I thought I'd describe how I am, as a relative novice, scanning at the moment. I described my Levels technique here. Amongst the drawbacks to that method are :

1) There are often no black,white or mid greys to aid colour balancing.
2) It's a laborious workflow and often gives variable results from one file to the next.
3) Also, there are times when a colour cast are desirable e.g. a sunset.

In my previous scanning threads I've visited ColorPerfect which can give good, but for me, variable results.
With the following method I have made a number of presets in Epson Scan for different films and lighting conditions. There is no clipping of information with this method. The batch process means for a given film I can often scan off 24 35mm frames that need little more than a contrast adjustment.


The Film
We need a black point (the gap between the film frames) a grey point (a correctly exposed grey card) and a white point (a greatly over-exposed white card). I took an IT8 card, and used an incident meter for a correct exposure of the card. I then took a photo of the white card overexposed by 7 or 8 stops.




The Scanner
These two frames are placed in the scanner. Preview in EpsonScan. Ensure “Exposure Compensation” is not selected.


Attachment 62226


No individual frame is highlighted. Bring up the levels box.



Attachment 62227



Now click the black dropper on the inter-frame gap. This is the blackest an image can be on the film ensuring no blacks will be clipped.
Now click the Whites dropper on the overexposed white card image. It's unlikely that anything in the future will be brighter than this preventing clipping of highlights.
Now, with the grey dropper click a few of the grey squares on the IT8 card and compare the screen image to the appearance of the IT8 card you're holding in your hand. Try for the best compromise. The greens and reds are probably most important (for me anyway).
Now we can store these settings by clicking “Current Setting” top left and renaming it something like “Portra160EI160SunnyMorningSummerF16” to use again and again.


We have thus created a preset for that film for that particular light, developed in that particular chemical etc. With time we can create presets for different lighting and different films.


The Batch Scan

Outline a frame to be scanned with the cursor. Then click the “marquee copy” to produce another outline which can be dragged to the next frame to be scanned.


Attachment 62228


Repeat this process for each frame to be scanned. Hold the Control key down and click on all of those frames that have been chosen in order to highlight them. Click scan.

Attachment 62229



The resulting image seems better colour balanced than without this profiling procedure and can largely be finished by a little contrast curve or autocontrast. It's a much quicker procedure than my “Levels” method giving a more consistent result. However, it's not perfect! Looking at the densitometer readings along the grey scale on the target the readings are all over the place. I don't know whether this is due to the scanner being consumer grade, the processing of the film, or some other factor. I find reds and greens impossible to get right with Portra. Reds tend to magenta, and greens to yellow. Looking through the Flickr V700 group I can find very few C41 images with convincing reds. Perhaps it's impossible with the V700?? Those that look OK tend to be Ektar or a Fuji film. The V700 seems to fare much better with E6 films in this regard. I'd be interested in your input as to what could be changed in the workflow for better results.


Pete