Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Camera Raw Q&A => Topic started by: TSJ1927 on June 11, 2014, 09:43:33 am
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I have been copying old large format transparencies & negatives with my P30+. Transparencies are easy and very good. Negatives are a bit of a problem to do a RAW process as everything in sort of reversed. Is it possible to invert in ARC?
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You can use the Point Curve editor to invert the tone curve...it's a bit tweaky. Take the white point and move it down and the black point up. It works well for B&W negs but removing the orange cast of color negs can be a challenge...
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Thank You Jeff................. that sure gets me well into the "infield". I used the white point selector as I would in a positive. Select on the neutral or white area on the negative and the colors were very close.
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Since the negative is already a tiff file once it's been scanned into your computer, you might want to try this from photographer Ian Lyons website from a few years back.
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/tutorials/tutorial_6_1.htm
Once you do the initial work of inverting, you could bring it into ACR if you chose to.
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Since the negative is already a tiff file once it's been scanned into your computer...
That is assuming you are scanning. Some of us have turned to DSLR duping to get the negative to the computer.
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the rgb curve is almost last in the order of operations in LR and ACR.
I don't see much use for LR or ACR with negatives, unless you invert them and do a basic color correction in Photoshop first, and then edit the image in LR / ACR after that.
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the rgb curve is almost last in the order of operations in LR and ACR.
I don't see much use for LR or ACR with negatives, unless you invert them and do a basic color correction in Photoshop first, and then edit the image in LR / ACR after that.
Have you tried? I helped a museum to set up a station with a digital camera and flash. Very easy and fast way to scan hundreds of color negatives. And Camera Raw makes it very easy to adjust the colors, by first inverting the point curve and then using the automatic tools in the basic adjustments. Not perfect, but for a museum that has to digitize hundreds and hundreds of negatives, the quality was surprisingly good.
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Have you tried? I helped a museum to set up a station with a digital camera and flash. Very easy and fast way to scan hundreds of color negatives.
I've been camera scanning color negatives and converting them with ACR/Photoshop for several years. It is very doable. I wrote up my procedure on
Camera Scanning your Negatives (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/index-camera-scanning-negatives.html)
The page includes instructions, with lots of screen shots. And links to the RAW files I converted so you can duplicate my workflow.
Example
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_004-b.jpg)
Negative "camera scanned" with a Canon 60D.
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_130.jpg)
After converting using the methods I describe, above.
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_140_EOS-M.jpg)
Comparison shot done with a digital camera at the same time the negative was exposed. (Canon EOS-M)
It is very doable.
Wayne
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Doesn't your scanning software have a "color negative" setting that does this for you?
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Doesn't your scanning software have a "color negative" setting that does this for you?
Peter, there's no scanner (and thus no scanning software) involved here. This is digitization of film via re-photographing it with a sensor-based camera.
-Dave-
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Peter, there's no scanner (and thus no scanning software) involved here. This is digitization of film via re-photographing it with a sensor-based camera.
Hi Dave,
A program like VueScan can read a TIFF and process it as the scan data of a digital negative. Works best with linear gamma TiFFs.
Cheers,
Bart
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A program like VueScan can read a TIFF and process it as the scan data of a digital negative. Works best with linear gamma TiFFs.
Ah, didn't think of that...been a long time since I've used film scanning software (or a scanner).
I remember having good success color-wise with re-photographing negs by neutralizing the orange mask via sampling it & applying the result as an inverse filter. Been meaning to give it a go again with today's higher-res cameras but haven't yet gotten to it.
-Dave-
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A program like VueScan can read a TIFF and process it as the scan data of a digital negative. Works best with linear gamma TiFFs.
Yes it can, but I have found the VueScan's results to be mediocre, compared to converting using Photoshop curves. I just now converted the image I used as an example a few posts ago (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=90704.msg746717#msg746717) using VueScan. Here is how it converted:
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_160_VueScan.jpg)
This was with VueScan set for Kodak Gold 200 Gen 6, which is the film I used. (The film was exposed and processed by Dwayne's Photo in the fall of 2013.)
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_170_VueScan.jpg)
This was converting an image as a linear TIFF exported from DPP (as you advised me to do in a different thread.) I also tried converting directly from the Canon .CR2 RAW file and VueScan gave identical results, so if you want to use VueScan you can skip converting to a linear TIFF. Just convert the RAW file that your camera generated.
I've tried using VueScan before. I have always found the conversion results to be enough "off" that I end up spending as much time twisting curves in Photoshop as I do when I convert using only ACR + Photoshop, as I explained in my earlier post (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=90704.msg746717#msg746717). The time spent in VueScan is wasted time. Based on the several hundred camera scanned negatives I've converted over the past several years.
Bart, the procedure using DPP + Photoshop on my Camera Scanning your Negatives page (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/index-camera-scanning-negatives.html) was derived from advice you gave in another thread (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=87681.msg714448#msg714448). The procedure that uses ACR + Photoshop was me ignoring your advice that ACR is incapable of producing a linear file (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=87681.msg715516#msg715516). In actual practice, I seem to get just as good results using ACR as I do by exporting a linear TIFF from DPP, so I usually use ACR + Photoshop.
I also want to look at Raw Therapee closer. I stumbled up a web archive of Raw Therapee developers discussing converting film negatives (https://code.google.com/p/rawtherapee/issues/detail?can=2&start=0&num=100&q=&colspec=ID%20Opened%20Modified%20Type%20Status%20Priority%20Milestone%20Summary%20Owner%20Stars&groupby=&sort=&id=2193), with the main point being that the current version of Raw Therapee does the same kind of "favors" behind your back that ACR does, which make converting negatives be problematic. They said that they wanted to add converting film negatives where it belongs in the processing chain. This thread was from earlier this year (2014) and I haven't looked closely at Raw Therapee since then.
Ah, on this thread they suggest using an inverted DCP (Adobe DNG) profile. I've tried this and Adobe's DNG editor also does "favors" behind your back. An inverted DCP profile isn't what you think it is (some colors go hog wild crazy.)
Wayne
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Yes it can, but I have found the VueScan's results to be mediocre, compared to converting using Photoshop curves.
Indeed, quite fugly! The ACR examples are impressive considering how difficult it can be to deal with the orange mask.
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The ACR examples are impressive considering how difficult it can be to deal with the orange mask.
The orange mask sort of goes away when following Bart's advice. (Direct quote from Bart:)
1. You need to start with a linear gamma capture.
2. Then adjust the White points (deepest shadows) of the three channels, preferably on inter-image blank film (or un-exposed leader), which will neutralize the Mask color.
3. Then adjust the Black points (highlights) of the three channels to render neutral areas as neutral.
4. Invert tonality, negative becomes positive.
5. Apply tone-curve and color adjustments to taste, for which a LUT can be used to create uniform results.
Copied from this post (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=87681.msg714448#msg714448).
In my rough approximation (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/index-camera-scanning-negatives.html), a lot of the orange mask goes away when I do a click-white-balance on an unexposed portion of film (between sprocket holes) in the RAW converter. Then doing the RAW conversion (as 16 bits, in the largest color space available.) Followed by making the R, G, and B channels fill the histograms in PS Levels. (The closest I can get to Bart's points 2. and 3.)
Inverting is just Ctrl-I in Photoshop. Then I go into Curves and drag the RGB curve to adjust gamma (Bart's advice, again). And Save. At this point the colors are usually civilized. But usually aren't quite correct. I usually go back into Curves and try various Auto options. And fiddle from there. After doing a bunch you sort of get a feel about how to twist the R, G, and B channels in Curves. But the closer you follow Bart's above advice, the better the final image will be.
If you do everything from scratch in DPP (or ACR) + Photoshop, then you reduce the number of curve adjustment on the data. Each curve adjustment destroys data. VueScan does a lot of radical curve adjustments as part of its normal operation (http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc19.htm#topic16).
Wayne
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Indeed, quite fugly! The ACR examples are impressive considering how difficult it can be to deal with the orange mask.
Hi Andrew,
The orange/yellow mask is trivial to compensate for, if one knows how to use Vuescan's advanced workflow (which includes total removal of the orange/yellow mask of most negatives). It is everything but difficult, since that's how the mask is designed to dissolve in film-processing. It is an inverse to exposure level mask to improve color accuracy by removing secondary absorptions. Much more accurate color than slide/positive film, and significantly more dynamic capture range.
Cheers,
Bart
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The orange/yellow mask is trivial to compensate for, if one knows how to use Vuescan's advanced workflow (which includes total removal of the orange/yellow mask of most negatives).
Well sure, it's trivial with any good product designed for this task. I recall how well my old Imacon scanners did this task but there were a few tricks involved. Same experience with SilverFast as well as ColorQuartet I used to drive a ScanView 5000. Never expected this with ACR, that's good news.
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The orange/yellow mask is trivial to compensate for, if one knows how to use Vuescan's advanced workflow (which includes total removal of the orange/yellow mask of most negatives).
Could you be a bit more explicit about the VueScan advanced workflow? Could you point to the appropriate section in the VueScan User's Guide? (http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc.htm)
Thanks.
Wayne
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Could you be a bit more explicit about the VueScan advanced workflow? Could you point to the appropriate section in the VueScan User's Guide? (http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc.htm)
Hi Wayne,
Here it is: http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc15.htm#topic12 (http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc15.htm#topic12)
Cheers,
Bart
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Greetings everybody. I've been reading this forum for quite a while, being interested in the scanning of negatives among other things. Learned much of immensely helpful stuff, thanks to everybody here. But what I've settled on for this particular task in the end is the ColorPerfect plugin (http://www.colorneg.com/colorperfect.html?lang=en) which is specifically optimized for this purpose. Was working with VueScan and Photoshop before, but found that the workflow with ColorPerfect was just faster and easier. (There are handy built-in profiles for many types of transparencies; and tools for tuning WB, curves and other things to your liking are actually quite nice in the latest release of the plugin).
It does do a much better job if you scan negatives into linear TIFFs (which I still do in VueScan), and integrates seamlessly now into the Photoshop workflow. I still occasionally do some fine-tuning in Photoshop (post-ColorPerfect, that is); but for most negatives the processing really ends in ColorPerfect now.
(This plugin actually was discussed in the forum before, when it was called ColorNeg -- thought it would be useful to recall it, just in the way of user input...)
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Here it is: http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc15.htm#topic12 (http://Here it is: http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc15.htm#topic12)
Which is
1. Set Input | Media
2. Insert film with a transparent area
3. If Input | Lock exposure is visible, clear Input | Lock exposure
4. Press the Preview button
5. Adjust cropping if necessary
6. If Input | Lock exposure is visible, set Input | Lock exposure
7. Press the Preview button again
8. If Input | Lock film base color is visible, set Input | Lock film base color
For step #2 above, use a film frame that has an area that would print as pure black for negative, or pure white for slides.
Point 2. is the problem. When I tried to follow this procedure on the frame I have been demonstrating (above posts), I tried to use the select rectangle to select an area between sprocket holes. This does not work. As soon as I press "Preview", the selection grows until it extends into the image proper. I never see any "Input|Lock exposure" option.
I suspect that the "a transparent area" portion of step 2. means "use a frame that is completely blank", which won't work with the vast majority of rolls of negatives that have no blank frames. (Both Canon DPP and Adobe ACR let me do a white balance click in an area between sprocket holes and they do do a white balance adjustment.)
Setting that aside, I went back to the "Color" tab in VueScan, clicked on "Default", and then set the film parameters from "Generic" to match the roll of Kodak Gold 200 that I was using. The main difference is that VueScan defaults to "Color balance: White balance" instead of "Color Balance: Auto Levels" that I had used in my previous demonstration (above post). I'm not going to show an example of that, because it was "fuglier" than the previous VueScan example I displayed--it had an additional green-cyan color cast.
I also tried clicking the VueScan white balance tool in an unexposed (between sprocket holes) area of the file with even "fuglier" results.
I'd really, really like to come up with a workflow that uses VueScan because VueScan is a lot cheaper than (perpetual license) full Photoshop. But after trying to use VueScan for a number of years, I can never achieve results better than the example I displayed in my above post.
(TL; DR section. VueScan works really well with Nikon scanners because Nikon scanners essentially remove the orange mask in hardware by exposing the R, G, and B channels separately, which has the effect of mostly removing the orange mask. I had an email exchange with Ed Hamrick several years ago about color quality when converting negatives and he sent me a VueScan RAW file from a Nikon scanner. Which worked fine with VueScan. And was almost perfect after opening it in Photoshop and doing a Ctrl-I inversion and a bit of gamma correction. But Nikon scanners don't exist anymore. And the kind of scanners that people can buy now (Epson, Plustek, etc.) don't remove the orange mask in the scanner hardware like the Nikon scanners did. This may apply to other (not made anymore) high end scanners--I only have the single Nikon (VueScan) RAW file that Ed sent me. Ed seemed to think that the color conversion problem was solved because VueScan worked fine with Nikon scanners.)
Have you used VueScan yourself to convert camera scans of color negatives? The RAW file of the camera scan I am working with is linked from my Camera Scanning your Negatives page (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/index-camera-scanning-negatives.html). (Under "Converting method 1. Using Canon DPP and Photoshop") If I am overlooking something in VueScan operation, I'd really like to know what I am overlooking. So I can write up a VueScan camera scanning workflow that people can use.
Alexiz, thanks for the tip about the ColorPerfect plugin.
Wayne
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Which is
Point 2. is the problem.
The space in between images is the most transparent area of that film (includes the effects of aging and fogging) with those particular processing conditions of the Lab.
I never see any "Input|Lock exposure" option.
Doing another Preview will make these menu options become available if I remember correctly. Of course only if the scanner allows to control the individual channel exposure times.
I also tried clicking the VueScan white balance tool in an unexposed (between sprocket holes) area of the file with even "fuglier" results.
White balancing is done on something that is neutral grey in the preview, NOT the film base color!
Have you used VueScan yourself to convert camera scans of color negatives?
Yes, I've scanned a lot of negative and slide film on various Nikon Coolscan models, a Minolta DIMAGE Scan Elite 5400, and Epson V700 (and several other fladbeds before). Always worked like a charm, but it works best (noise performance wise, not necessarily color) if the R/G/B channels can be individually exposed longer to neutralize the background. Alternatively one can use a filter to modify the spectral distribution color of the exposing light-source.
The RAW file of the camera scan I am working with is linked from my Camera Scanning your Negatives page (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/index-camera-scanning-negatives.html). (Under "Converting method 1. Using Canon DPP and Photoshop") If I am overlooking something in VueScan operation, I'd really like to know what I am overlooking. So I can write up a VueScan camera scanning workflow that people can use.
I'll have a look at the file.
Cheers,
Bart
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I'll have a look at the file.
Attached, a copy directly from reading the Raw file as a transparency/negative in VueScan. Selected the left edge to lock film base color. Made a selection which excluded the bottom sprocket openings. Did another preview, and tweaked the Color settings a bit, but I had to guess which Fuji film profile to use.
You can further tweak the film base colors there, the Neutral balances if there was no white to click on the White point, the Black point, the overall brightness, choose the correct film type, etc.
Is is good color? No, but a usable basis from which to tweak in Photoshop.
Cheers,
Bart
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Attached, a copy directly from reading the Raw file as a transparency/negative in VueScan. Selected the left edge to lock film base color. Made a selection which excluded the bottom sprocket openings. Did another preview, and tweaked the Color settings a bit, but I had to guess which Fuji film profile to use.
Cool. Thanks. I didn't know about the importance of locking in the film base. And that the area between the frames was better than area between the sprocket holes.
I opened the RAW file in my copy of VueScan, followed your instructions, and got results similar to the image you displayed. Which is a lot better than I got before (not locking the film base.)
However...I couldn't duplicate this with the image with the ColorChecker chart. (Converted image is my DPP/Photoshop conversion.)
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_004.jpg) (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_145-b.jpg)
Apparently the (unexposed) left edge isn't wide enough to make a selection for locking in the film base. I tried all the variations of selecting the left edge/Preview I could think of (and tried various portions of the right edge) and every time I got way worse results than the VueScan example I posted earlier.
Could you try this again with the RAW file for the image that has the ColorChecker File? (Direct link (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip).)
I'm trying to determine if the issue is that camera scanned images need more unexposed area-between-frames in the camera scanned image in order to be processable with VueScan. Or if I am still not understanding something.
Thanks.
Wayne
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Could you try this again with the RAW file for the image that has the ColorChecker File? (Direct link (http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip).)
Hi Wayne,
The ZIP file is damaged, the archive cannot be opened.
Cheers,
Bart
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Hmm, I just downloaded it from the above direct link, copied it to a directory and it unzipped for me
D:\test>ls -l
total 31255
-rw-rw-rw- 1 user group 32004467 Jul 22 21:05 raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
D:\test>md5sum *.zip
7407b08e90e129ce93dfd7c1bb18ad63 *raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
D:\test>unzip raw*.zip
Archive: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
creating: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart/
extracting: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart/60D_11930_converted.PNG
inflating: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart/60D_11930_negative.cr2
D:\test>cd raw*
D:\test\raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart>ls -l
total 31654
-rw-rw-rw- 1 user group 4380107 Mar 5 22:24 60D_11930_converted.PNG
-r--r--r-- 1 user group 28032588 Oct 26 2013 60D_11930_negative.cr2
(I use GNU UnxUtils (http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/) to make MS-DOS be more Linuxy.) I also opened it with 7Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/). 60D_11930_negative.cr2 opened in CS6 ACR. (The version of the .CR2 file in the .zip file had been white balanced in camera, so it won't open up looking orange. I undid that white balance for the screen shots because people expect negatives to look orange. (And then redid the white balance in Canon DPP before exporting as a linear TIFF.) But this is the original .CR2 file I have been processing for these demonstrations.)
Can you check the file size and md5sum?
Wayne
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D:\test>md5sum *.zip
7407b08e90e129ce93dfd7c1bb18ad63 *raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
Hi Wayne,
I downloaded another copy, just like I did for the earlier one that did open.
The MD5 comes out as : 5611f6a417769bdb2c87e38239996e16 , and is clearly not the same. The file size is 21845056 bytes.
<entry name="raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip"> <size>21845056</size> <mtime>07/23/2014 06:35:29</mtime> <attrib>A-----</attrib> <algorithm>MD5</algorithm> <hash display-as="Hexadecimal" encoded-as="Hexadecimal">5611f6a417769bdb2c87e38239996e16</hash> </entry>
Cheers,
Bart
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Odd. OK, let's try Dropbox. Download
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30509795/raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30509795/raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip)
I downloaded from this link (using a different browser) into a different directory:
D:\test2>ls -l
total 31255
-rw-rw-rw- 1 user group 32004467 Jul 23 10:09 raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
D:\test2>md5sum *.zip
7407b08e90e129ce93dfd7c1bb18ad63 *raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
D:\test2>unzip *.zip
Archive: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip
creating: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart/
extracting: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart/60D_11930_converted.PNG
inflating: raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart/60D_11930_negative.cr2
D:\test2>cd raw*
D:\test2\raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart>ls -l
total 31654
-rw-rw-rw- 1 user group 4380107 Mar 5 22:24 60D_11930_converted.PNG
-r--r--r-- 1 user group 28032588 Oct 26 2013 60D_11930_negative.cr2
Maybe DARPA needs to go back to the drawing board about this whole TCP thing. Seems that it isn't quite ready for prime time.
Wayne
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Odd. OK, let's try Dropbox. Download
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30509795/raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30509795/raw-file-negative-colorchecker-chart.zip)
Hi Wayne,
Yes, that one works fine.
Attached an attempt to get something decent out of the file, direct import of the Raw into VueScan, as a color negative, film base color, tweaking a number of Color settings, manually adjusting the film base color further while watching the histogram.
Cheers,
Bart
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This image is tricky. I think that the film has a yellow-green color cast, courtesy of Kodak. For example, here is the scan that Dwayne's Photo did when they processed the film
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_150_Dwaynes.jpg)
As compared to a shot taken directly with a Canon EOS-M at the same time
(http://www.frogymandias.org/imagery/images/DPP_CC_KK-200_140_EOS-M.jpg)
I am very familiar with the concrete because it is my front porch. The concrete does not have an overt yellow-green cast. The EOS-M version more closely resembles reality. (But even that has a slight greenish tinge in some places that my eyes don't detect when I look at the concrete. Maybe some metamerism going on? I think that the concrete dates from the mid 1940s. I live in upstate New York (US.))
But this image is representative of ones where I'd spend time fighting in VueScan, only to continue fighting in Photoshop. After I while, I decided that doing everything from scratch in Photoshop was easier.
One issue we haven't discussed in this thread is that this image was from (reasonably) fresh film, so the film curves as published by Kodak (or by Fujifilm) that VueScan (presumably) use are relevant. But most of the film that I am processing (family snapshots) are from the 1970s and 1980s and was stored poorly. So the factory film curves that are baked into VueScan may not be as helpful. Generally, families don't store film the same way that museums do.
Thanks for the insights on how to use VueScan better.
[Edit. Changed references from "green cast" to yellow-green cast", after looking at the images again.]
Wayne