Convert negative scan

[Guest]

Hi,

I recently overexposed some Portra 400 films by a couple of stops just to see how they would come out. I raw scanned them and I am having difficulties getting some decent colour tones out of them, below you see what I've benn capable of so far and the oiginal neg scan resized for upload's sake.

I mostly apply a invert adjustament layer and work in LAB mode with levels adjust layer to set the black and white colour and curve adjust layer to play with A and B channel.

Yet, I am not really happy with the result.

Can you please point me into the right direction?

http://41.media.tumblr.com/790cdf8bf...348o1_1280.jpg

Thanks

[philbach]

Re: Convert negative scan

Well I inverted the image and then I used levels in each rgb channel. After that I copied the layer using multiply blending mode and at that point there was a significant bluish cast. So I used a curves adjustment layer and used the neutral eyedropper on the background building.

[klev]

Re: Convert negative scan

There's a lot of scanner software with negative settings. The problem is that starting from this, it's quite difficult to get a strong result, and you're likely to have trouble with that sky. Essentially with negative film you have the orange mask, which is somewhat of a constant in terms of its effect on light transmission. It's just that sRGB and Adobe 1998 are highly non - linear. I can pull some detail out without sky banding, but if I had to prepare that for someone, it would end up being a lot of masking due in part to the source quality.

[Tareq]

Re: Convert negative scan

Which scanner do you use and what software?

I do scan different films and manage to get decent results, so i am not sure where is your mistake in all the processing.

[Shoku]

Re: Convert negative scan

Many high-end scanners have profiles for different types of film - Agfa, Fuji, and Kodak. etc. Find out if your scanner manufacturer has those available, they will help.

If Film profiles are not available then you'll need to determine how to compensate for the orange film color - it's different for each film type, even from the same manufacturer.

[Guest]

Re: Convert negative scan

I found this and was really inspiring:

Finally, I can scan negative film and use the unique capabilities of the
Aztek DPL Pro software to only scan the dynamic range of your negative. This
ensures a higher bit depth than most scans. *Inverting and colour balancing
negative film is an interpretation* and so I will supply the raw uninverted
scan as well as a conversion that will allow you to colour balance at will.

And that is why I would not use profiles for different types of film.

[Shoku]

Re: Convert negative scan

use the unique capabilities of the Aztek DPL Pro software to only scan the dynamic range of your negative.

Huh?

We've been using Heidelberg (Linotype Hell) scanners for over twenty years.
The negative profiles work great.

[eraanexact]

Re: Convert negative scan

https://app.box.com/s/24if74vuhq7801jtpvzwub8k0vr4rh24

[andrewrodney]

Re: Convert negative scan

The profiles for film might be custom inversions for the image and orange mask but they are not ICC scanner profiles. That's only possible with reversal film. The best way to handle this is in the scanner driver assuming it's decent at the task at hand. Few are. SilverFast and the older software that ran Imacon scanners does a very good job inverting the image and the big task, removing the orange mask which is affected by exposure. You can try to do this after the fact in Photoshop but it's often a huge mess and doing this at the scan stage, IF the software supports the task is really the best approach.

[klev]

Re: Convert negative scan

SilverFast and the older software that ran Imacon scanners does a very good job inverting the image and the big task, removing the orange mask which is affected by exposure. You can try to do this after the fact in Photoshop but it's often a huge mess and doing this at the scan stage, IF the software supports the task is really the best approach.

I haven't read the name Silverfast in many years. It makes me feel like I should have a hearing aid and tell people to vacate my lawn. The same goes for Imacon, flexcolor, pro back plus..... you get the idea. They were better, and as you point out it has to expand a subset of the range of the scan. That ability isn't that uncommon in scanner software, even if the results aren't as good as the ones you mentioned. Scitex machines also do a fine job. I have no idea what software they run. I only mention them because of the imacon reference (also a commercial model).

[andrewrodney]

Re: Convert negative scan

LaserSoft is still making and supporting SliverFast. Got U.S. offices in Florida.