Software for Converting Scanned Color Negatives

[Alan Klein]

Vuescan it's a two step scan software. You get a RAW scan that can be saved or directly processed as film negative or slide or as a document. The RAW file can be processed with another program (Photoshop for example) or with the second part that applies film data to convert the scan to a photographic image.

You can start your workflow making the RAW file with a Camera and use Vuescan and his presets, or the calibration data, to get a photographic image (positive from a negative scan or positive from a positive scan).

Does Vuescan set the black and white points before the scan or do you apply those afterward to the raw scan?

[j.e.simmons]

Member Ken Lee discusses scanning and setting black and whit points in Vuescan (and Eason)
https://www.kennethleegallery.com/ht...ning/index.php

Conversion in Capture One requires only checking an “enable black and white” box.

[Delfi_r]

Does Vuescan set the black and white points before the scan or do you apply those afterward to the raw scan?

If you select scan output to raw file the result is before any postprocessing (black and white points, BW negative, Color negative or Color positive). So you can use the Photoshop (or any other software) features with the raw scan, or you can process a batch of raw scans on Vuescan to produce the final image files.

[EBJohnson]

I use Capture One and Affinity Photo (Scans from VueScan), and have been experimenting with different ways of doing the inversions... It doesn't have to be all that difficult... and it seems to do better, to my eye, the fewer steps to the starting point... In either C1 or Affinity, do a WB to the mask and then invert (in C1 inverting the curves works, but then everything is backwards, which is a little frustrating)

The only issue is that Affinity will not always open the RAW DNGs in the raw processor... but that's not wholly necessary. Really as long as you do a WB and Invert, you're off to the races. With all other corrections after those two, it's pretty straight forward. I also, often but not always, do a per channel white/black, and a gamma, correction in Levels if needed. But those 2-3 steps get me 80-90% of the way there in most cases.

Alex Burkes method does an excellent job, but really seems to be too many steps. That's just my opnion though.

Affinity Photo is nearly a full PS replacement for... a tiny fraction of the cost... $50/license... I paid that 5yrs ago... That savings has made the occasional perpetual license update for C1 Pro cheaper, or at least similar to Adobe over time.

[wclark5179]

What about Photoshop Elements.

Two important ingredients with Photoshop are layers and blending. You can work with both with this program.

Check here:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/adobe-p...E&gclsrc=aw.ds

Or here:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/searc...BoC8xoQAvD_BwE

[SergeyT]

Elements can't work with 16-bit per channel files

[rawitz]

Really as long as you do a WB and Invert, you're off to the races. With all other corrections after those two, it's pretty straight forward. I also, often but not always, do a per channel white/black, and a gamma, correction in Levels if needed. But those 2-3 steps get me 80-90% of the way there in most cases.

Alex Burkes method does an excellent job, but really seems to be too many steps. That's just my opnion though.

Thats the point! Its important to understand that the critical step, to set the correct Black and White point in your scan will not only optimise your scan but will simultaneously remove the color mask. And as the color mask is not like a flat color filter for your lens, these approaches to "first" remove the color mask flat and "then" to optimize your scan with BW adjustment and more, will be successful but you can set aside any of these steps removing color mask before, while and after setting BW points. Its not only complicating the process, you simply dont need it.

The raw scan approach is a functional way to solve the task, but you need 48bit raw scan (tiff or Ding or else) as the conversion and finetuning is a massive shift in color scale. Some time ago I did some post in a german LFsite how to do and convert color neg raw files.
First picture show the raw scan raw and converted.
Second pic shows the raw color corrected result.





In the picture of gradation work (PS) you see the masive work to get the correct picture out of the rawscan.

regards
Rainer

The german link:
https://forum.grossformatfotografie....pson-software/

[Alan Klein]

Thats the point! Its important to understand that the critical step, to set the correct Black and White point in your scan will not only optimise your scan but will simultaneously remove the color mask. And as the color mask is not like a flat color filter for your lens, these approaches to "first" remove the color mask flat and "then" to optimize your scan with BW adjustment and more, will be successful but you can set aside any of these steps removing color mask before, while and after setting BW points. Its not only complicating the process, you simply dont need it.

The raw scan approach is a functional way to solve the task, but you need 48bit raw scan (tiff or Ding or else) as the conversion and finetuning is a massive shift in color scale. Some time ago I did some post in a german LFsite how to do and convert color neg raw files.
First picture show the raw scan raw and converted.
Second pic shows the raw color corrected result.





In the picture of gradation work (PS) you see the masive work to get the correct picture out of the rawscan.

regards
Rainer

The german link:
https://forum.grossformatfotografie....pson-software/

The final colors seem a little undersaturated but that should be an easy adjustment.

[SergeyT]

Try to apply your method to an image with just green leaves, grass, etc or a still lake with reflected cloudless sky or any other image where there is no anything close to white and neutral gray...How would you set White point and mid-tones , by eye ?
Will you be able to achieve the same colors by applying this method to the same scan after a week from the first conversion without memorizing or writing down the curves values?

[rawitz]

You can save the complex gradation settings like above in one file in PS and you have a perfect 1-click-preset for CN-conversion and optimization, "without memorizing or writing down the curves values". Whats wrong with it?

If you follow the steps of my presentation, just make or take a CN-pic with high contrast, with sunny whites and shadowed blacks, and some middlegreys too. From a rawscan or a slide-scan then make gradation correction in conversion, BW-point, contrast and color and save it as your personal preset. As CN-film is physically very soft, a color-saturation of 20-30%+ is my final step.

BTW: Even a single unknown CNeg just with green-grass and blue-sky is handable: With the unexposed filmborder you can define the Blackpoint (nothing else than you do extracting the mask) and calculate the black color points values to the white point values approximatly. But this is an academical diskussion ...
My reverse question: How will you extract the mask, if there is no filmborder at all?

regards
Rainer