Correcting Orange Mask Manually in Photoshop

[bsimison]

I do this in Levels, editing each color channel individually. Basically, you want the blacks, highlights, and midtones sliders to occur in approximately the same spot on the histograms for Red, Green, and Blue. There's also a plug-in named "ColorNeg" which does a fine job.

[thomashobbs]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Adding a Curves adjustment layer proved to be very helpful, placing the black pipette on the negative border and the white pipette on something white. Fortunately I photographed all the negatives in their sleeves on which I'd written their number with a black sharpie [so there's my inverted white]. Finding the neutral gray is the challenge. Somebody should sell 18% gray t-shirts or accessories

Here's a couple where I think the results turned about better, altho the color still seems a little funky:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashobbs/3959946655/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashobbs/3960717252/

I've downloaded the ColorNeg plug-in. I will try it and see if I can improve my results even more.

cheers!
Thomas

[domaz]

VueScan can scan from files and could remove the Negative Mask as well.

[mcfactor]

They do. B&H sells small 18% gray mircrofiber clothes.

[Mike1234]

The first image has slightly more blue in the "upper shadow" detail and the second one has slightly more cyan-green.

For the first one start by adding a control point to the middle and another half way between the middle and highest point and one more between the middle and lowest point. Then use that last control point (call this "upper shadow") you just made to decrease the blues in the shadows. You'll probably have to add the same control points to the RGB curve and raise shadow brightness just a hair. You may need to tweak positions of the three center control points because they all affect each other.

Add the same control points to the second image except on the green and red curves. Decrease the "upper shadow" brightness in the geen curve a bit and raise it in the red curve but only just a hair.

Tweak to your heart's content.

[bagdad child]

Here's a tutorial:

http://www.neilsnape.com/color/scan_neg_film/index.html

Its for linoscan but the idea is the same. Scroll to page 4 to see how to do this in photoshop. I am scanning on a Cezanne and if the neg gives me trouble, normally by clipping shadow detail I scan as a positive and invert in photoshop. Then I apply auto levels (or manual levels) which improves things a lot. After that open curves and correct the colors separately to remove the cyan cast.