High-key and Vuescan?

[Ralf R. Radermacher]

Suggestions, anyone?

Ralf

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

Suggestions, anyone?

Use the advanced workflow to get the exposure and film base color
right. Then, with a locked exposure, adjust the White point to 0% to
avoid any clipping. You may need to reduce the locked exposure a tiny
bit to avoid clipping the Raw data all together, or use 0% exposure
clipping.

The Black point should be kept very low (very close to 0%) as well,
because even a veeery small percentage already boosts contrast beyond
the goal. A 0% Black point is probably all you can afford to choose.

Bart

 

[Ralf R. Radermacher]

Use the advanced workflow to get the exposure and film base color
right. Then, with a locked exposure, adjust the White point to 0% to
avoid any clipping. You may need to reduce the locked exposure a tiny
bit to avoid clipping the Raw data all together, or use 0% exposure
clipping.

The Black point should be kept very low (very close to 0%) as well,
because even a veeery small percentage already boosts contrast beyond
the goal. A 0% Black point is probably all you can afford to choose.

Even with the black point set to 0 %, Vuescan still insists on spreading
the data down to (near) black, completely destroying the intended
effect. Trying to re-arrange the tonality in PS only messes things up
even further. Lots of noise and varying colour casts across the frame.

So far, the best I've got has been achieved by manually raising
Vuescan's colour mask values but this is extremely tedious and rarely
works for more than a single frame. Trouble is, we're talking about 5
complete rolls of film shot in dense early morning fog with the sun just
lightly breaking through. Wonderful atmosphere but none of it shows in
my scans.

There used to be dedicated "high-key" and "low-key" settings in
Silverfast for my LS-2000 but these have magically disappeared in the
current version, probably to complement the sad loss of the genuine ICE
functionality.... :-/

Ralf

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

Even with the black point set to 0 %, Vuescan still insists on spreading
the data down to (near) black, completely destroying the intended
effect.

What Color balancing do you use? If you use None, combined with
adequate exposure levels, there should be no black. Likewise, if you
Input|Lock image color then with adequate exposure there should be no
black.

Trying to re-arrange the tonality in PS only messes things up even
further. Lots of noise and varying colour casts across the frame.

That obviously shouldn't happen and, assuming a correct color balance
when scanning, the bottom PS Levels slider for the shadows should
allow to reduce the blacks.

So far, the best I've got has been achieved by manually raising
Vuescan's colour mask values but this is extremely tedious and
rarely works for more than a single frame.

Yes, that's why I didn't mention it.

Trouble is, we're talking about 5 complete rolls of film shot in
dense early morning fog with the sun just lightly breaking through.
Wonderful atmosphere but none of it shows in my scans.

Whatever trickery it takes, there must be a possibility, assuming the
contrast was indeed low. Perhaps a small example to try with Photoshop
would help...

Bart

 

[Erik Krause]

Suggestions, anyone?

Advanced workflow and color balance None?