Bruce Watson]

So when you use the negative tweaked settings and call that a profile ...

Stop right there. In a color managed workflow the word "profile" means ICC profile. Any other use of the term will only lead to confusion as we've already seen in this pretty short thread. So please don't call "negative tweaked settings" a profile:

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that. -- Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3 scene 4.

Sorry, can't help it, it's one of my favorite plays.

[BennehBoy]

VueScan has the ability to sample the base colour of each roll of film you scan, it's a little slower than selecting a preconfigured 'film profile', but it gives quite accurate results.

I recently wrote a blog article about this here -> http://benneh.net/blog/index.php/2008/04/21/better-colour-neg-scanning-with-vuescan/

Hopefully it might be useful.