Re: Is there a profile with inverted values for soft proofing negatives?
Re: Is there a profile with inverted values for soft proofing negatives?
- Subject: Re: Is there a profile with inverted values for soft proofing negatives?
- From: MARK SEGAL <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:03:53 -0700 (PDT)
Paul, just in case you don't know it, the image processing algorithms in LR and ACR are identical.
To use Negafix in Silverfast with unknown colour negative materials, you flip through the Negafix presets until you find the one that gives you closest to the most correct results.
If the tip you found for making conversions from negative to positive using ACR curves is from Martin Evening, that works for B&W, but not for colour. I've tried it in both RGB and Lab and it failed.
Working with negatives there will always be fiddling. I think the best you can do in terms of managing quality and efficiency is to get an Epson V750 and organize the negatives so that as many having what you think are roughly the same characteristics and film type are placed on the glass and scanned in one batch. Then you can use Silverfast with auto-framing to batch scan the whole content of the frame-set with one pass and one group of settings. Then import them into LR and fine-tune them.
Mark
________________________________
From: Paul Schilliger <email@hidden>
To: "email@hidden" <email@hidden>
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 6:17:02 PM
Subject: Re: Is there a profile with inverted values for soft proofing negatives?
Thanks for the many replies and suggestions to my question! As all of you are aware, the task of scanning negatives is painstaking and time consuming, especially when you tackle 50 years of family photo archives... That's why I was looking for an automated process. I looked into SilverFast and downloaded a trial version of DC Pro. Unfortunately, I have to say that there seems to be a bug in that version, for the automatic results are so completely off—black and posterized, contrasty and over saturate, that I can't think it's normal. I have submitted the problem to their support but so far they only suggested to uncheck the cast correction check box. So after two days trying all the options, I think I will give up. However, when the process is done manually, there are good tools once you understand the logic, and the results attainable are probably better than with anything else I know, especially when in addition to the eye settings you apply the
automated cast removal. But, all this takes a lot of time and the software interface isn't particularly straightforward.
Ok, I could use the Eversmart, but scanning and adjusting negatives is so looong. Another option would be to buy an Epson V7500 and use SilverFast in scan mode, as there seems to be many users who are quite content of the results. But even if the scanner is fast, inserting the film strips and making all the image adjustments takes time. I will perhaps look into that however if I can be convinced by the SilverFast capabilities.
So far I have done the archiving with a Nikon D300 and a Micro-Nikkor, mounted on a speedlight dia-duplicator. The light source provides very consistent results and the setting has proved very good for the 24x36 color slides and for the black and white negatives, on par with a good scanner. A scan only takes a click provided the fact that you have to edit the images anyway. Color negatives are just as easy to reproduce but give a little more hassle to convert. I shoot NEFs and I store and organize them in LightRoom. I have found a tip that explained how to edit a curve preset and make it a reverse curve, and starting from that base I have made a number of presets to choose from. The color smoothness that can be achieved in LightRoom is higher than that of CameraRaw for Photoshop. In CameraRaw you can invert a curve directly and save presets as well. But all this is kind of fiddling and you have to go for guess work as most tools have opposite effects.
The tools are not really
suited for that work in both programs. But the best I have tried so far is LightRoom and maybe I will stick with that.
Another option I wanted to try was shooting TIFF instead of RAW and using CS4. But for that I would need a soft proofing negative-to-positive profile so that I could invert the image only at the end of the process. Let's forget that as I am not qualified to build my own profile!
I have not yet tried the plug-in suggested by Tyler Boley (thanks!) and I will do so shortly. Maybe there is a good surprise there!
The more I get into it however, the less hopes I have to find a batch processor that would produce pleasing well balanced positive images from negatives on a click! This probably is the fief of those processors costing hundreds of thousands found in the labs, who read the bar code on the films and know instantly what corrections to apply. By the way, SilverFast has many film profiles, but how do you know what film you have in your hands? Most of the recent films I have wear only a bar code and for some a number...
However with a little practice and thanks to the LightRoom presets and ability to copy paste or synchronize settings, I should be able to get that sorted. Thanks again for the talk.
Paul
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