VUESCAN: Possible to set color negative base neutral?

[rs]

I seem to have the most dificulty using Vuescan with my Nikon IV scanner and
color negative film. I mostly use NPH NPS and 160NC. Scans tend to come out
pink as its very dificult to get accurate skin tones. Is it possible to
somehow have Vuescan measure and set a base setting on a blank, exposed &
developed piece of film and then use that neutral setting to scan an actual
negative?

thanks to all

 

[Erik Krause]

I seem to have the most dificulty using Vuescan with my Nikon IV scanner and
color negative film. I mostly use NPH NPS and 160NC. Scans tend to come
out pink as its very dificult to get accurate skin tones. Is it possible to
somehow have Vuescan measure and set a base setting on a blank, exposed &
developed piece of film and then use that neutral setting to scan an actual
negative?

You apparently need an *unexposed* piece of film, an exposed one would
be black. See "advanced workflow" in the vuescan manual for details.

Since you use a nikon scanner you can use an even better approach by
adjusting Green and Blue analog gain. Search for a posting (by me) with
subject 'Re: Vuescan: my new advanced workflow' for details.

 

[Jim]

I seem to have the most dificulty using Vuescan with my Nikon IV scanner and
color negative film. I mostly use NPH NPS and 160NC. Scans tend to come out
pink as its very dificult to get accurate skin tones. Is it possible to
somehow have Vuescan measure and set a base setting on a blank, exposed &
developed piece of film and then use that neutral setting to scan an actual
negative?

thanks to all

Is the base color of your negative film orange as it is supposed to be?
That color is used as a bias (known color - all others are unknown to the
scanner). If it isn't orange, your best bet is to use ROC because the
colors in your film have shifted. It would do no good to try blank film
because such film would not have shifted colors.

I have never tried Vuescan to get to ROC. I had great success with the LS40
and Nikon Scan using ROC to solve color shift problems.
Jim

 

[rs]

Erik, yes of course I meant unexposed but developed to set the film base.

Where should I be searching for your previously posted information? here on
this group?

thank you

Rick
www.rickschiller.com

 

[Mendel Leisk]

This thread is specific to Elite 5400, but may be of use:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group...gative+workflow&rnum=1&hl=en#eb0fe6bddf27ea34

The discussion revolves around optimizing exposure by scanning the
leader. I got nice results with this workflow, except that I used
purely manual exposure.

 

[Erik Krause]

Where should I be searching for your previously posted information? here on
this group?

Yes. You can search for the subject line 'Vuescan: my new advanced
workflow' or for this Message-ID:
<[email protected]>

For your convenience I quote my text here:

For C41 I have another super-advanced workflow only applicable to Nikon
scanners: Do normal advanced workflow, then in color tab look at the
film base color values. Take the largest one and divide by the next
one. Take the result as a multiplier for the corresponding channel
analog gain value. Do the same for the remaining channel.

If f.e. your channels have film base color values: Red 0.9, Green 0.6
and Blue 0.5 the resulting analog gain values will be Red 1.0, Green
1.5 and Blue 1.8. Unlock film base color, do another preview and lock
again. The film base color values on color tab should be all more or
less the same. If they differ you can repeat the steps.

This way you get a pretty neutral negative. Now you can increase all
(locked) film base color values to 1.0 and scan the whole roll of film
with these settings. In my experience this neutralization of film base
color by different channel exposure works much better than the
mathematical one and you get almost clipping-free image data.