Mark, well in my experience, Silverfast NegaFix cannot deal with some films, for example Portra 160NC . It just can't. I discovered ColorNeg through some forum somewhere, gave it a go, and it just worked brilliantly straight out of the box. I actually posted on the Silverfast forum asking if anybody had any tips on scanning Portra160 and my post got deleted, because it was a "technical support issue". This
did not endear me to Lasersoft GmbH, especially as I'd tended to defend them up to thern. Anyway, I'd be interested if you have a different experience. I'm well aware that NegaFix has a good reputation in some circles.
Chris_Brown - Inverting negatives may be no big deal, but if I can find a quick solution I'd prefer to use it. I've hardly ever used negative film, and I was just curious to see what I could get out of it. I don't feel the need to understand the arcana behind each part of the process. I do find that people who really are deeply into this stuff tend to be pretty dull photographers.... (absolutely NO personal slight intended!!!)
So, anyway, seems that the consensus is that Dunthorn is a few data points short of a histogram, and I should stop worrying about it :-) (note he doesn't stop with scanning - he is very dismissive of ACR too. Which even though I don't find gives me the best results, I do realise has been put together by some very bright people)
(Schewe: I think there is still a relatively large number of people interested in film. They have different reasons. Sometimes just because it gives them pleasure, which is good enough reason, no ? In my case, I still want to use my XPan, which means I have to use film. Maybe one day there will be a digital alternative, but even if there is, it will almost certainly be beyond my means. And I do actually enjoy switching back to scanning film sometimes. Emphasis on "sometimes". I'm mostly digital).