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Thread: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

  1. #1

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    Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    Hello,

    I have been digitizing my 8x10 negatives by taping them on a white piece of plexiglass that I have taped to my living room window and then photographing the negative with my digital SLR. The quality isn't great but it's good enough for web-sized versions I can send around to friends.

    This process works fine for black & white but I'm having trouble correcting for the orange mask for my color negatives. I don't have any scanning software, just Photoshop. The orange becomes blue when I invert and I try to dial it down but it keeps looking weird. Here's an example of my first attempt at doing this:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashobbs/3955521431/

    Are there any downloadable actions or Lightroom presets or free plug-ins that can automatically correct for this? Any suggestions for how I could better tweak this manually in Photoshop [it's not my strong suit].

    Thanks!
    Thomas

  2. #2
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    You could try taking a picture of a MacBeth color checker. Do what you normally do, bring into Photoshop, invert. Then bring up the curves dialogue. Use the black eyedropper on the black square, the gray eyedropper on the middle square, and the white dropper on the white square. Note, that it's best to completely shade the black square when you're taking the test picture. I made a little baffle out of poster board and black velvet that I put right around the square when I photograph the chart. If you don't do this, you might clip shadow detail in the scene.
    Last edited by Peter De Smidt; 26-Sep-2009 at 12:49.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
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  3. #3

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    Quote Originally Posted by thomashobbs View Post
    Hello,

    I have been digitizing my 8x10 negatives by taping them on a white piece of plexiglass that I have taped to my living room window and then photographing the negative with my digital SLR. The quality isn't great but it's good enough for web-sized versions I can send around to friends.

    This process works fine for black & white but I'm having trouble correcting for the orange mask for my color negatives. I don't have any scanning software, just Photoshop. The orange becomes blue when I invert and I try to dial it down but it keeps looking weird. Here's an example of my first attempt at doing this:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashobbs/3955521431/

    Are there any downloadable actions or Lightroom presets or free plug-ins that can automatically correct for this? Any suggestions for how I could better tweak this manually in Photoshop [it's not my strong suit].

    Thanks!
    Thomas
    the simplest is to apply the photo filter from image/adjustments/photo filter/ and apply a warming filter with tweak to get it how you want it.

  4. #4

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    Include a gray scale in the pic then use auto correct via clicking the darkest (black) patch with "shadow" selected, then the lightest (white) patch with "highlight" selected, then the middle (middle gray) patch with "midtones" selected. Tweak after that. Make sure your sample tool is set to a radius of 5 px to get a better average (grain affects this).

  5. #5

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    There is another simple way which gives better results and that is to use the hue/saturation image adjustments tool.

    Open the tool and the select blues and not master. Then adjust the saturation slider to remove the amount of blue. Also try this with cyan as often the shadows are full of cyan rather than blue.

  6. #6

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    Your "scan" actually looks great, IMO. You're 90% of the way there.

    The reason the bottom of the image has a blue tint—but the top doesn't—is that you photographed this on a fluorescent light table at 1/160, which is a no-no. Is Argentina 60hz or 50hz? If it's 60hz, you want to shoot at 1/30th; if it's 50hz, you want to shoot at 1/25th. That should take care of any mid-picture color shifts.

    Then just do whatever you did to process that image!

  7. #7

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    This shows the effect using the photoshop hue/saturation tool. I desaturated blue and most of the magenta too.

    Attachment 31588
    Last edited by percepts; 20-Jan-2010 at 20:21.

  8. #8

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    Ben thanks for the suggestion but actually my "light table" is my living room window and a piece of plexiglass

    Here's a picture of the set-up:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomash...7622088061682/

    Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'll try them out and post the result.

  9. #9

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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    Oh, okay "improvised light table" threw me off.

    If it's just an issue of removing the mask, you can probably do the whole thing in Levels. That's basically what I do in the scanning software.

  10. #10
    Joanna Carter's Avatar
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    Re: Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

    One way of geing rid of the mask is to add a curve layer and use the black pipette tool on the curve layer to select an area of the margin which has no image as the black, then select something in the image that you know to be pure white with the white pipette; finally, if you have something in the image that you know to be neutral gray, use the gray pipette to select that.

    It's not guaranteed to be perfect for the gray pipette but the black and white pipettes should give you a fair crack at manually adjusting the mid-range to match.
    Joanna Carter
    Grandes Images

    UKLFPG

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