[lbenac]

No, no RAW scans here.... But I'm looking into Vuescan right now, and that software is able to produce RAW scans, I think. I was used to shoot Fuji Provia, and looking back, I see I have some great results with these, even the scans are great! But probably skin tones are rendered not good.... Too much saturated, or something like that, and when one underexposes..... Don't know... But I will look for ColorPerfect, thanks for that!

Well if you are set on one color film, the other option is to get a target for that film and calibrate with Vuescan which BTW yes let you export raw file and raw DNG files.

cheers,

Luc

[tuco]

Well if you are set on one color film, the other option is to get a target for that film and calibrate with Vuescan which BTW yes let you export raw file and raw DNG files.

cheers,

Luc

I tried both a transmission IT8 target for the scanner and shooting a reflection IT8 target with Portra 400 and it didn't seem to help much at all. I think I get better results by sampling the film base with VueScan and locking the exposure to it.

[lbenac]

I tried both a transmission IT8 target for the scanner and shooting a reflection IT8 target with Portra 400 and it didn't seem to help much at all. I think I get better results by sampling the film base with VueScan and locking the exposure to it.

Did you get one made specifically for the film - there is a German guy that does film specific target. Mind you it might be for color slide only, I seem that I vaguely remember that target calibration might not work for color negatives.

Cheers,

Luc

[Rense]

Well if you are set on one color film, the other option is to get a target for that film and calibrate with Vuescan which BTW yes let you export raw file and raw DNG files.

cheers,

Luc

Sorry Luc, you have to explain this, I don't get it... Or probably that is because I don't have Vuescan yet?

[lbenac]

Sorry Luc, you have to explain this, I don't get it... Or probably that is because I don't have Vuescan yet?

Hey Rense,

You can buy a IT-8 target made with the specific film that you are using i.e. Kodachrome, Ektar....
You can use this target to calibrate the scanner - creating a specific profile - that you can use when scanning this specific film. In theory it should give exact color reproduction inasmuch as exact color reproduction exists.

Cheers,

Luc

[tuco]

Did you get one made specifically for the film - there is a German guy that does film specific target. Mind you it might be for color slide only, I seem that I vaguely remember that target calibration might not work for color negatives.

Cheers,

Luc

Yes, both his and Kodak's Q-60 targets. That was a confusing area of calibrating the scanner. The documentation doesn't say if it has to be a negative target for negative film. And you're not going to calibrate it with negative film since you can't get one.

But nevertheless even without the scanner calibration profile, shooting the reflection target to calibrate the film (which I've only done with one film so far) wasn't much help and still I had to hand adjust CB best I could.

What really needs to be done for those who have scanners capable of adjusting the R-G-B color gains (eg Coolscans), as called in VuesScan, which are the color channel EVs is to have the software give you a loop method of tweaking those by trial and error looking at the color channel's’ histograms and getting those adjusted to null out the color negative film's base and save the profile for that film. That way you can scan as RAW and invert it in image editor without it ever having to know about the film's base color at all. You can do that now with a Coolscan but it means actually have to scan it, look at RGB channel's histogram in an editor, do it again over and over until it's right. A lengthy, time consuming process.

[Rense]

Hey Rense,

You can buy a IT-8 target made with the specific film that you are using i.e. Kodachrome, Ektar....
You can use this target to calibrate the scanner - creating a specific profile - that you can use when scanning this specific film. In theory it should give exact color reproduction inasmuch as exact color reproduction exists.

Cheers,

Luc

Thanks! That explains enough. Never heard of 'IT-8 target', so thanks for your explanation!!! :ugh:

[tuco]

Thanks! That explains enough. Never heard of 'IT-8 target', so thanks for your explanation!!! :ugh:

Here is an overview. And here is one link to getting these targets. I don't see any negative film offerings such as Ektar in there. But you can get a reflection target and make your own for negative film.

[lbenac]

I am doing my development in our laundry room. One of the issue is that the f@#!$%^&* dryer is also in the laundry room. SO in an effort to keep the dust at bay and still have negative dry in a reasonable amount of time I came up with the following. Still experimental of course.

[tuco]

I am doing my development in our laundry room. One of the issue is that the f@#!$%^&* dryer is also in the laundry room. SO in an effort to keep the dust at bay and still have negative dry in a reasonable amount of time I came up with the following. Still experimental of course.

What happen to that fancy cardboard box?

[Makten]

I have the SMC Pentax 67 55mm generation and really like it too.

I import a TIFF-DNG scan to Lightroom, perform initial exposure adjustments there, export that to Photoshop with Lightroom rendering to use Photoshop's healing tool, make any local adjustments if necessary, return to Lightroom where I may crop/level/further adjust the shot and perform sharpening there. If you hold down the option key (Mac) while setting radius, detail and masking you get a nice aid to that. This is all done at scan size and then I just export to screen display with longest dimension as 1024 with either standard or high sharpening option.

Interesting! I'm on a Mac also, but I don't use LR. I simply open the TIFF files in ACR to tweak colors, contrast and apply a bit of NR if needed. I also make an initial sharpening, because ACR does it better than unsharp mask. That's pretty funny, because when I process RAW files from my D700 I hate the ACR sharpening and do it in PS instead.
Then I import the image to PS where I downsample and sharpen the image in 2-3 steps. Still I don't get that crispness that you do, but I suppose it's because I haven't found the right parameters for each step yet.

I just scanned my first roll of Portra 400 that I shot with the 55/4. I think I underdeveloped it a bit (probably too low temperature), because the negs are a bit thin and the colors were off. But with some tweaking it came out quite nice.





The lens seems to handle counterlight pretty well, but I had one other frame ruined with a nasty, red flare blob. CA is low but there's some fringing around highlights.

[lbenac]

What happen to that fancy cardboard box?

I am stepping-up in the World

[Rense]

Interesting! I'm on a Mac also, but I don't use LR. I simply open the TIFF files in ACR to tweak colors, contrast and apply a bit of NR if needed. I also make an initial sharpening, because ACR does it better than unsharp mask. That's pretty funny, because when I process RAW files from my D700 I hate the ACR sharpening and do it in PS instead.
Then I import the image to PS where I downsample and sharpen the image in 2-3 steps. Still I don't get that crispness that you do, but I suppose it's because I haven't found the right parameters for each step yet.

I just scanned my first roll of Portra that I shot with the 55/4. I think I underdeveloped it a bit (probably too low temperature), because the negs are a bit thin and the colors were off. But with some tweaking it came out quite nice.

Hey captain, I love that shot!

[tuco]

Interesting! I'm on a Mac also, but I don't use LR. I simply open the TIFF files in ACR to tweak colors, contrast and apply a bit of NR if needed. I also make an initial sharpening, because ACR does it better than unsharp mask. That's pretty funny, because when I process RAW files from my D700 I hate the ACR sharpening and do it in PS instead.
Then I import the image to PS where I downsample and sharpen the image in 2-3 steps. Still I don't get that crispness that you do, but I suppose it's because I haven't found the right parameters for each step yet.

I just scanned my first roll of Portra 400 that I shot with the 55/4. I think I underdeveloped it a bit (probably too low temperature), because the negs are a bit thin and the colors were off. But with some tweaking it came out quite nice.



The lens seems to handle counterlight pretty well, but I had one other frame ruined with a nasty, red flare blob. CA is low but there's some fringing around highlights.

Nice. I think that New Portra 400 really has some good DR. On my lighthouse shot, I was able to get both a direct sun and shadows in one shot. Granted, I had some scanner noise along with that shadow detail.

[stevebrot]

Maybe writing plugins for Photoshop are in a some kind of sandbox with limited IO capabilities.

...given that Photoshop is an Adobe product, any assumptions about poor programming practice or arbitrary restrictions are likely to prove true.


Steve