iQsmart2-settings for color negative

**Gregory Gilbert** · 25-Aug-2011, 18:18

I have been scanning some 4x5 and 6x7 portra and vericolor using oxygen 2.6.3 and was wondering about suggested settings and workflow. Is it a good idea to sharpen in oxygen or disable all sharpening and do in photoshop or lightroom. In setting negative end points there are two options- fixed and balanced. What is the difference? Also in the setup dialog box there are several choices for input and output profiles. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Greg

**SergeyT** · 25-Aug-2011, 19:37

1.Photoshop does a much better job with sharpening, so it makes sense to disable it in oXYgen.
2. You will probably want to use the balanced endpoints for your negatives especially if the resulting file is 8bit.
Fixed are usually used for scanning transparencies to make them match the profile. In other words, to use the same settings for scanning a color target for profiling and all subsequent films which used that color profile.
In real life balanced is the way to go for any scan which will end up as 8bit file.
3.The input profile should be a profile made for your scanner. You can start with the canned input TR profile which came with your oXYgen. A better results could be obtained by creating and using a custom made ICC profile from an IT8 target scan from your scanner.
The output profile should be the one which allows to fit the colors of your film with no clipping and allows to edit the image. For instance , sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB.

SergeyT.