scanning: transparency vs color neg?

[sanking]

And with Ektar 100 I can't even see any grain, just noise.

Can I assume it is a good thing to see only noise, no grain?

Sandy

[Greg_Thomas]

I should get over my laziness and start using my neg films. Color correction when scanning has been my biggest barrier to switching to negative film. I'll save a lot of money switching to negative film, that's for sure.

Ok, so I bought some Ektar in 120 to try out in my new old Fuji GA645i before I buy any in 4x5.

Attached are the sample lo-res scans from my lab and from my Epson V700 using Silverfast SE and the Ektar Negafix profile. Who knows what the lab is doing but their scans, even for E6, usually have yellow-green tint. My scans of Ektar are very blue.

Any ideas for getting better color on my own scans? Or should I just set up a color balance action in PS?

Thanks!

[mrladewig]

Any ideas for getting better color on my own scans?
Thanks!

Yeah, ditch the negafix and do the scan from scratch. I'm having no problem getting good color from my Ektar scans in EpsonScan.

[Robert Budding]

Ok, so I bought some Ektar in 120 to try out in my new old Fuji GA645i before I buy any in 4x5.

Attached are the sample lo-res scans from my lab and from my Epson V700 using Silverfast SE and the Ektar Negafix profile. Who knows what the lab is doing but their scans, even for E6, usually have yellow-green tint. My scans of Ektar are very blue.

Any ideas for getting better color on my own scans? Or should I just set up a color balance action in PS?

Thanks!

I've been happy with the ColorPerfect Photoshop plug-in. I scan everything as a linear positive and use the plug-in to invert and color correct.

There's some good information on this German site and a group that I started on Flickr:

http://www.colorneg.de/sitemap.html
http://www.flickr.com/groups/977912@N23/

And you can download a demo version of the plug-in here ($67 for the license if you decide to buy it):

http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

[onnect17]

Can I assume it is a good thing to see only noise, no grain?

Sandy

Noise is never good but I would not trade it for a less sharper image.
You should be able to see some grain using film scanners at 4000dpi with velvia 50 and e100g.
With Ektar 100 grain is practically invisible at this resolution resulting in a more accurate scan.

[Greg_Thomas]

I've been happy with the ColorPerfect Photoshop plug-in. I scan everything as a linear positive and use the plug-in to invert and color correct.

There's some good information on this German site and a group that I started on Flickr:

http://www.colorneg.de/sitemap.html
http://www.flickr.com/groups/977912@N23/

And you can download a demo version of the plug-in here ($67 for the license if you decide to buy it):

http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

Man, I did a quick test this morning with the defaults for Ektar and all the clouds were blown out and there was a heavy magenta cast to the final image. This is with Silverfast 48 bit HDR scanned as a positive, Ektar, and the Epson V700. I'll have to read through the docs, I can see that this a very powerful tool.

[tbeaman]

Colorperfect is one of the least intuitive programs I've ever had the pleasure of using, but it has been a pleasure. It's not all that widely used, though, so information is kind of sparse.

To get started, take a look at our own LFF member BennehBoy's excellent practical guide to using it:

http://benneh.net/blog/index.php/201...rfect-a-guide/

He uses Vuescan, so also take a look at this article which specifically details how to get linear scans with Silverfast:

http://www.colorneg.com/sf_ai.html?lang=en

From there, there are other articles on that last site worth reading too, if you want to delve more into it.

[Robert Budding]

Man, I did a quick test this morning with the defaults for Ektar and all the clouds were blown out and there was a heavy magenta cast to the final image. This is with Silverfast 48 bit HDR scanned as a positive, Ektar, and the Epson V700. I'll have to read through the docs, I can see that this a very powerful tool.

Defaults rarely work well when inverting and color correcting negatives! Play around with it a bit, and post questions to the Flickr forum. It's a small group, but there are some knowledgeable folks there. And good luck!

[Greg_Thomas]

Defaults rarely work well when inverting and color correcting negatives! Play around with it a bit, and post questions to the Flickr forum. It's a small group, but there are some knowledgeable folks there. And good luck!

Yep, understood. I'll play around and post to the flickr forum next.

[gnuyork]

To the original poster, the portrait examples on that website all look like color negative to my eye.



And Bruce's articles on scanning color neg convinced me to roll up my sleeves and try it too. Now I can use both tools. I shoot slide films when dynamic range is really well controlled or I want tonal contrast to dominate an image, and I shoot color negative when I want color contrast to be more important than luminosity contrasts.

I recently printed this shot on Portra 160VC at 30"X40" for a customer and the detail is every bit as good as the 30X40 from E100VS sitting right next to it on the wall, both from 4X5. Grain and sharpness are really much better on modern Pro color negative films. I shot this on both color neg and E100G and the color neg allowed me to have much richer yellows in the upper areas.

What is your method for scanning to make these large prints?