Anyone help with Nikon Coolscan V ED (LS50) color problem on Agfachrome?

[Fred Toewe]

Dear List,

Perhaps this is a well documented problem, or not - but I am having a
problem scanning some slides on the Nikon LS 50 scanner. They are
Agfachrome film but the unique feature is that the film is smaller than
normal 35mm. The opening in the slide holder is only about 23mm square. I
do not know whether this is important to the scanner or not, but it is the
only obvious difference.

The problem that I have is that the processed color comes out extremely cyan
or purple or magenta. It seems to randomly pick one of these colors for
each image. There is just a hint of the picture visible in the processed
image, but 95% of the pixels are saturated with the chosen color.

Turning off the ROC feature of Digital Ice eliminates this extreme color,
but also does not correct the color as I would like it to do and as it does
so well for the rest of my slides.

So can anyone relate to this issue and is there a known solution?

Thanks for any help.

Fred

 

[Jim]

Dear List,

Perhaps this is a well documented problem, or not - but I am having a
problem scanning some slides on the Nikon LS 50 scanner. They are
Agfachrome film but the unique feature is that the film is smaller than
normal 35mm. The opening in the slide holder is only about 23mm square. I
do not know whether this is important to the scanner or not, but it is the
only obvious difference.

The problem that I have is that the processed color comes out extremely cyan
or purple or magenta. It seems to randomly pick one of these colors for
each image. There is just a hint of the picture visible in the processed
image, but 95% of the pixels are saturated with the chosen color.

Turning off the ROC feature of Digital Ice eliminates this extreme color,
but also does not correct the color as I would like it to do and as it does
so well for the rest of my slides.

So can anyone relate to this issue and is there a known solution?

Thanks for any help.

Fred

The Anscochrome film has undergone the infamous color shift. The only way I
know to fix this is to use ROC. It is much too late to apply my only known
real fix which is to avoid such film.
By the way, lots and lots of my Kodacolor II images have a problem like
that.
Jim

 

[Alan Smithee]

Dear List,

Perhaps this is a well documented problem, or not - but I am having a
problem scanning some slides on the Nikon LS 50 scanner. They are
Agfachrome film but the unique feature is that the film is smaller than
normal 35mm. The opening in the slide holder is only about 23mm square. I
do not know whether this is important to the scanner or not, but it is the
only obvious difference.

The problem that I have is that the processed color comes out extremely cyan
or purple or magenta. It seems to randomly pick one of these colors for
each image. There is just a hint of the picture visible in the processed
image, but 95% of the pixels are saturated with the chosen color.

Turning off the ROC feature of Digital Ice eliminates this extreme color,
but also does not correct the color as I would like it to do and as it does
so well for the rest of my slides.

So can anyone relate to this issue and is there a known solution?

Thanks for any help.

Fred

VueScan has a pretty good Restore Color feature. It works by correcting the
slide's tendency toward shifting to magenta/red as they age. Also, your
software may be picking up on the border of the slide, I believe there is a
setting in Vuescan which takes the color reading from a percentage inward
from the selection box thus there is no chance that you're calibrating on
the slide holder.

 

[Roy]

Dear List,

Perhaps this is a well documented problem, or not - but I am having a
problem scanning some slides on the Nikon LS 50 scanner. They are
Agfachrome film but the unique feature is that the film is smaller than
normal 35mm. The opening in the slide holder is only about 23mm square.
I do not know whether this is important to the scanner or not, but it is
the only obvious difference.

The problem that I have is that the processed color comes out extremely
cyan or purple or magenta. It seems to randomly pick one of these colors
for each image. There is just a hint of the picture visible in the
processed image, but 95% of the pixels are saturated with the chosen
color.

Turning off the ROC feature of Digital Ice eliminates this extreme color,
but also does not correct the color as I would like it to do and as it
does so well for the rest of my slides.

So can anyone relate to this issue and is there a known solution?

Thanks for any help.

Fred

Hi there.

I am not sure of this may be relevant, but what colour are the Slide Mounts?

I hardly ever used Agfa film, but can vaguely remember them coming in a
sort of Brown Plastic Mount. If the mount is slightly transparent, perhaps
the Scanner is detecting that solid colour within the aperture of its slide
carrier, and correcting for it. It might be worthwhile turning off Nik Col
Management, and trying again.

Again, not entirely relevant, but I have scanned some colour slides taken a
a Minolta Sub Min. It used Perutz 16mm film. They are in standard 2 inch
cardboard mounts, with a small opening, and while they scanned much better
than I ever imagined, are still not exactly high quality.

Roy G

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Dear List,

Perhaps this is a well documented problem, or not - but I am having a
problem scanning some slides on the Nikon LS 50 scanner. They are
Agfachrome film but the unique feature is that the film is smaller than
normal 35mm. The opening in the slide holder is only about 23mm square. I
do not know whether this is important to the scanner or not, but it is the
only obvious difference.

The limited frame size could quite possibly be the problem.
The NikonScan software bases its algorithms for exposure, black and
white point selection etc. on the area of the scan defined by the crop.
If you have not defined a crop area then the entire frame will be
considered as part of the image, including the slide mount.

Depending on the age of the film and its fade characteristics, and
Agfachrome isn't one of the best in this respect, the black level of the
actual film may be considerably lighter than the mount, causing the
black point to be a long way out from where it should be.

Switch ROC off to begin with and look at the preview - including the
curves. Create a crop area within the actual frame and grab a second
preview to determine if the characteristics of the data have changed.

If the image has improved, you can save the current crop as a user
setting so that you don't need to re-enter it every time you scan a
frame that size.

I find ROC to be a bit of a sledgehammer that produces over-saturated
results under most conditions anyway and would only consider it if the
original had badly faded colours.

 

[Jim]

I find ROC to be a bit of a sledgehammer that produces over-saturated
results under most conditions anyway and would only consider it if the
original had badly faded colours.
--

It was the only way to recover scans of E2 and E4. It helped a lot with
Kodacolor II also. I don't remember needing it on Anscochrome, but my
slides of Anscochrome have serious grain issues (more correctly dye cloud
issues).
Jim

 

[Fred Toewe]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. The issue is also under consideration
by Nikon Tech support - so we'll see what they come up with.

For a short while tonight it seemed that by rotating the slide 90 degrees,
the problem disappeared, repeatably - but then the problem disappeared
entirely at any rotation, so who knows...

Incidentally, there is NO unexposed film showing in the slide mount window,
so if Nikon depends on there being some, it ain't there and maybe that is
the issue...

Thanks again and cheers
Fred
=================

 

[Fred Toewe]

The slide mounts are slightly grey to white. They are not the least bit
transparent.

If I were to turn off the Nikon color management, how do I restore the color
to something close to what it started as? These have darkened quite a bit
and gone orange to brown in color cast. Generally ROC has done a great job
of restoring the color - though I wish it had a still lower setting than 1.

Fred
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