I've been using my Epson V750 for colour neg scanning and it's surprisingly good. The colour is 90% there straight out of the Epson software, however the sharpness does seem vary from neg to neg.
I'm considering buying a Flextight but I'm just wondering what the colour is like from the scanner's software? Is it difficult to get good colour balance?
Scanners are (IT8) calibrated systems tending to deliver the same colours. Anyway the color interpretation may differ because the dyes filtering light on the pixels on the linear sensor, and because the particular illumination the scanner uses.Originally Posted by yelmarb
You always can make a device work mostly like another one by making a 3D LUT that converts from one to the other in PS, this can be made with 3D LUT Creator software for example.
Beyond that Flextight systems are top notch, I've never been aware that somebody was complaining about the color interpretation of those devices, scans I've seen from flextights are simply amazing. Also I agree that the V750 makes a surprisingly good color job, this is extraordinary given the price.
If "sharpness does seem vary from neg to neg" this can be because curled negatives, you first can try to address that by trying wet mounting or by simply purchasing the V850 film holders that have an ANR glass to ensure film flatness and also to adjust film height.
If you have the problem with roll film you can also solve it with a dedicated roll film scanner, like the Plustek 8000 series, or the Plustek 120 that also makes MF.
A Flextight will shine when you have extreme densities you want to recover, but for 4x5 film you won't obtain a substantially sharper scan than with a V750, because the flextight has a 8000 pix sensor that when scanning 4" wide it only takes 2000 samples per inch. Anyway the Flextight is Pro machine: the 2000 dpi scan is good. To obtain the same with the V750 you have to scan at 3200 and then you can reduce the image size.
You can get very accurate colour from a flextight, and you will discover that the Epson's sense of 'colour' is rather poor by comparison. Some of the pre-set modes in Flexcolor are sort of OK, but for best results you should scan as a transparency with no clipping & some neg rebate, possibly using a curve to open up the areas of density that will become highlights. In Photoshop you want to use ProphotoRGB colourspace, sample the base density, use that to fill a new layer set to divide - then flatten, & invert. Using a curves layer & clipping warnings, clip black and white points in each of RGB. Now you'll have something that is very close to accurate reproduction of colour within fine colour corrections (curve layer set to 'colour' blending) and a curve layer set to 'luminosity' blend mode for adjusting tonalities. These techniques apply across most high end CCD & drum scanners. No, the Flextight is not a drum, but it is very, very much better than an Epson, just remember to set the unsharp mask to -120!
There will be those who try to deny that the Epson has very severe shortcomings & make claims for its resolution in comparison to the Flextight that don't hold up in the real world. A halated, 2400 loaded with aberrations fades against a crisp, unaberrated 2040 when scanning 4x5. A drum scanner or some high end CCD scanners do have benefits over the Flextight - fluid mounting, all the resolution of the scanner available over the entire bed/ drum & (in the case of PMT drum scanners) potentially less noisy shadows & adjustable apertures to minimise dye cloud induced aliasing/ noise. That said, the Flextight is in many ways the easiest of higher end scanners to learn to operate, with excellent results possible after a few minutes of teaching.
Last edited by interneg; 16-Jun-2018 at 07:31.
The reality is that if you scan an IT8 target you get exactly the same scan in the X5 than in the Epson V750, and exactly the same is exactly the same. This is a fact that cannot be challenged.
In the case that one device does not deliver the reference values in the target this is because it needs a calibration or because there is a color modification (auto image enhancement) procedure that damages fidelity.
It is true that for each film it can be an slightly different color interpretation, depending on the particular film and scanner ilumination/on_sensor_dyes, but it's really easy making a 3D conversion LUT to obtain a perfect match.
I find that with colour negative film and the Flextight its a bit of a challenge , getting the right balance... As some noted turn off the sharpening,, as well I go through a bunch of the presets available to this scanner for different colour negative film, But it must be noted that different labs worldwide have different levels of quality control process.. So a fuji nc processed one place is not the same profile as a fuji nc processed elsewhere.. with that said the balance should be in somewhat the same ball park.
Once I have found the profile I want to use and the sharpening is set to off , I set 16bit RGB and the correct film format crop.
Then one can go into the R G B channels and bring the endpoints to the info area of the histogram, this usually brings the colour into a decent shape, then using the middle point I make minor mid tone corrections .
Also available is the curve to adjust density and contrast but frankly by this point it is minor corrections
Usually this works well and save the settings, then you can follow up with the rest of the negatives of this ilk.
I like to keep all the extreme adjustments for PS and am looking for an initial good colour balance, density and contrast , not the final look which could be a problem as PS software is much better than Flextight for the final look.
I agree, a very important thing is how the negative scan is processed. Beyond that each lab has a favourite color profile for each film, also they may have a profile for each Pro photographer, this is specially true in the case of wedding stellar photographers, and Fuji/Portra 160/400.
http://www.johnnypatience.com/jose-villa-colors/
http://www.rebeccalily.com/fuji-pastel-colors/
It's true you could use an it8 target AND a colormeter to reproduce a negative. But you would just.have another negative.
To reproduce the results that you would get from an ra-4 print (or for that matter software designed for this purpose) is a little more complex... A it8 target can be helpful just as Macbeth colorchecker is just as useful for this purpose. It8 targets are NOT designed for this purpose.
IMHO This isn't a simple topic with much proprietary knowledge.
Last edited by Ted Baker; 16-Jun-2018 at 17:15.
Main issue seems to be that Flexcolor tries to deal with the mask as if it's just a global colour correction rather than a sample & divide before inversion - and doing the latter to a positive scan of the neg makes it surprisingly easy to match enlarger RA4 prints made by some of the better known current printers in London, largely because it gets you to a point where the fine colour corrections are much more darkroom like. Just to annoy those blathering on elsewhere in this thread about IT8's etc, it's possible to match a colour checker (even from an Ektar neg - allowing for the saturation difference!) from a Flextight scan without too much trouble.
You can always scan as "raw" and use colorperfect to invert the negative. It provides the best results with the least amount of work with almost any scanner. The flextight software is powerful, but can be time consuming to get the right color... You really have to go in and set curves, endpoints and such for each image to get it right with flexcolor. Colorperfect alleviates a lot of that work!
It doesn't, not if you want to get everything that the film is capable of.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks