Digital workflow, this is the part I hate dealing with.

[BenJT]

So I sold my digital gear and bought a medium format system (4x5 down the road) thinking I could escape the digital workflow. One of my goals was to build a darkroom but that's not happening for a while, and I want to shoot some color as well, so I bought a v700.

Its been good so far with black and white, but now I am faced with the task of scanning portra and ektar. When I went into this I figured it wouldn't be a big deal scanning color neg film, but after reading a bit on the web people are talking about it8 color targets and reference transparencies and my brains about to explode. You guys have to be the masters when it comes to this stuff, point me in the right direction. Where can I buy a cheap it8 target? Can this be done with epson scan or am I going to have to spend more money on software?

I understand that I should leave all auto features disabled. With black and white the only thing I was doing was adjusting levels in the histogram window and then bringing it into photoshop to resize and sharpen if needed, or adjust a curves layer. So what other steps do I need to take to get good results from color neg film? I have already dialed in the right height so that's taken care of.

I was really hoping I could just scan a damn negative, adjust a curves layer, and be done with it, guess scanning isn't that simple :mad:

[Zaitz]

I'd say forget the target. From what I've read it won't work too well for color negatives because the base color can change slightly depending on the scene/exposure and thus your target would need to be photographed every time as well. Honestly, by FAR the best method I have tried is using colorperfect / colorneg. The colors are so much better consistently than any curves method I have used. I can sometimes work it through with curves but the second I do a colorperfect version it is substantially better. Purer more vibrant colors and much better tonality and all in just a few seconds. I was adamant I wasn't going to buy it but finally broke down. Way better than finicky curves adjustments for me. Epson Scan 'raw' positive and let colorneg do the rest.

[BenJT]

Awesome I will look into that. Thanks.

[oysteroid]

I second the ColorPerfect recommendation. Just scan the negative as positive with no adjustments, making sure it isn't clipping anything. Scour the settings to make sure you are getting a 16 bit TIF as close to a raw, linear scan as possible, with no adjustments. See this:

http://www.colorneg.com/scanning_slides_and_negatives/creating_linear_scans/

Then use ColorPerfect in Photoshop to invert and color correct it. The interface in that plug-in is horrible, but there is magic in the math. It is the only way for negatives, in my opinion. I do also use a profile that I made with an it8 target and the Monaco software that comes with the V750, but I don't really know how much difference it makes. I will have to try it with and without and see. Best of all with ColorPerfect, you don't seem to have to do much fiddling. The inversion it does is just right on most of the time. I have come to understand that the way the inversion is handled in EpsonScan, SilverFast, and Vuescan, as well as with Photoshop's invert, levels, and curves method, isn't quite right somehow. The ColorPerfect developer says that they use the wrong math, subtracting when they should be dividing or something like that. I think there is something to this. The difference is dramatic. You use ColorPerfect and suddenly the color and tones look like you always thought they were supposed to look and struggled with the settings in futility to try to get in the scanning software. Definitely better. Yes, the little plug-in seems a little overpriced for nothing but a bit of different math for an inversion, but I don't know of any other way to get your negative scans to look right.

And for some reason, Ektar 100 REALLY looks horrible, with a weirdly limited color palette (seemingly too much emphasis on cyan and some kind of rusty red), when handled with anything other than ColorPerfect.

Just give the trial version a shot. You'll see what we are talking about.

And no, I have nothing to gain from recommending it. And I don't know the developers.

[BenJT]

Is the software from this page the same thing http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

[Zaitz]

Yes I believe so. I bought it from that link you posted.

The other method that sometimes works well which I'm sure you've read about is scanning a 'raw' positive of the negative. Invert it in photoshop. Create a curves layer. Go to each individual color channel in curves. Take the black slider in curves and hold down the alt key and slide it until a little bit of the black appears. Take the white slider and slide it left until a bit of the red appears. Do the same for each color channel. You'll have to fiddle this way and that to find the sweet spot...which sometimes is difficult and sometimes easy.

[oysteroid]

Zaitz,

Do you actually get good results doing it that way in Photoshop? Can you replicate the color and tone you get from ColorPerfect like that? I can't, no matter how much I fiddle and try to get things just right. Maybe I am doing something wrong though. And it isn't just the color. I seem to get more dynamic range with ColorPerfect.

By the way, there is a little ColorPerfect, SilverFast comparison that I posted in this thread:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?99309-Negative-film-exposure-or-scanning/page2

BenTotman,

If you were trying to get away from the digital workflow by using scanned film, I believe you made a mistake. The digital workflow is simpler if your images are digital to begin with. It is simple and direct. Scanning is a pain and takes a very long time for high resolution scans of 4x5. And that is only the beginning. Wait til you start cloning the dust and scratches out. I am OCD about making sure not to get dust on my film, film holders, and whatnot, carefully vacuuming the changing bag and holders before loading film, and storing the film holders in new freezer bags and returning them to the same bags immediately after exposure. And then before scanning, I blow the film off with a rocket blaster like crazy, clean the scanner glass, and still, my images are covered with hundreds if not THOUSANDS of specks, scratches, and so on. I hesitate to even think about processing an image to get it ready for printing. Yuck! But we suffer for quality, right? You'll spend more time in Photoshop than ever before on each image when using film.

And I must ask what advantage over digital you expect from a medium format film rig and a V700? 4x5 or 8x10, I can understand. But with medium format, you'll get far less resolution than you expect, as the real resolution of the Epson scanners is far, far lower than the ridiculous claims of the manufacturer. At best, you'll get 1800 to 2400ppi tops, and that latter number is a stretch. 60mm is 2.3622 inches. Multiply that by 2000 and you get 4724 pixels along that dimension. And you'll have to crop that a bit. And even then the scan will be quite soft and will require an excessive amount of sharpening to make it reasonably sharp, and then the grain will be exaggerated a great deal. DSLRs these days beat that. Hell, a Nikon D5200, a cheap camera, yields a 6000x4000 pixel image and has tons of dynamic range and excellent low-light capability. And even though you have bayer interpolation and an AA filter, you are closer to pixel level image information than a film scan on a flatbed will give you. That 2000ppi film scan is really effectively like having 1500ppi of real image information, and even at that, it isn't anywhere near as crispy as Foveon images.

This is a crop of a sharpened scan of Velvia 50 on a V750, with film holder at optimal height, at 2000ppi, shown at 100%, with the sharpest piece of film I have, shot with a Schneider 210mm Apo-Symmar under optimal conditions:

88085

That's the best you can expect from that scanner. Use faster film like Portra 400 and you will get much less resolution than that, as your scan will be describing the grain extensively even at 2000ppi:

88086

Further, color film is probably just about to become unavailable.

I don't mean to be a downer or an ass. I just hope to give you the truth right now so that you might have the option to send you scanner back since it sounds like it is probably recently purchased.

[oysteroid]

On top of that, which I should have mentioned, you get uncorrectible chromatic aberrations with the Epson scanners. The information in the different color channels doesn't quite match up exactly. They are out of registration. And it isn't as simple as shifting them a pixel or two or using CA correction tools in Photoshop, as the effect is somewhat inconsistent across the image and from image to image. It is maddening!

Even further, there is vibration in the scanner that diminishes effective resolution. The lens, the CCD strip, or something, vibrates back and forth as it scans. You can see it if you scan at 4800ppi and sharpen with a small radius. I reduced it a little by putting the scanner on the floor rather than a wobbly desk, but I couldn't eliminate it entirely, even bracing it between heavy objects. Here is a sample of what I am talking about:
88087

I sharpened a bunch and increased contrast so that you can see it better. If you study it, it is actually a kind of zigzag pattern. And the frequency isn't exactly in sync with the pixel rows. And the amplitude of this displacement is higher if the scanner is on an unstable support. If you tap the scanner while it scans, you'll see that it increases this effect right there. So I suspect that things inside aren't as solid as they should be. The motor is vibrating things or something of the sort. Some of these scanners are worse about this than others, as I have gathered from looking at the images from scanner reviews. I suspect that this is one reason you can't get near the supposed optical resolution of the scanner.

And yes, the scan adds a considerable amount of noise of its own that wasn't on the film. So you'll have to oversample by scanning at 4800ppi and then downsampling to 2000 or so.

[Zaitz]

Zaitz,

Do you actually get good results doing it that way in Photoshop? Can you replicate the color and tone you get from ColorPerfect like that? I can't, no matter how much I fiddle and try to get things just right. Maybe I am doing something wrong though. And it isn't just the color. I seem to get more dynamic range with ColorPerfect.

By the way, there is a little ColorPerfect, SilverFast comparison that I posted in this thread:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?99309-Negative-film-exposure-or-scanning/page2


If I really work at it I can sometimes get similar results. But it takes a lot of back and forth with the adjustments and it's often times hard to see the casts and identify them correctly. If I fiddle with it long enough it will be close and auto color will mostly take care of the rest (usually). It also seem to depend on the negative, some are better than others. That is ultimately why I bought colorperfect, it is just good every time and pretty much instant. On some negatives the tonality can go way off for me with the curves method, other times it is good. Your example illustrates my findings in a lot of cases. Colorperfect just makes things a lot easier and quicker.

[oysteroid]

Here, the vibration effect is rather apparent on this page:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V750/page_2.htm

I have tried with different software and it makes no difference.

[frotog]

I checked out the colorperfect website. Looks like they don't have a profile for the current iteration of kodak portra 400. Does anyone scan this film using the colorperfect plug-in? Does the 400nc profile work well enough?

[BenJT]

Thanks guys, I'm going to give colorperfect a try.

Oysteroid, I know digital is more convenient, and scanning isn't so cut and dry. I know I'm complicating things more by shooting color film, and shooting digital would be much easier. Its a decision I thought a lot about before I switched, film just feels right to me. I would like to hear why you think color film is about to become unavailable, I haven't heard that. Sad.

[Brian Ellis]

It would be helpful to know the nature of the problem(s) you're having with color negative film. All you said in your original message was that you wanted tips for achieving "good" results. In what way are the results you're now achieving not "good?"

[BenJT]

Colors just seem to be all over the place with c41 color film. I am also seeing dramatic color shifts when making adjustments in the histogram window.

[oysteroid]

BenTotman,

About your decision, if you like film and that's the reason, good. Just realize that doing things this way hardly avoids the headache of digital workflow, with color management esoterica and all that sort of thing. In fact, it is worse, as now, you don't only have capture, display, and output devices to worry about, but also the scanner! Essentially, by scanning, you are taking digital photos of your film photos. All you have done is added an extra level of complication, and you are once more removed from the subject, having a copy of a copy. The image degrades from reality in your capture system and then even much of what you have captured is degraded in your digitization. You add noise to the image twice. With negative film, now you have significant noise in the shadows AND the lights, since the lights are dark in the negative and are harder for the scanner to see.

I just want to make sure you know what you are getting into. If you understand all that and just love working with a film camera, more power to you. I understand that there is a romantic aspect to film photography that isn't there with digital. And that can help your art considerably to have those kind of wistful feelings about it. Nothing wrong with that. I literally have a certain feeling in my heart, possibly something like love, and a certain intoxication, as sappy as that sounds, when working with film, something I don't get with any digital camera. Partly though, I think it is just the image on the ground glass that gets me. It is just magical. LCDs and little DSLR viewfinders don't compare.


I would like to hear why you think color film is about to become unavailable, I haven't heard that. Sad.

Well, a number of lines of film have been dropped recently, from Fuji's negative films to Kodak's slide films. And Fuji dropped Astia and Velvia 50. There are only a handful of color films available now, and those are dwindling fast. Kodak is in bankruptcy and it sounds like they are being forced to jettison what isn't profitable, and their film division can't be profitable. Digital has taken over the world. Consider how many people used to use small format film. Everyone used it! There were one-hour photo labs every four blocks. It was a big industry. That's all gone. Regular people don't use film. Only artsy-fartsy types like use still use it, and we don't use very much. People like us, even when everyone used film, represented a very small part of the film market. And now there are even less of us. It takes a great deal in the way of equipment, people, and expertise to make good quality color film. We few film laggards alone can't support it for long. It just isn't realistic. Black and white is another matter. A smaller company with fewer resources can manage the task of making black and white film. It is far simpler. There will probably be a small market for black and white film for some time to come, enough to support some kind of continued manufacture of black and white film.

The color film is going away. The people who make a business of processing film are dwindling in number. Scanners aren't being made much anymore. Consider your V700. That is old technology already, and hasn't been updated. It was released in March of 2006. Why haven't they come out with a new one? Guess. Nikon film scanners aren't made anymore. Consider that. People buy old ones used, and they are still about the best thing for scanning 35mm and 120 film. But those won't last. What happens when the scanners die off? That will drive even more film users to digital. Most of the drum scanners people use are old beasts attached to ancient Mac computers. How long will they be around, especially considering what they have to charge for scans (and justifiably)? It is becoming harder and harder to get good scans of film images. It was far easier for medium format when you could buy a new Nikon Coolscan. A time might well come, and soon, when the only accessible way to scan your film will be to use a DSLR and a macro lens.

Now, go over to Google Trends and try out all sorts of search terms related to film photography. Try "film photography", "film camera", "35mm film", "film processing", "c-41 film", "e-6 film", "120 film", "4x5 film", "large format photography", and so on. If you search for things related to the recent hipster trend of using old cameras, toy cameras, and the like, searching for "Holga camera", "lomography", and so on, you will see a bump and then a decline. 120 film was pretty hot for a bit with that trend, and some thought a real film resurgence was happening. But you can see that it has passed its peak and is fading. iPhones and the Hipstamatic app now give those people what they want.

And what professionals still handle a large volume of film? Mostly what you have are a few landscape photographers using film. Most portrait photographers don't use large format. DSLRs out-resolve medium format now and offer far more efficiency. People who photograph artwork and whatnot for reproduction generally don't use film anymore. Most use scanning backs. And in the publishing industry, they don't use copy cameras anymore to photograph the pasteups. The layouts are now digital to begin with, being composed in InDesign and Quark. The government doesn't use film for things like aerial photography anymore.

Who uses film? A few artsy-fartsies. Most of the remaining film users are probably regular participants in these forums and APUG.

Well, that is not considering Japan. I don't know what their film market is like.

We just have to face reality here. At best, there are only a few years left of color film photography. Sure, after Kodak and Fuji get out of color film, you might see someone pop up that makes color film to supply a niche market, or there might be some Russian color film or something, but the quality, I can guarantee you, won't compare to Portra, Velvia, and the like. It will have shoddy color at best.

I have no real hard evidence that color film will be gone soon, no way to prove it. It is just the forecasting of a crazy guy on a milk crate wetting his finger and holding it in the air. But when it happens, don't say I didn't warn you! Personally, I think I might sell my film gear while I can. A few years from now I might not be able to give it away!

[Zaitz]

I checked out the colorperfect website. Looks like they don't have a profile for the current iteration of kodak portra 400. Does anyone scan this film using the colorperfect plug-in? Does the 400nc profile work well enough?

I've switched the profile around from every Kodak one to other brands and in most cases the difference is only slight. I use new Portra and the other profiles of Portra work great.

[Vick Ko]

Oh my god, after reading this thread, my brain exploded and is bleeding out my ears.
So far, I've returned to chemical darkroom for BW and was thinking that and when I'd do color, I would do color digital darkroom, scanning negatives.
So it isn't just "point and click" with a few slider adjustments?
Maybe in a year or so, when I finally get to colour digital darkroom, it will be. :-)

Vick

[oysteroid]

So it isn't just "point and click" with a few slider adjustments?

Oh, how I wish it was! It is worse than you might imagine possible. Scanning and processing is the part that just destroys the romance.

I was just playing with some negatives last night, even using ColorPerfect, and to my dismay, I found myself struggling to get color and tone to look right. Soon I was recalibrating my scanner in SilverFast, trying to find the proper reference file for my particular it8 target online as the CD that came with it didn't have a reference file to match it, trying to decide in the settings what color spaces to use at input, internal, output, which one to embed in the files, whether to use perceptual, relative colorimetric, or absolute colorimetric rendering intents, which profiles and what to do at ColorPerfect's inputs, and blah blah blah. And still, in Photoshop, I had to do further adjustments with curves, color balance, levels, saturation, and so on. I spent hours trying to figure out how to get in the ballpark, near what you'd expect the color to look like.

A nightmare. There has to be a better way.

I take back what I said about ColorPerfect. It's magic with some images, not with others. I don't know what the deal is.

My DSLR involved far, far less in terms of technical esoterica. I just imported the images into Lightroom, tweaked a few sliders, and I was ready to print.



Has anyone seen this?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/11/11/the-last-days-of-film-photography-robert-burley-captures-industry-s-end-photos.html#introSlide

[Tyler Boley]

there are a variety of valid reasons to shoot film, still, in this day and age. Many accomplished photographers continue to do so. Some of the advantages include a huge scene brightness range capture ability with negs, particularly now that we are scanning them instead of projecting them onto paper with limited range. It also has a very different underlying image structure than a digital capture some may prefer. Price is another issue of course, the digital capture equivalent of large film performance will cost tens of thousands of dollars in camera equipment. It is true that dealing with color negs is difficult, I've done a great deal of color neg scanning and editing and have no rules of thumb to hand along. I've used ColorPerfect, and of course Silverfast's various tools as well. None seem perfect and require photoshop color editing. So the best advice I can give is to learn and master all the color editing tools available, selective color, Hue/sat, curves of course, blending modes, etc etc. A correctly balanced gray axis using curves may still yield, for example, a sky with whacky saturation or hue. Importing into Lightroom and using those controls is viable as well. You have to just learn the tools.
Tyler

[oysteroid]

there are a variety of valid reasons to shoot film, still, in this day and age.

Yes. It is true. There are reasons. Film handles bright things more gracefully. And it doesn't have that bayer look that I so despise. A 4x5 camera, some lenses, and a decent scanner can be had for far less than a PhaseOne back. But then come the film and processing costs, the drum scan costs if you want full quality, and so on. If you are a pro and do any volume at all, the cost point becomes moot. But as far as dynamic range goes, some of the newest sensors are pretty incredible. The Nikon D800, according to DxOMark, yields 14.4 stops of linear DR! That's pretty amazing. What I have heard for something like Portra 400 is 19 stops if you include the shoulder and toe, but about 12 stops of linear DR. But I would like to see a good comparison of the two with images.

As for the dying of film, I suppose there is a different way to look at it than I have been presenting. Rather than abandoning it because it has no future, perhaps we should treat it like a dying friend, and spend some time with it while we still can. It would be rather cold to say, "Well, he'll be gone soon, so no use getting invested any further. Might as well cut loose." We won't have any better chance in the future to shoot color film than we have right now, so we might as well have at it while it lasts. Maybe we should relish it, and be conscious of how it is more precious now that it is endangered.

Curse the scanning problem though! I hate it! Why can't I have quality scans for cheap and with no headache? Hell, to drum scan a single 10 exposure box of film would cost me more than I paid for my whole 4x5 setup! So I have to suffer with this Epson piece of friggin' garbage and only go part way to what my negatives contain! ARGGH!

[biedron]

As for the dying of film, I suppose there is a different way to look at it than I have been presenting. Rather than abandoning it because it has no future, perhaps we should treat it like a dying friend, and spend some time with it while we still can. It would be rather cold to say, "Well, he'll be gone soon, so no use getting invested any further. Might as well cut loose." We won't have any better chance in the future to shoot color film than we have right now, so we might as well have at it while it lasts. Maybe we should relish it, and be conscious of how it is more precious now that it is endangered.

Amen!

Bob

[oysteroid]

Earlier, I made some disparaging remarks about ColorPerfect. I didn't mess with it for a while after that, but last night, I solved my problem. I had apparently messed up some settings and after I reset to defaults, (holding ctrl+shift while loading the plug-in), it started working VERY well again. It now does what I expect. Also, I have found that I get the best results just using Epson Scan and turning off all adjustments, using no color profiling, scanning as positive, at 4800ppi, then, in PS, downsampling, sharpening, and doing some final adjustments and clean-up. ColorPerfect almost nails it every time. I just need to make some rather minor adjustments to color and tone. And I tried to replicate what it does by inverting in Photoshop or by scanning as negative in Epson Scan and SilverFast, and I can't get color nearly as accurate as with ColorPerfect, nor can I get quite the same dynamic range. I am not sure how that can be the case, but it is.

[BenJT]

Oysteroid, could you describe exactly what your doing in Epson scan before you go into colorperfect? I am having trouble getting a good positive to bring into Photoshop. Once in Photoshop and inverted I get a nasty color cast on my images. There has to be a straightforeward way to end up with a positive scan that offers an optimal starting point.

[Bruce Watson]

Where can I buy a cheap it8 target?

For a negative? You can't. Ain't no such thing. An IT8 target is used to build an ICC profile for a scanner. This can only be done for tranny films.

The reason is that tranny film doesn't vary that much from sheet to sheet. Since it's designed for projection, it always presents a full range image from black to white, and a strong contrast. Negative film OTOH, has a wider density range from sheet to sheet, and a much more variable contrast. It also has this cool orange color correction mask that makes color, and the relationship between colors, more accurate than you can get from tranny film. And all of this makes it difficult to impossible to create ICC profiles for scanners scanning negative films.

So... you're actually going to have to think to scan negative films. It's a hardship for those in the "I hate anything digital" camp, but good photography seldom comes without thought. Digital or analog.

If you like the darkroom workflows so much, why not print to RA-4 materials in the darkroom? Might solve all your problems.

[John Rodriguez]

I'm getting good results just using Epson Scan in the negative setting and adjusting in Photoshop. In Epson scan I adjust output to 0-255 and adjust R G B inputs individually to give 1-2 points on either end of their histograms. Then in PS I do a color adjustment using separate R, G and B curves, and occasionally use a color balance adjustment. I have contacts made of all my negatives when they're processed which gives me a color reference. Using this approach I can balance color in a couple of minutes.

[Brian C. Miller]

Curse the scanning problem though! I hate it! Why can't I have quality scans for cheap and with no headache? Hell, to drum scan a single 10 exposure box of film would cost me more than I paid for my whole 4x5 setup! So I have to suffer with this Epson piece of friggin' garbage and only go part way to what my negatives contain! ARGGH!

89358

I must have gotten lucky with my Epson 750. The scan above is at the 6400 setting, and sitting on a normal table. The film is Kodak E100S. There is fringing (chromatic aberration), but I have never seen the bouncing/jagging/zig-zagging problem that you demonstrated with yours. But I haven't used the 4800 setting, either. I think the 6400 setting is the highest stepper setting, so maybe the slower speed will mitigate the vibration problem.

As for scanning costs, the drum scanners aren't speed demons, so it takes some time to complete the scan. We do have the DSLR scanner project going on here in the DIY section, so that may be of interest for you.

Have you tried Ektar and Portra 160? I've scanned Ektar, and it's a reasonably fine-grained film. As for "enjoy film while we have it," I agree completely. I have some boxes of 8x10 color, and I do intend to have some fun!

[timparkin]

Curse the scanning problem though! I hate it! Why can't I have quality scans for cheap and with no headache? Hell, to drum scan a single 10 exposure box of film would cost me more than I paid for my whole 4x5 setup! So I have to suffer with this Epson piece of friggin' garbage and only go part way to what my negatives contain! ARGGH!

Actually you can get drum scans for 4x5 for £15 each with a discount for bulk - so I've been told.. <whistles!>

Tim

[John Rodriguez]

Actually you can get drum scans for 4x5 for £15 each with a discount for bulk - so I've been told.. <whistles!>

Tim

If only you were in North America Tim :)

[oysteroid]

Oysteroid, could you describe exactly what your doing in Epson scan before you go into colorperfect? I am having trouble getting a good positive to bring into Photoshop. Once in Photoshop and inverted I get a nasty color cast on my images. There has to be a straightforeward way to end up with a positive scan that offers an optimal starting point.

Here are some screenshots showing the settings I use:

8936989370

Also, if you press the "file save settings" (has a folder with picture icon) button, next to the "scan" button, and then press the "options" button, you'll get this dialog:

89373

I have "embed ICC" unchecked.

That's pretty much it. The reason I use Epson instead of SilverFast is that for some reason, if I scan at 4800ppi or higher in SilverFast, my Photoshop CS2 will not open the TIF, saying "wrong file type" or something. I have to open it in Lightroom and then export it again as a TIF, which takes quite a while, and then open that in Photoshop. PS then reads it fine and it can be manipulated directly in PS without problems, but Lightroom does something to the image that causes weird psychedelic colors if you then try to invert it in ColorPerfect. If I scan in Epson Scan, I don't have any of these problems. Photoshop reads the huge TIF just fine. Go figure.

If you are getting a strong color cast still in ColorPerfect, you might try holding ctrl+shift while loading the plug-in (alt+shift on Mac). This will reset it to factory defaults. Then, in ColorPerfect, at top right, select ColorNeg, make sure the button next to that says "L" and then select whatever gamma C setting seems about right and then select correct film profile at the bottom. You might then need to make some minor color, saturation, and gamma adjustments before you take the result to PS for further refinement.

This seems to work great for me, and I am using no IT8 targets or scanner profiles anywhere in this process. In Photoshop, my working color space is AdobeRGB. I don't know if that makes any difference.

[oysteroid]

89358

I must have gotten lucky with my Epson 750. The scan above is at the 6400 setting, and sitting on a normal table. The film is Kodak E100S. There is fringing (chromatic aberration), but I have never seen the bouncing/jagging/zig-zagging problem that you demonstrated with yours. But I haven't used the 4800 setting, either. I think the 6400 setting is the highest stepper setting, so maybe the slower speed will mitigate the vibration problem.

As for scanning costs, the drum scanners aren't speed demons, so it takes some time to complete the scan. We do have the DSLR scanner project going on here in the DIY section, so that may be of interest for you.

Have you tried Ektar and Portra 160? I've scanned Ektar, and it's a reasonably fine-grained film. As for "enjoy film while we have it," I agree completely. I have some boxes of 8x10 color, and I do intend to have some fun!


I took your sample into Photoshop and placed it right next to a scan from mine at the same resolution and my results are pretty much the same. And it doesn't seem noticeably worse at 4800ppi than at 6400. Take a closer look at your image though. You have those same zig zags or whatever they are. They are running vertically in your image. It is hard to sharpen this JPG up properly to show it clearly as I end up sharpening the JPG compression artefacts, but if you take your "raw" scan and sharpen it considerably, trying a range of radius values, you should be able to see it clearly.

[timparkin]

Earlier, I made some disparaging remarks about ColorPerfect. I didn't mess with it for a while after that, but last night, I solved my problem. I had apparently messed up some settings and after I reset to defaults, (holding ctrl+shift while loading the plug-in), it started working VERY well again. It now does what I expect. Also, I have found that I get the best results just using Epson Scan and turning off all adjustments, using no color profiling, scanning as positive, at 4800ppi, then, in PS, downsampling, sharpening, and doing some final adjustments and clean-up. ColorPerfect almost nails it every time. I just need to make some rather minor adjustments to color and tone. And I tried to replicate what it does by inverting in Photoshop or by scanning as negative in Epson Scan and SilverFast, and I can't get color nearly as accurate as with ColorPerfect, nor can I get quite the same dynamic range. I am not sure how that can be the case, but it is.

My main problem with Colorperfect is keeping very close control over the highlights and shadows - i.e. ensure no clipping and neutrality. I get better results using curves in most cases but will try colorperfect again.. Perhaps it works better on Epson scans? (I'm drum scanning)

Tim

[Zaitz]

My main problem with Colorperfect is keeping very close control over the highlights and shadows - i.e. ensure no clipping and neutrality. I get better results using curves in most cases but will try colorperfect again.. Perhaps it works better on Epson scans? (I'm drum scanning)

Tim

Colorperfect just requires a raw scan so it shouldn't matter what that is from. It wants absolutely 0 adjustments on a positive scan. The highlight and shadow clip range adjustments at the top of colorperfect help keep them in check for me.

[Brian C. Miller]

I took your sample into Photoshop and placed it right next to a scan from mine at the same resolution and my results are pretty much the same. And it doesn't seem noticeably worse at 4800ppi than at 6400. Take a closer look at your image though. You have those same zig zags or whatever they are. They are running vertically in your image. It is hard to sharpen this JPG up properly to show it clearly as I end up sharpening the JPG compression artefacts, but if you take your "raw" scan and sharpen it considerably, trying a range of radius values, you should be able to see it clearly.

I can see a little bit. A different spot in the image has a sign with strong black horizontal and vertical lines, and I really can't see anything significant between horizontal and vertical that I can't chalk up to grain or other sampling difference. I.e., there's no extreme zig-zag pattern. I also took a look at other images, and I think that it's not really a significant problem with my scanner. Maybe it's manufacturing tolerance in the stepper motors. From what I see on the image, the chromatic aberration is the far larger culprit in degrading image quality. However, it's a major improvement from my old Epson scanner.

Have you taken a look at the scanner comparison (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison)? I didn't notice any zig-zags in the 750 sample there.

Ctien on TOP wrote an entry where he had to replace his printer because his old unit died. Same model of Epson printer, but the first unit gave exemplary performance, while the second unit was fair-to-middling. Ctien spoke to his contacts at Epson, and they determined that his first unit really was a cherry, and the replacement was average, and completely in the midpoint for manufacturing tolerance. There was nothing that Epson could do for him.

The next jump up I suppose would be the Flextight scanner. It would pay for itself eventually.

[oysteroid]

I can see a little bit. A different spot in the image has a sign with strong black horizontal and vertical lines, and I really can't see anything significant between horizontal and vertical that I can't chalk up to grain or other sampling difference. I.e., there's no extreme zig-zag pattern. I also took a look at other images, and I think that it's not really a significant problem with my scanner. Maybe it's manufacturing tolerance in the stepper motors. From what I see on the image, the chromatic aberration is the far larger culprit in degrading image quality. However, it's a major improvement from my old Epson scanner.

Have you taken a look at the scanner comparison (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison)? I didn't notice any zig-zags in the 750 sample there.

Ctien on TOP wrote an entry where he had to replace his printer because his old unit died. Same model of Epson printer, but the first unit gave exemplary performance, while the second unit was fair-to-middling. Ctien spoke to his contacts at Epson, and they determined that his first unit really was a cherry, and the replacement was average, and completely in the midpoint for manufacturing tolerance. There was nothing that Epson could do for him.

The next jump up I suppose would be the Flextight scanner. It would pay for itself eventually.

The images on that scanner comparison are at 2400ppi. You can't see the zig-zagging at that resolution.

But that scanner comparison page annoys me. Even as much as I dislike the V700/V750 in many respects, I think they didn't do it justice there. It almost seems as though they were trying to make it look bad on purpose, to make their drum scanners look more justified or something. I can get better results than they got with the V750 easily. I even took one of the JPGs from the V750 from that site and processed it a bit and got results that look almost like the Aztek Premier. Keep in mind that I was working with an already degraded, compressed-for-web JPG. The following image is the V750 sample, sharpened up a bit with a curves adjustment and some color adjustment to get it closer to the Aztek Premier result:

89410

If I would have sharpened the 16 bit TIF directly, it would be even better. Whoever processed that image didn't do a good job. It was barely sharpened at all! As far as color goes though, I can't tell what I am doing, as I don't have access to either the original scene or the film. But the color of the drum scans could be matched easily enough.

Someone should send me that sheet of film and let me see what I can get from it with a V750. I bet it would be frighteningly close to the drum scans at 2400ppi. Beyond that, it certainly would fall behind.

[oysteroid]

Here's another one. The V750 version from the comparison site is here:

89411

The Aztek Premier version is here:

89412

And here is a modified version of the V750 scan that I sharpened and applied some curves, color balance, and HSL adjustments to in an attempt to match as closely as possible the Aztek version:

89413

And of course, once again, it would sharpen better and have less apparent noise if I wasn't sharpening a compressed JPG.

Clearly, the V750 can do better than that comparison seems to suggest. And frankly, I am surprised at how noisy some of those drum scans look. But of course, I don't what is scanner noise and what is film grain.

[Leszek Vogt]

I don't have a definitive proof, but I tend to think that the new Plustek 35/120 Scanner will be better than V750....by several miles.

Les

[oysteroid]

I don't have a definitive proof, but I tend to think that the new Plustek 35/120 Scanner will be better than V750....by several miles.

Les

It might be better, but it won't scan sheet film.



Here's another fix of a V750 scan on that comparison page, this time of the overall color. I tried to match the Aztek scan fairly closely, but with manual adjustments only. Here is the original V750 image:

89414

Here is the Aztek version:

89415

And here is the V750 version with some curves, color balance, and HSL adjustments:

89416

Not perfectly the same, but close.

I'd conclude overall that the comparison, as it is, biases unfairly against the V750. It probably scares people away from film photography, as most don't want to mess with drum scanning, for obvious reasons.

[Lenny Eiger]

Oysteroid, I think you are coming to some incorrect conclusions. It's understandable. Personally, I find the scanner comparison unusable. I don't think it shows things accurately, despite everyone's efforts. I would say it biases the less capable scanners, makes the 750 and others in that class look way better than they are. There are virtually no differences between drum scanners despite this not being the case. The test would have been better if no post processing had been done, at least initially.

Further, drum scanning is a piece of cake. Anyone that can load film on a reel for developing can mount a drum scan. The idea that its hard is just ridiculous. With all the work photographers go through to get developing just the way they want it, pick just the right lenses, learn their focusing skills, their swings and tilts, this is simple.

Finally, a 750 does not compare well in real life with a drum scanner. One is a consumer level scanner, the other is the state-of-the-art in pixel by pixel sampling, down to the microns. There is no question that you can oversharpen anything to make it look good as a postage stamp-sized image. However, you can't imagine that an $800 device will do the same as a $40K one. The technology is different, and is way more advanced. The results speak for themselves.

This example is more real, posted by Paul Ozzello. It was done recently, and should give you a closer view on reality.

http://www.paulozzello.com/scans/epson.jpg
http://www.paulozzello.com/scans/eiger.jpg

There are a lot of people here who use a 750, and I am not going to diss their work. Some people have gotten very good at sharpening and get the most possible out of that scanner. Many of us are doing what we can these days and finances are important. Very few of us are making a good living doing photography, and our hobbies have to be reasonable. However, it is not reasonable to compare two devices that are so far apart in their capabilities.

The good news is that drum scanners have gotten very inexpensive these days, a 4500 being about $1500 or so. The difference between $800 and $1500 is very little if you are talking about a main component of your capturing system. Most of us wouldn't hesitate to spend that much of a difference in a camera if difference in results were the same.

I am not saying that every image should be scanned by an Aztek Premier. However, you are comparing things from a very flawed test. They are two very different devices and no amount of sharpening will make them the same.

Lenny

[jp]

No doubt a high end scanner is a good scanner, but I get much better results than this http://www.paulozzello.com/scans/epson.jpg from my v700 for that size scan.

[Lenny Eiger]

No doubt a high end scanner is a good scanner, but I get much better results than this http://www.paulozzello.com/scans/epson.jpg from my v700 for that size scan.

I have no doubt that better scans are possible, with better height adjusting, wet scanning and everything else. My only point is that one is a car and one is a horse. The horse can get you there. But it isn't a car.

There are lots of people who have invested heavily in drum scanning equipment, whether it be a Tango, Premier, ICG, Scanmate, etc. Are you going to tell them all that their investment was worthless? That they could have bought an Epson instead, for less than 1K?

I am happy you get good scans from your 700, that's great. However, a consumer level scanner is just that. The high end scanners produce a higher end result, both in sensitivity and sharpness. It's a fact, it's not really in question.

Lenny

[oysteroid]

Lenny,

I thought I have made it clear in numerous places that drum scanners are CLEARLY superior at higher resolutions. But at 2400ppi, the differences aren't huge. In fact, they may be hard to detect in a print with 2400ppi film detail printed at 300ppi or more on paper without putting your nose two inches from the print, something non-photographers don't usually do. And this scanner comparison makes the differences at 2400ppi look bigger than they really are. Do a comparison at 4000ppi and the real differences will be very hard to ignore. Drum scans are superior, for sure. Not only do you get more detail and sharpness, but you don't have all the CAs that you get with the Epson scans.

And the comparison you just showed us does indeed show the limitations of the Epson. Just sharpen that Epson scan a bit and the zig-zag crap I've been talking about pops right out, and nothing good can be done with it. Epson should be ashamed of their false claims of 6400ppi optical resolution or whatever. It is all lies.

However, most regular people just testing the LF waters are not in the market for a drum scanner. To think otherwise is delusional. Many of those things are beasts. And nasty solvents are involved. And the cheap ones are old and intimidating and need parts and servicing and training and old Macintosh computers and all that jazz. And some even require having an electrician rig things up for them, as they apparently draw enormous amounts of power. A sub-$1000 flatbed scanner is far more accessible. I feel like I am pretty technically competent, but I am very intimidated by the idea of buying a drum scanner. For one thing, I don't trust plunking down $1500 on an old, mostly worn out machine that nobody supports. And I don't even know if I can get it to work properly or get parts for it or any such thing. It sounds like it could be a royal headache to take the risk and buy one of those old things. I have perused the eBay listings. But many, many factors cause me to hesitate greatly. And while I don't doubt that your prices for scans are justified, given your investment and expertise, regular people just having fun with this stuff, especially newbies, are unlikely to pay that kind of money for a single image, especially when at the sizes and resolutions they are likely to print, a flatbed can produce output nearly as good, perhaps 90% there. So for most of us, the Epsons represent the unfortunate limitations of the process. And if even these are unfairly treated on the web, those for whom drum scanning seems out of reach (most people) will likely be frightened away. I was almost frightened away from the whole LF thing by that very scanner comparison when I was considering taking the plunge. The truth though is that even given the limitations of the Epsons, with good technique, and with fairly minimal investment, a person can get results that far exceed anything possible with purely digital systems costing less than $20,000.

So people should be given a clear and realistic idea of what these scanners are capable of. And that scanner comparison doesn't do that, nor does it really show what drum scanners are truly capable of. I find it completely useless and misleading, to be perfectly honest. Drum scanners are clearly superior, but that comparison doesn't show their superiority in the way that they truly are superior. To show that, higher resolution scans are needed.

Suppose a person wants to know if they can get decent 2000ppi scan that would allow them to make decent 30 inch, 300ppi print using a new scanner costing less than $1000. Looking at this comparison alone, and knowing nothing else, I would conclude that it isn't possible. The images are super-soft, noisy, dark, and have crap color. The quality looks dramatically worse than the drum scans. The reality is that yes, 2000ppi scans with pretty good sharpness, good color, and relatively little noise are most definitely possible. Nice 30 inch prints, even gallery-worthy prints, can be made for sure, with a little know-how.

That said, I don't think the case for the Epsons should be overstated. Their flaws need to be shown, and I've been plenty vocal about those. They won't be a good option for small format photographers who want big prints, period, unless they just don't care about quality at all. Maybe they are fine for the Holga folks who like trashy images anyway. And for really big prints or prints where the absolute highest quality is important, as is the case with very serious professionals, they simply aren't the tool for the job.

[Lenny Eiger]

Lenny,

I thought I have made it clear in numerous places that drum scanners are CLEARLY superior at higher resolutions. But at 2400ppi, the differences aren't huge. In fact, they may be hard to detect in a print with 2400ppi film detail printed at 300ppi or more on paper without putting your nose two inches from the print, something non-photographers don't usually do. And this scanner comparison makes the differences at 2400ppi look bigger than they really are. Do a comparison at 4000ppi and the real differences will be very hard to ignore. Drum scans are superior, for sure. Not only do you get more detail and sharpness, but you don't have all the CAs that you get with the Epson scans.


I don't think we are far apart in our opinions here. However, I would disagree that you have to have higher resolution to make a difference. Because of the size, I scan my 8x10's at 2666, yielding about 3Gigs at 16bit RGB. I can appreciate that the difference gets smaller, but if you have a great scanner, you WILL see that difference. And it won't have to be 30 inches to do so.

I can tell you that early on I got a scan, done on a Tango. Let's just say it wasn't a great scan. I am not going to say it was the Tango. It was probably the operator. In a printout, between the 4500 I owned at the time (not even the Premier) and this scan the difference was clearly visible at an 8x10 print, without looking too closely. The bad scan was definitely not up to snuff. Tango's are pretty good scanners, and even badly operated are going to outdo a consumer level scanner. I saw this with my own eyes, and frankly was stunned.

Second, there are many types of printing quality, perhaps one for each of us. There are some types where a good scan makes a lot of difference. If someone likes to print at high contrast, for example, the sharpening and edge effects won't look too different. Most commercial work would fit in this category. For less contrasty images, a better scan is required.



But many, many factors cause me to hesitate greatly.

There are many scanners that I wouldn't buy on EBay either. I bought one from an unknown person and had the scanner shipped directly to Aztek. I had them analyze it for me, and do a maintenance on it before I paid the guy. It cost a little more, but I was sure of what I got. There are a couple of other sources I would recommend, one is this place right here. If someone sells something that isn't right, this community will give them what for (a lot of it). The for sale area is very good as a result. The other place is the Scan High End list where sales posting are regular. They are all contemporaries and know better than to sell one another a bad deal. Aztek actually gets some every now and then and the price is higher there, but you know what you are getting, and can depend on the quality.

I would agree that newbies might not want to jump right in. There is plenty to learn and they should learn to get their exposures right, development down and everything else before they take up scanning seriously. But it ought to be on their radar as a possibility.


Drum scanners are clearly superior, but that comparison doesn't show their superiority in the way that they truly are superior. To show that, higher resolution scans are needed.

Actually, my favorite way that they are better is in the additional detail they pull out of a negative. In color, there is more color. That flat sandstone rock has more shades of color in it. In b&w they can dig down deep into the shadows and get every little bit of whatever the negative captured. PMT's are so sensitive that they can sense a few photons bouncing around in the dark box.


The reality is that yes, 2000ppi scans with pretty good sharpness, good color, and relatively little noise are most definitely possible. Nice 30 inch prints, even gallery-worthy prints, can be made for sure, with a little know-how.

I would disagree. 30 inches is pretty big. Altho' it would depend on the kind of print one is making. Most of the folks I know would agree that 11x14 or 11x17 is about the max at full quality.

My images have a lot to do with texture. It's important to me that someone be able to tell that the light is summer light vs winter light. It gives them a sense of place, and time. It increases the sense of experiencing the image vs just seeing it. So, I tend to be very biased towards creating those type of effects. It isn't the kind of images that many want to make. But I like it. I'm glad I have a scanner that can work at this level of subtlety. It isn't the kind of thing one can do as a newbie. It's just one of the things that are possible.


Lenny