Do you know what you actually get with NLP?
Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.
Do you know what you actually get with NLP?
I just watched Matt Days video on it and camera scanning again.
There seems to be much the same work in it as you described above.
Is it really just a hundred dollar orange mask remover?
There are many of these (digicam copy of color negative) on youtube that take you through each of their processes and they all confirm what I already know from my own efforts and that they are not universally applicable to each frame of color negative film. And of course on top of that you still have to deal with dust and scratch removal.
Fortunately I have been using a Coolscan 5000/9000 with Nikonscan and over 40,000 frames of various films later, I have not found anything close to this combination when it comes to accurately rendering color negatives - as well as all other film types. I am hoping that Nikon has instilled into their D850's built-in color negative conversion the same accuracy as Coolscan+Nikonscan combination but I have not yet tried it myself to compare it. But of course this will still not have the unequaled ICE built-into the Coolscan+Nikonscan combination.
Exactly. People who can afford to keep shooting film can afford to pay a good lab to scan it...if they've missed out on Nikon V.
Grain is not objectionable and with fine grain film it’s not even noticeable at normal viewing distances at poster size.
The other option to look at is the ColorPerfect software: https://www.colorperfect.com/
How do the DSLR scanners here reverse their colour negatives?
I don’t want to pay extortion prices for Light Room, for features I’ll never use and certainly not for the necessary Negative Lab Pro on top of that.
Fiddling with reversed curves in PS or other image editors, is not a long term viable option and doesn’t get you results that compares well to a wet optical print.
There has to be a simple piece of software that does the relatively simple job of reversing the orange mask and with profiles for common negative films.
Only I can’t seem to get a clear answer when I ask google.
I used to use Vuescan with the incredibly clunky import option, but I’m really tired of that as you have to work too much for every frame.
Advice would be much appreciated.
Negative Lab Pro is one option, and works fine.
For my own setup and for all the work I do for customers, I use a DSLR and Macro lens in a custom copy stand jig designed for mass scanning. I wrote my own software to do the conversion.
Of course it depends on the effect you want to achieve.If that was true, no one would ever use larger formats.
I agree with you about being free from LR - I mean I do use LR but then again I use digital backs to 'scan' with and LR doesn't do as nice a conversion with those anyway and LR doesn't work with some file formats at all. I had been using a CF-528 multishot / microstep back with a Rollei 6008AF and Rodenstock APO Rodagon lens for my scanning work suspended over a Kaiser light table but I had found the set-up to be very sensitive to focus. Now I'm using a Creo iQsmart 3 which is slower but easier for larger film. I'm not all that happy with the color from the iqsmart sometimes though.
Negative Lab Pro is one option, and works fine.
For my own setup and for all the work I do for customers, I use a DSLR and Macro lens in a custom copy stand jig designed for mass scanning. I wrote my own software to do the conversion. I've never released my software to the general public simply because I make a significant part of my living from using it to do customer work, however, having looked at NLP, I can tell you that it easily provides results equal to if not better than NLP and predates NLP by a couple of years. When NLP first came out, I took a look at it and decided that I'd rather keep doing my software simply because my software runs outside of LR and generates floating point DNG files that can be ingested by pretty much any other software that supports DNG files. NLP operates inside of LR and basically uses LRs Develop Module tools to get to a reasonably correct positive image. That can and does work, but in all honesty, that's not what those tools were really designed for.
A few other benefits of my software over NLP is when you're in LR, it behaves exactly as if you had shot the picture in raw with a digital camera, meaning the exposure slider is correct and accurate, the color temperature slider is correct and accurate, so daylight film is 5500K, Tungsten film is 3200K, etc. If you shot your daylight film indoors in tungsten lighting, it's a simple matter of changing the white balance to 3200K in the develop module and your color goes back to normal, or if you shot your daylight film in really overcast weather, just change the color temperature slider 6500-8500K or whatever looks the best for the conditions. The LR Develop Module works exactly the same way it would with a digital camera and is very accurate. You can just add additional edits using the Develop module just like with any other raw file.
My software internally operates in 80 bit floating point color and uses the ACES 2065-1 color profile and stores the raw floating point values in the DNG in that color space and embeds a color matrix into the DNG it generates so that LR can convert the samples to its internal ProPhoto color space. It can output either 16 bit floats, 32 bit floats, or gamma corrected 16 bit ints as native CFA samples with the correct metadata so LR knows what to do with it. Essentially, my software looks like a digital camera to LR. It takes the raw scans from all the film types I support and conforms them to look as if it was shot by my software. Since I process and scan film for other people, my software is also designed to natively work within a twin-check sticker film tracking regime, and is designed to bulk process raw scans to DNG files. In short, you get your DNGs from me and import them into LR or your image editor of choice and carry on as if you shot it digitally. For the end user, it couldn't be simpler, for me, it has been quite a bit of work, however, the results are excellent. Most images I've uploaded to my media gallery and to my Flickr stream have been run through my software if anybody wants to see it's output.
I'm not knocking on NLP... It can be a great solution for a lot of people, and in pretty much every way is a big step forward in film scanning. It's just not what I would do if it were me.
If that was true, no one would ever use larger formats.
What about tilt and swing, extended bellows and other "conveniences" offered by the LF cameras?
PE
Can you at least give us a few results of your wonder software to compare ? An image of your digitization setup would be quite nice also
Adrian, as one who has written quite a few programs in C, C++, Assembly and other languages, and one who has worked with color space for product design, this is NOT easy or straightforward to the average person. This is daunting. Go easy on the average guy here.
After all, if such things were easy, I would challenge you to design a color film - and process.
PE
Not true. That might be the origin of tilt, but it has so many artistic uses.Most of these, other than shift, are needed to deal with the inherent shallow DOF larger formats have. I sure wouldn't choose using my 4X5 over a 35mm with a ext tube for "convenience".
Thanks for the friendly advice. I’ll try that.Take a deep breath Helge. You're too tense.
I use a strobe diffused through a custom diffuser with enough separation between the film and the last diffuser stage that its completely out of focus and therefore a very smooth and diffuse light source. The strobe gives me very consistent and repeatable results, and I don't have to worry too much about light contamination because I'm operating at f/11 to f/16 at 1/250, which is easily several stops above the ambient room light. If the strobe don't fire, you get a black frame, when it does fire, you get the absolute minimum amount of anything that might introduce vibration induced blur. 35mm film can sometimes be a bit finicky with focus, especially if it's got a strong curl along it's longitude, but for that, I just go up to f/16-f/22 and turn the strobe power up. There's a little added diffraction, however, I'm using a very expensive macro lens, and with it, my setup is over 4000dpi for 35mm film. Jpegs scaled down to even a quarter of the resolution of the native sensor resolution have a *crazy* amount of fine detail. I'd rather have it in focus, than go for maximum sharpness and struggle with having frames in focus. For 120, there's close to 2 feet between the film and sensor. F/11 is plenty of DOF there. For me, going the DSLR route with custom software is a simple matter of speed. I can buzz through a freshly dry roll of 36 exposure film and be looking at the entire roll in LR in less than 15 minutes, with little to no retouching except for a spot of dust/fiber here or there, or the occasional scratch, and at most, some basic Develop Module touch ups if that.
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