Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

[timparkin]

- And finally some contrast:

Bildschirmfoto 2015-10-06 um 17.59.46 by Sebastian Dziuba, auf Flickr

And look at the 100% view, I´m sure there is no clipping and defenetly no blocked shadows or highlights:

Bildschirmfoto 2015-10-06 um 18.00.01 by Sebastian Dziuba, auf Flickr

Does this help?

Best regards, Sebastian

I've just had an email from Derin today saying that using LAB mode is key to avoiding the posterisation issues I was getting. I'll experiment... many thanks!!!

Tim

[sdzsdz]

Hi Tim! Did you see my post #40 in this thread? Exactly thats it what I wrote here sime days ago:

LAB AND also very important: ProPhoto RGB! I use this for every scan (positive and negative) since I own Newcolor which is since lasr winter. Made many comparisons when I got it and found out that this is the best combination. I wrote that to the group in may but my writing may have been not clear enough so Derin told me that I'm wrong, I don't clearly understand WHAT was wrong.

The only thing is: I have come over Colorperfect. The scans are not linear enough for this program. So I switched to the method I described here and now my results are very good (for my taste):

Giants Causeway Sunset by Sebastian Dziuba, auf Flickr

[sdzsdz]

And LAB is also the best for shadow headroom in positive scanning. Also in combination with ProPhoto RGB. The scans may look a bit dark and dull on first sight. On first sight RGB scans look better but Lab scans converted to ProPhoto have more headroom for editing in Lightroom or PS. One hint to "switch on the light" in these scans: use "Shadows/Highlights" in PS with Highlights set to 0 and shadows set between 1-5 and look what happens.

Best regards

Sebastian

[georgl]

@sdzsdz

Thank you so much for your helpful advice! You changed profiles so it is scanned as a negative though you used the positive function? How did you do that?

[sdzsdz]

Hi! I´m glad if I can help. But it seems that I have to make the workflow a bit clearer.

1. Assign an it8 profile to positive and negative scans in the profile manager:

DSC_1743 by Sebastian Dziuba, auf Flickr

2. use LAB and 16 bit TIFF in the Scan-Setup, hit the negative tab in the scanning setup first and then disable any adjustments in the colour assistant by unchecking this small box that is named "Colour Assistant". Use 0 and 5 for Highlights and Shadows:

DSC_1744 by Sebastian Dziuba, auf Flickr

DSC_1745 by Sebastian Dziuba, auf Flickr

(You can save these adjusments to a preset on the left upper corner of the program. I made myself a preset for negatives and positives taht are nearly the same despite of the one with the negative button hit, the other with the positive button hit.)

Now you will get a raw (positive, no inversion) scan of your BW or colournegative without any visible sharpening. For positive scans I use exactly the same workflow BUT I hit the positive button in the scanning setup. But that maybe obsolete because the scans are now the same. I never tried. But I get no sharpening issue in positive scans either so I don´t think of it any more. Maybe the most important part is to completely disable the color assistant.

3. Important: Convert to RGB and Prophoto colour space in Photoshop before you do anything. And now you can use different ways to convert your negatives in PS. I use the above described for colour negatives and nearly the same for BW. It works best for me. In my oppinion the files are excellent and have a phantastic tonal range and accuracy to work with them.

Hope this helps,

Best regards,

Sebastian

[georgl]

Thank you so much!

It's obvious to me that my scanning has been really sub-standard by comparison, your scans (Ektar and Provia) are quite impressive!#

One last question since I'm not really experienced with ICC-profiles in Newcolor: you created "8-2015 Provia.icc" yourself? With a specific setup? Or is it possible to use just one generic/native positive-profile?

The rest I am familiar with, you always have to use the negative setup because otherwise the sharpening-bug will kick in again

[sdzsdz]

Hi!

You are welcome!

This profile is an it8 calibration profile I did with an it8 Target from Wolf Faust. You really should profile your scanner too!

And for positive scans I do use the positive mode. I have no sharpening issue with positives. But despite that I do exactly the same things with positives as with negatives. Use Lab and disable the colour assistant.

Best regards,

Sebastian

Best regards

[georgl]

I did a first quick test and it looks much better than before!

Finally I can test some Portra 400 4x5^^

Do you use a special software to create the profile from the target?

I see some sharpening (you can't control) on every positive scan in Newcolor (even when sharpening is reduced under special scanner functions).

[Grumium]

@ georgl: Please consider post #37 within this thread in order to get rid of any sharpening. I attached a comparison between NewColor (Mac) and Silverfast for negative and positive mode. As per instruction negative mode is the way to go even for positives (yielding no difference compared to Silverfast).



@ sebastian: Do you "convert to" (post #46) or do you "assign" (post #40) ProPhoto profile in Photoshop?

I am also wondering how you are scanning your gorgeous black and white negatives. Are you using grey (UniversalNegGray.icc?) or negative color mode? I guess LAB is also the right choice for BW?

[SergeyT]

Grumium,

One should use the "Convert to profile" when going from LAB to RGB or between RGBs.
I noticed that your aperture on the color scan is set to -5 and the image looks bit too "noisy". I never felt like there was a need to overrride the default (0) aperture setting.

SergeyT.