Workflow post processing photos of negatives

[tonygamble]

I had a separate thread when I was dealing with workflows and the output from my v700 scanner.

I have bought a stand so I can photograph my negs, against a lightbox, with my m43 camera. I'm hoping it will prove faster than the v700.

At the moment I am struggling with compiling a workflow routine that will convert the photo of the neg into a useable positive. When I googled the suggestions at the top of the list suggested correcting the colour balance and tonality was best done on the negative.

My thoughts are that the first thing one should do is turn the neg into a positive. Then maybe sort out the colour balance, probably much due to the base of the film - and go on from there.

Probably at least one, or maybe two, of the workflow widgets should have 'breaks' on them.

Whilst I do some more experimenting I'd love to collect the wisdom and experience from users of this forum - please!

Tony

[jsachs]

PWP has a Color/Negative transformation that does this, but the results are often worse than doing the conversion in a scanner since the curves that need to be applied to the scanned image are usually very steep. At the very least you need to start with 16-bit image data.

[tonygamble]

Thanks Jonathan,

I've used that transformation but my first problem seemed to be colour balance and the next the contrast. You make the point about the curve needing to be steeper in the centre.

I'll keep experimenting.

Tony

[jsachs]

I haven't used this transformation is a while, but as I recall if you play with the gamma sliders you should be able to adjust both color balance and contrast somewhat.

[tonygamble]

Thanks J,

I'll give it a go.

Tony

[tonygamble]

You are right. It is possible to do everything I seem to need with that one transformation.

I set my own black and white points.

I dropped back the red slider.

I upped the saturation.

I then fine tuned the tonal range by going back to the vertical sliders that show when the black and white points are chosen. Most times I simply needed to up the contrast.

I reckon I am getting sharper and better toned images with my Olympus E-M5 than I have been doing with my Epson V700 scanner. I now need to work out a good way of feeding the film, frame by frame, across the lightbox so I can click on each image. I also think this method will be faster - which was my main object in the first place.

If anything else interesting emerges I will report back.

And thank you so much for 'workflow'. It is brilliant.

Tony

[Dieter Mayr]

Tony,

with Color-Negative I usually set the black point to a unexposed area of the film ( border between images, strip with perforation) and white point to auto.
This gives me usually good results, at least as a base to refine further.

[tonygamble]

Thanks Dieter,

I'll try that tomorrow.

Tony