Minolta Colormeter and 4x5" Scans

[c.kline]

Not sure this is the proper forum, but I'll give it a go. Please feel free to move it or redirect me if I'm way off.

I've primarily shot black and white 4x5" up until now and medium format for color work. The scans my lab provides have always suited me in terms of color reproduction. As I'm starting to shoot color 4x5" I no longer have the ability to have it scanned by the lab and am having to do it myself with unsatisfactory results. I've used Vuescan, Silverfast, ColorNeg, you name it, but I can never get close to the lab scan.

My question is, would using a color meter like the Minolta IIIf aid me in anyway when it comes to the scan. In my head I am thinking if I knew the color temperature I could record it and use it on the "raw" scan made by Vuescan. I may be totally off, but I'm looking for anything at this point.

Thanks is advance.

[Preston]

I can't answer your question regarding using a colormeter, but I have a question or two for you so that perhaps we can track down the problem...

1. Are you scanning color negative or chrome, or both?
2. If you're scanning chrome film, did you use an IT8 target and it's associated Q60 file to create a profile for your scanner?
3. Can you post an uncorrected scan for us to see?
4. Is your scanner working properly?

If you're scanning color negatives, I've found that the Nega-fix plugin for Silverfast is perfunctory, at best. I get better results with these films with VueScan. In either case, you will need to experiment with the different built-in profiles to see which ones really work the best. If you're using VueScan, set the color balance in the Color tab to manual. You will need to adjust the color balance, brightness and (possibly) the black and white points to get the best scan. Scanning is its own art form, and it will take time for you get the best scans, so be patient.

--P

[Sevo]

The degree of correction (apart from the basic daylight/incandescent/fluorescent filtration) you'll usually apply via filters after a Colormeter check of the illumination can usually be done just as well in the scan/postprocessing. A Colormeter can help you to get your transparencies perfect right in the original. But that is all it can do - and you only need that if you either intend to project the results (or demonstrate them to clients on a lightbox), or want to hand them off to some third party for enlarging/postprocessing without having to communicate with them about the proper interpretation and required corrections. As colour negatives always need interpretation, a Colormeter is (almost) entirely useless there...

[Drew Wiley]

I 1000% disagree with Sevo. One of the most frequent reasons folks have correcting color
negs in post-processing is that they weren't properly exposed per color temp in the first
place. When this happens in chrome film, you can instantly see the effect on a lightbox and decide whether it's acceptable or not. Chrome film also has the three dye curves sharply define, like spikes - color neg film, by comparison, does not. This means if one dye
layer is insufficiently exposed compared to the others, there will be cross-contamination
of a nature which is very difficult to correct by any means, including PS. You don't have to
own a color temp meter to do these corrections, which often involved simple light balancing filters, but such a meter does facilitiate the learning curve as when to apply them.

[Brian Ellis]

Please don't take this the wrong way but how well do you know Vuescan, Silverfast, etc.? I've used both extensively. Both of them have so many controls and so much flexibility that it's hard for me to imagine you can't get a good scan out of them if you know them well. I didn't do a lot color scanning but I did some, both slide film and negative. Even doing relatively little color work I had no trouble getting good scans from Silverfast (I'm not sure I used Vuescan for color) but I did spend a lot of time land effort learning how to use it including buying and studying the Silverfast Manual (maybe no longer published) and listening to that German guy drone on in Silverfast's very useful but sleep-inducing on-line tutorials.

[c.kline]

Thank you all for your responses. They are immensely helpful and I appreciate it greatly.

I've been primarily using Vuescan for both black and white as well as color negative scanning. As I mentioned I rarely scan my own color work so my knowledge of color scans in Vuescan is fairly limited. With that said, I do go through the routine of locking the film base color, etc. . . before doing the color scan and had been saving them as .DNG before doing post processing work in ACR and Photoshop.

The new Portra 400 is my main film stock and I've always been really happy with the way it looks scanned but like I said, mine took a ton of work and one of them I never could quite get "there". Sounds like it will just require some time, patience, and steady learning. Thank you all!

[Larry Gebhardt]

If the color balance is off more than just a little bit I think it makes sense to correct color negative film before the shot. Using the color meter for that is certainly the right way to do that. However I never seem to remember to bring mine for some reason. But I do add a warming filter if I'm shooting in the shade based on a guess. Getting all the layers exposed equally makes for much easier digital correction.

If you are not going to correct with filters, over expose a stop or so. Then you will at least have exposure in all the channels. You may need individual curves for each RGB channel, but you should be able to get the image neutral across all the tones. But it's better to get it right in camera.

[Drew Wiley]

I never travel with a color meter unless its for a mixed lighting indoor situation. Outdoors
I've learned from simple testing when certain filters are needed. Basic overcast, an 81A,
deep shade under an open blue sky, an 81C, mild blue shade issues, a pinkish skylight.
One can pretty much evaluate the effect by viewing the scene through the filter itself.
But the important point is, the film cannot adjust itself to the range of your own eye and
own visual physchology to reinterpret things. You need to get all three layers on the map;
after that you can the tweak minor issues.

[Leigh]

One point to consider regarding most color temperature meters:

Color Temperature (CT) by definition compares red and blue. It knows absolutely nothing about green.

You could set up a studio scene with red and blue gels and take a CT reading.
Turn on a bright green light and take another reading. The CTs would be the same.

Modern meters solve this problem by including a separate green channel, with a separate readout
usually labeled Magenta or Green/Magenta.

- Leigh

[Drew Wiley]

The Minolta meters expressly read M versus G in the CC mode, Y versus B in the LB mode,
plus a Kelvin reading. Some of the cheaper meters do not.