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

[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_sli..._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.in...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:



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:



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:


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.in...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/int...750/page_2.htm

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