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Thread: Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

  1. #11
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    Julian,
    What is the real advantage? I can (and do every week as an architectural photographer) shoot both Fuji negatives and chromes back to back of the same view. With Silverfast I can easily scan both to an almost exact match to either the chrome or the negative. What would I gain?
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  2. #12

    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    Kirk,

    Do you mind sharing your workflow for scanning Fuji negatives using Silverfast?

    Thanks,
    Eric

  3. #13
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    It would help me if I knew which version of SF you own and what format you use.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  4. #14

    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    Silverfast Ai, Epson 4870, 4x5, Fuji NPS. I also shoot Fuji Astia and get very good results (within the limitations of the 4870) scanning this combination (I use the Silverfast calibration option). With negatives, I can get useable results, but always have to do a healthy amount of colour correction. I'd love it if I could get my scans of negatives to match my scans of chromes (I often shoot both) in a consistent way. With the c-f systems plug-in I'm able to get much closer to this. But it sounds like I may be missing something in Silverfast.

    Thanks,
    Eric

  5. #15

    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    A little follow up to my previous post. Re-calibrating my MT 1800f in Silverfast and a transparency target solved the posterization problem in the broad higher values.

    I have noticed, that when I try to capture too much shadow detail the blue channel gets overexposed easily and "piles" up to the extreme right side on the histogram making color corrections difficult to impossible in severe cases. Nothing knew there :-). Unlike Julian, I have not yet tried C-F Systems NegPos but I have followed their methodology, as posted, to good results.

    Kirk...Cool show and I enjoyed your work on your website. I, too, would be interested in your scanning technique.

    Good thread, hope it proves to be helpfull to all.

    Regards, Richard

  6. #16
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    Negs always require a touch more correcting than chromes because scanners are fundamentally designed for chromes. I wish we could do IT8 profiles for negs. But it is not all that much difference. Because I shoot architecture there is almost always something grey or silver to key off of with the mid point eye dropper which helps. I scan about 50 negs a week for commercial clients so what ever we do it has to be a relatively quick fix. For my personal work I prefer negs now too. You probably know this but I will say it anyway in case you don't.

    The two things that alot of people miss is that NPS is really an asa 100 film, which is where I shoot it. If you shoot it at 160 you are starting out with an underexposed neg. to scan. But the profile is set for 160. So you have to adjust the exposure every time for about 2/3 stop, which for some reason works best in the negafix window than in the levels I think because it doesn't clip the end points.

    The second common error is that the scan frame absolutely has to be within the image area unlike chromes. The slightest bit of clear film edge will skew all the settings so bad you can never get them back to normal.

    The one color that I think scans off color consistently with negs (but I had this complaint about C prints too) is sky blue which is always too magenta. This is an easy fix in SF Studio with the selective color picker tool.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  7. #17

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    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    Kirk, negpos isn't a colour correction tool. All it does is give you infinite control over the conversion from positive to neg - you still need to colour correct afterwards. it allows you to calibrate the conversion so that the gammas of all 3 chnls are converted accurately. a visual check of this is if imn PS all 3 chnls are exactly under each other (assuming a neg without huge casts), endpoints and peaks etc. most people accept that the best way (fatter histos, better tonal range) to scan negs is a 'raw' scan (imacon 3f, veuscan 'image', silverfast HDR) then convert. This is for a whole number of reasons, but simply the scanner app doesn't map the data from 0-255 but just gives you everything on the neg before conversion. In silverfast, negfix is just a bunch of canned numbers to convert the neg type. BUT I've never had from silverfast after conversion all 3 chnls in step - all the peaks/troughs coinciding. This is what negpos does. It allows you to calibrate for each neg type/exposure and lab, for YOUR scanner. Having used this for a while I can now detect small differences between the 3 labs I use and I've a setting for each of them.
    Another advantage is it allows you to compress those long hilight tails you sometimes get so fatten up the rest of the tonal range - if you choose, no more long thin tails and bunched/compressed midtones.
    Reading you last posty, a lot of what you normal correct for is a result of bad conversion. Give it a try, it may not be for you, but it gives you total control.

  8. #18

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    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    > I wish we could do IT8 profiles for negs.

    If you need very accurate color, you can shoot a Gretag color checker chart on one of the negatives and use Picture Window Pro to color balance the negative or slide. It has an electronic overlay that you adjust to fit the chart, then it analyzes the scanned chart and applies whatever correction is necessary to make the chart exactly right. You then apply this to the rest of the shots. It is much more accurate than a grey card. Picture Window has terrific color balance tools, including giving you the ability to scan a negative as an image and control the color conversion in the software. I do not shoot much film color (just digital), but it has worked well with some difficult shots with mixed lighting.

  9. #19
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Scanning New Fuji Color Negs

    Julian, That is starting to make some sense, I will give it a try though much of it simply has to do with crossover in neg film which is why we had many of the same problems just doing C prints from color negs.

    Ed, I won't go into why too much, but in a typical shooting day we would have to do that a dozen times which would slow us down way too much. If we were shooting in a studio or one time of day it might make some sense. But in a typical day we shoot exteriors from sunrise till after sunset with strobe fill interiors, halogen lit interiors, mixed light situations etc. etc. I really just need the ability to profile the film and the scanner, which would help immensely just as it does with chromes.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

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