vuescan - blue tint

Gooshin · 07-20-2009, 08:42 AM

giving vuescan a try, its giving me a pretty consistent blue tint to all my photos

particulary with the fuji x-tra 800 that i'm currently scanning

less so with Ektar

"auto white balance" later fixes the problem, but this takes away from half the point of shooting film.

any suggestions?

im giving vuescan a try because it seems to get more dynamic range out of the pictures compared to Nikon Scan, which for whatever reason really doesnt like highlights.

Vertex Ninja · 07-20-2009, 02:48 PM

When you're scanning make sure and sample the film base if it's negative, and also if you right or middle click(can't remember) on a neutral object in the preview window, vuescan will set the white balance accordingly.

Gooshin · 07-20-2009, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by Vertex Ninja

When you're scanning make sure and sample the film base if it's negative, and also if you right or middle click(can't remember) on a neutral object in the preview window, vuescan will set the white balance accordingly.

my buddy told me about the base thing, and i did it, but after some reading and review, it seems this is only beneficial for B/W film that would otherwise have difficulty defining black.

when i lock the film base with colour negs, the impact is negligable.

Vertex Ninja · 07-20-2009, 03:29 PM

That's unusual, because the software has to remove the orange mask and every films orange mask is different. You can see this by scanning a negative as a positive and then doing a straight invert in Photoshop. The white balance will be siginificantly off. Silverfast has film profiles specifically for this purpose. Sorry it's not working for you, I wish I could offer more help.

There used to be a tutorial somewhere but I've lost track of it. This thread talks about it though. Vuescan & Erik Krause's Advanced Workflow = BROKEN - Photo.net Digital Darkroom Forum

*KungPOW* · 07-20-2009, 06:44 PM

I've had the same problem with Vuescan. So far I have not found a solution.

I'm wondering if the installed scanner drivers are conflicting with Vuescan.

I did not think too much of the interface to really put a great effort into fixing the problem.

Venturi · 07-21-2009, 12:02 AM

I bought the Pro license which opens up a few options you don't get with the demo nor standard version. VueScan is definitely a bit like the "UNIX" of scanner software in that you really do have to tune it with color film to get good results.

It's absolutely necessary to follow the steps here if you wish to maintain your sanity scanning color negs. And there are several things that page does not explicitly mention that IMO are critical:
1. Before you begin, select File -> Default Options from the menu to reset everything.
2. "Adjust cropping if necessary" ... It is definitely necessary. Make sure you select "35mm Film" and make sure on that first preview pass you line up the crop box correctly over the scan.
3. If you do not see a completely white strip displayed on that 2nd preview run you do not have a good color mask and will not get good colors.
4. Save these settings (and do not touch them in the color tab, ever) for each film you are scanning so you don't have to do this with every roll. As long as your processing is consistent you should only need to do this once per each film (e.g. Portra 400VC).

During Scanning: With the "Lock Film Base Color" option checked you'll also have the "Lock image color" option available. Use it. Occasionally one or more frames on a strip will not preview with proper color/exposure but others on the same strip will look "correct" when you put the crop box over them. If you lock image color on one of the "correct" frames it will ensure the others on that strip will all be "correct".

Gooshin · 07-21-2009, 07:43 AM

k i'll give all this a go when i get a chance

Gooshin · 07-23-2009, 06:12 PM

okay i give up..

i have version 8.5.19

it seems the best results are given when i just leave everything as is in the advanced tab and make sure that the crop box does not encompass any white/black spots

when i start messing around with the whole lock exposure thing, thats when things go haywire.

however, in both cases, using photoshop or lightroom, when you hit auto white balance, it will still correct it.

perhaps at this point i am just experiencing what the "film" is supposed to look like vs what is really in the scene.

Jimfear · 07-24-2009, 04:57 AM

You can adjust the RGB histogram individually for every colour and shot, that should bring out the negatives "own" white balance. If you find that there's a tint to some colour you can adjust the histogram a little and fix it.

I have found that auto white balance is a quick way to get some sort of result, but if you want a good result you have to do it all manually. A good starting point is the film's profile, if there is one for it. I agree with Venturis UNIX comment... it works great, when you know how to use it...

Venturi · 07-24-2009, 08:48 AM

One thing that may help you with white/color balance too is setting your border & buffer under the "Crop" tab.
Border increases the area of the frame scanned without the extra space being used for color balance. I use 2% to 3% to give me more area for crop adjustment in post.
Buffer decreases the area used by the software for color/white balance so the frame edges do not skew results. I use 3% to 5%.

Manual Entries for both here