Cezanne5500 Calibration

[Peter De Smidt]

Howard,

I ran this program on a PC. Could that be the problem?

[Scott Rosenberg]

i ran it on a pc, too... i don't think it's mac compatable.

[hbjornson]

No wonder I am having problems!
Well then, any idea what profiler to use with macs?
Thanks

[Scott Rosenberg]

i entered 'mac icc profile software' into google and found lots of options.

probably a good place to start.

[jetcode]

Does anyone know if the Faust 35mm targets work equally with the 4x5 targets?

[Peter De Smidt]

Howard, for color negatives you might want to try http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html. I read about it in another thread here at the LF Forum. I haven't used it, but it does have a free trial.

[Bruce Watson]

I am having trouble calibrating my recently purchased cezanne5500 scanner. I am scanning color negs and the scans are to contrasty and oversaturated. I have tried to calibrate the scanner but I am not able to find the lab calibration files that the calibration calls for. Also, if i calibrate with a reflective calibration sheet will it calibrate for negs or do I have to buy a transparency calibration sheet, they seem to cost close to 200 dollar?
Thanks,
Howard

I'm a drum scanner owner/operator so my experience won't directly translate to your Cezanne. But I'll tell you what I've found over the years.

First, it doesn't make sense to try to create an ICC profile for negatives. There are some reasons for this. For starters, the orange contrast mask is different for every negative film. Second, negative film has considerably more density variation than tranny film, and considerable density variation channel-to-channel within any given frame. It is these density variations that make an ICC profile nearly meaningless for scanning negs.

The reason people create ICC profiles for tranny work is to take the scanner operator out of the equation. Because to use the ICC profile you have to use the exact settings that were used to make the ICC profile when you scan your tranny. Exactly the same. No variance at all. For example, you have to have the same black and white points. So your black and white points have to be set so that nothing gets clipped -- on any tranny you ever expect to scan. So you set this density range as wide as possible.

Clearly this won't work with scanning negs. The black and white points are different, even channel-to-channel in the same film. It would be ridiculous to scan a negative that has a density range of 1.0 using an ICC profile that requires the scanner to scan a density range of 3.6. More than wo thirds of the available digital levels would be empty. Your scan would be squashed into the lowest 1/3 of the available levels.

This is why nobody is supplying anything like an IT8 target making an ICC profile for negatives. To do this they would have to answer the question of what density range is appropriate, and this question does not have an answer.

To scan negatives well you have to work differently than you would in scanning trannies. You have to treat each frame as an individual, and make all the settings for each frame individually. Indeed, you have to treat each channel individually. It takes more time and requires more judgment and experience. And yes, when you get done you'll have to make some color corrections and overall contrast corrections too. It's the nature of the beast.

The reward for doing this extra work is the extra stops of subject brightness range that negative film can accommodate. Since I've been using negative films I've seldom seen a shadow drop to complete textureless black as sometimes happens with even well exposed trannies. The rare exception has been due to operator error (failure to compensate for reciprocity failure -- my bad). This, IMHO, makes scanning negatives well worth the extra effort.

[Bruce Watson]

I should also point out that it really helps if your scanner software is negative friendly. Some software is clearly better with negatives than others. I did lots of research before I choose to buy my Optronics ColorGetter drum scanners. I found that the ColorRight Pro 2.0 software does an excellent job with negatives, B&W and color. Does a bang up job with trannies too, but just about all scanner software makes working with trannies the first priority.

I'm just saying that some software is more negative friendly than others.

[Kirk Gittings]

Bruce, Do you remember which software is not negative friendly?

[Bruce Watson]

Bruce, Do you remember which software is not negative friendly?

Rumor has it (just heresay) that Heidelberg/Hell software, LinoColor and maybe NewColor, aren't very negative friendly, for one example. But I've never had the opportunity to drive one of the big Hells or even a Tango. This is just what I've picked up from operators and from discussions on various groups and forums.

Something else to note is that most software seems to have defaults set to values used in scanning trannies. Even my ColorRight software does this. Part of what you have to learn is which default values you can keep and which you have to change. All part of the learning curve -- I wouldn't really call this being hostile to negatives, but it doesn't help either.