imacon flextight precision ii scanning fuji fp-100c negative reclamation

[Alin Dragulin]

crap, turns out CS6 with camera raw 7.1 doesn't support .fff files. Any work arounds you can think of?

[andy]

Sorry for dropping off the thread for a bit--I thought I had some .fff files here at work, but I don't. I used to work in a lab with a precision II, an 848, and an x1, and the only real world differences I saw were speed.

The logic of the .fff file is that it's a "raw scan" or maybe a better way to put it is that it gives you the maximum amount of information and you can always go back to it. It's also super useful if you're renting time on an imacon, because you can just scan and then pull your .tiffs at a later date, since flexcolor is free.

Going from memory, you make the scan, and you get a rather lousy looking image--scanning color negative film it's often super super cyan. The way to fix this is using the output histogram--it has those sliders you can pull for the RGB channels--but you have to make sure it's the output, otherwise you're still working in the dark (I'll find it and post screengrabs later). This should make a noticeable difference--you should be able to save a .tiff from flexcolor that looks much better--it'll be flat, which is ok.

I apologize for being scattershot and cryptic--it's been over a year since I've used an imacon (a fact that makes me a little sad).

I couldn't find my copy of the workflow, but I'm emailing a couple of friends to see what I can get.

[andy]

also, I've found the film stock settings, the auto color, and the brightness and contrast functions to be completely useless--sort of like using a brightness and contrast layer in photoshop--it's better and more powerful to use curves.

[koh303]

crap, turns out CS6 with camera raw 7.1 doesn't support .fff files. Any work arounds you can think of?

Why not process the 3f in FC???

All you need is a workable scan to export to tiff. then open in PS. 3F files are useless as a module in PS, as the controls offered in FC are much more precise (for 3f processing ONLY) then anywhere else.

[andy]

I second koh303!

[koh303]

Sorry for dropping off the thread for a bit--I thought I had some .fff files here at work, but I don't. I used to work in a lab with a precision II, an 848, and an x1, and the only real world differences I saw were speed.

The logic of the .fff file is that it's a "raw scan" or maybe a better way to put it is that it gives you the maximum amount of information and you can always go back to it. It's also super useful if you're renting time on an imacon, because you can just scan and then pull your .tiffs at a later date, since flexcolor is free.

Going from memory, you make the scan, and you get a rather lousy looking image--scanning color negative film it's often super super cyan. The way to fix this is using the output histogram--it has those sliders you can pull for the RGB channels--but you have to make sure it's the output, otherwise you're still working in the dark (I'll find it and post screengrabs later). This should make a noticeable difference--you should be able to save a .tiff from flexcolor that looks much better--it'll be flat, which is ok.

I apologize for being scattershot and cryptic--it's been over a year since I've used an imacon (a fact that makes me a little sad).

I couldn't find my copy of the workflow, but I'm emailing a couple of friends to see what I can get.

All you need to do is:
preview
seect 85% inside the image area
click the auto adjust botton in the middle of the left side bar (just next to the resolution boxes).

Then you get a near perfect image, which you can export for fine tuning in PS.

I think hasselblad has Eric Peterson demoing this in some video they recently uploaded to their youtube channel.

[Alin Dragulin]

Thanks Andy, I, and we really appreciate your time and knowledge your putting forth!

[andy]

ok, loaded up some files and it all came back.

open the histogram, and click the drop down arrow so that you have all three channels.



Make sure to click the little histogram box at the top right so that it shows the output histogram.

Now, the idea is that we want to pull a .tiff with a relatively neutral color scheme and more importantly, without clipping in the highlights or shadows.
The way I was taught to achieve this, was to start moving the sliders to try to match the histograms of each color channel--be aware that as you move one, say red, the others will move, so it takes some back and forth adjusting.




another strategy is to drag a box around a highlight or a shadow, and balance just the highlight, and then just the shadow--the changes will be universal.
In theory, if you had a grey card in the scene, you could balance to it, and the rest of the scene should fall into place.



Looking back, make sure that when you're balancing color the marquee box is inside the frame edges--the white outside will throw off your color (I'm showing poor form in the first two images)

so, now I've balanced using my highlight, and I reselected the entire image with the marquee--my histograms are all full, and I'll move the sliders around just a little to make sure I'm not clipping and that the color looks good, and I'm ready to save as .tiff.



I hope this helps!


another perk of the .fff is that you can pull multiple tiffs and use the noise control within flexcolor to reduce shadow grain and then composite that section in in photoshop--it's really handy and quite powerful.

[Alin Dragulin]

wow, thanks andy for the very thorough workflow screen grabs. They will help a lot! All the best.