An alternative to Negative Lab Pro and Lr has to exist (C-41 reversal and orange mask removal)?!

[removedacct2]

What's more, is that to get NLP I also had to install Windows, as I'm a Linux user. NLP is **that** good.

I have been running NLP on LR6 through WINE in Linux and FreeBSD, since I bought it in march 2020

 

[urnem57]

My question is more directed towards LR & PS post production from a converted B&W negative. I want to learn some different techniques. Can I follow the info that I find for converting color negs to B&W images? Would the same actions work for the steps AFTER the color neg becomes a B&W file? This is assuming that both my b&W converted RGB file is the same as a color neg converted to a B&W RGB file. I think I’m getting closer to explaining my question. Thanks. I don’t want to hijack the thread, but an understanding of a converted color neg vs. a B&W converted neg may be helpful to others as well.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I have found PhotoLine works very well under wine on my Linux system. Ryzen 7 and 32GB ram.

 

[Tim Gray]

My question is more directed towards LR & PS post production from a converted B&W negative. I want to learn some different techniques. Can I follow the info that I find for converting color negs to B&W images? Would the same actions work for the steps AFTER the color neg becomes a B&W file? This is assuming that both my b&W converted RGB file is the same as a color neg converted to a B&W RGB file. I think I’m getting closer to explaining my question. Thanks. I don’t want to hijack the thread, but an understanding of a converted color neg vs. a B&W converted neg may be helpful to others as well.

I’m not quite clear on your question still. Working with B&W scans is pretty straightforward in PS. No other software needed. Invert the image then use levels, curves, and other techniques to adjust the gamma, contrast, and exposure to your liking. To state he obvious, you will not be able to use channel mixer type techniques to mimic color filters (ex. to darken a blue sky) because you have a B&W scan, regardless if it is a RGB file or grayscale file.

There are lots of ways to do your edits: luminosity masks to target certain tones, simple curves, etc. I have many PS actions to tackle different tasks, and many of them are also applicable to color negative scan processing as well.

 

[urnem57]

Thanks that explains what I am after. Is there any difference from simply inverting the image in PS as opposed to running it through NLP, etc.? I suppose whatever results it would give are really only starting points anyhow. From what I have seen B&W post production can become very involved, depending on what one is trying to achieve.

 

[Tim Gray]

For B&W, I think there is no advantage to NLP. For color negatives, when I compared NLP to what I could get with PS actions, I decided to just stick with PS. Depends on your comfort with PS. I am now scanning with a camera, and my B&W PS action is pretty similar to what I used with a scanner. Some settings are different but still a combination of levels and curves layers for large adjustments, and a few highlight/shadow specific adjustment layers with luminosity masks. I have been doing the actual inversion in ACR, as I can quickly make a ‘contact sheet’ by just exporting downscaled images right from ACR.

Note, I’ve only played with the NLP demo. Seems nice and if you use LR Classic and it appeals to you, it’s a good package.

 

[PhilBurton]

For B&W, I think there is no advantage to NLP. For color negatives, when I compared NLP to what I could get with PS actions, I decided to just stick with PS. Depends on your comfort with PS. I am now scanning with a camera, and my B&W PS action is pretty similar to what I used with a scanner. Some settings are different but still a combination of levels and curves layers for large adjustments, and a few highlight/shadow specific adjustment layers with luminosity masks. I have been doing the actual inversion in ACR, as I can quickly make a ‘contact sheet’ by just exporting downscaled images right from ACR.

Note, I’ve only played with the NLP demo. Seems nice and if you use LR Classic and it appeals to you, it’s a good package.

I'm confused here, probably because I know Lightroom pretty well, but not ACR or Photoshop (where I am a true noob). If you do the actions in Photoshop, isn't that where the inversion takes place? So why is ACR involved?
Do you have a link for the source for any of these actions?

 

[Tim Gray]

There’s inversion and then there is negating the color mask, and finally color correction. All can be done with varying degrees of success in raw development or PS. I find for color neg, negating the color mask (if the scan is a camera ‘scan’) is best done in the raw developer (math reasons - linear color space). I got good results with inverting the image in both the raw developer and PS. The final color correction I prefer to do in PS. It should be possible to do it in a raw developer, it’s just that I don’t fine the tools to be optimized for it. For example, when you invert in ACR, the highlight and shadow slider work on shadows and highlights.

I could package up my actions, but they are not necessarily streamlined. I’ll have to clean them up a bit.

For B&W it really is easier. Invert, do some curves, dodge and burn. There are multiple ways to do all of the contrast manipulations.

 

[PhilBurton]

There’s inversion and then there is negating the color mask, and finally color correction. All can be done with varying degrees of success in raw development or PS. I find for color neg, negating the color mask (if the scan is a camera ‘scan’) is best done in the raw developer (math reasons - linear color space). I got good results with inverting the image in both the raw developer and PS. The final color correction I prefer to do in PS. It should be possible to do it in a raw developer, it’s just that I don’t fine the tools to be optimized for it. For example, when you invert in ACR, the highlight and shadow slider work on shadows and highlights.

I could package up my actions, but they are not necessarily streamlined. I’ll have to clean them up a bit.

For B&W it really is easier. Invert, do some curves, dodge and burn. There are multiple ways to do all of the contrast manipulations.

Thanks for the explanations.

Phil

 

[urnem57]

Great discussion. It helps demystify the process.

 

[runswithsizzers]

Not only is there no advantage to using NLP over Photoshop/Lightroom, there are some big disadvantages. If a negative is inverted using NLP in Lightroom, then forever afterwards many of Lightroom's adjustment tools work backwards or in unexpected and useles ways - that is, unless you take further steps to export the file as a TIFF and then re-import it into Lightroom. NLP essentially cripples many of the sophisticated tools you paid for in Lightroom. I might tolerate NLP invalidating Lightroom's normal tools to get accurate colors - but for b&w - no way.

For b&w, I prefer to open the RAW camera-scans in Photoshop (via ACR), and invert to positive in Photoshop. For one thing, Photoshop has superior tools (compared to Lightroom) for removing dust and scratches. And in Photoshop, I can apply corrections to local areas of my images - which I can not do in NLP. After I get the b&w positive looking pretty good, then I will save that as a 16-bit TIFF in Grayscale, and import the TIFF into Lightroom - where I can add Captions, Keywords, etc. I also wait to do any cropping or toning in Lightroom so those changes are non-destructive and reversable.

BTW, if you are digitizing color slides, I don't believe NLP is any help there, either.

 

[Tim Gray]

Thanks for the explanations.

Phil

I will definitely package up a B&W action with a write up to share this weekend. I’ll try to do the color neg too. I can’t claim my method is superior, good, or not convoluted. But maybe it is useful to someone.

 

[Nelari]

If I have a bit of time I should create a thread with details and screenshots, for running NLP and Color Perfect on Linux and FreeBSD.

I have now installed the trial versions of PhotoLine and ColorPerfect on my Linux machine. Installation was rather simple, and the two cooperate just fine (OK, PhotoLine's help does not work).

Next, I tested them with my color negatives from the 1970's (Fuji/Kodak/Agfa). I was curious to see whether this combination (~140€) would work better than my previous negfix8+ImageMagick (0€) solution. Yes, it did, but... Not by much. Both do well on Fuji. PLCP does better on Kodak, but not always – it fails on some specimens, just like nf8IM. Agfa is similar in that nf8IM fails almost always, but PLCP doesn't, always.

The problem now is that these were old films, and I can't be certain that the results hold for current (fresh) ones. Then again, I don't have any current and fresh ones, have I? I guess I'll just try to shoot and develop some...

 

[removedacct2]

I have now installed the trial versions of PhotoLine and ColorPerfect on my Linux machine. Installation was rather simple, and the two cooperate just fine (OK, PhotoLine's help does not work).

I don't use the PL inline help, but i have just checked on my system, and it works, ie. clicking on top menu bar "?" > "Hilfthemen" , but shortkey call F1 doesn't (could be configurable in Wine settings).

I tested them with my color negatives from the 1970's (Fuji/Kodak/Agfa). I was curious to see whether this combination (~140€) would work better than my previous negfix8+ImageMagick (0€) solution. Yes, it did, but... Not by much. Both do well on Fuji. PLCP does better on Kodak, but not always – it fails on some specimens, just like nf8IM. Agfa is similar in that nf8IM fails almost always, but PLCP doesn't, always.

The problem now is that these were old films, and I can't be certain that the results hold for current (fresh) ones. Then again, I don't have any current and fresh ones, have I? I guess I'll just try to shoot and develop some...

I guess you have gone through the docs of CP, but just in case: it's critical to scan as instructed . And the film profile to set in the bottom left menu may be important for some emulsions (not critical, this can be corrected, and a profile created for a given film in order to speed processing of more rolls).
My oldest colour negatives are from the 80's, some Afga, some Fuji, some Kodak, and I don't recall difficult negatives.
With Imagemagick and derivated scripts like negfix8 I always had some more manual tweaking to do, like also with Gimp. Less to none in CP.
Could pick and load couple old and new raw scans of negatives, and the results in negafix8, gimp, NLP, CP, ...

 

[removedacct2]

I was curious to see whether this combination (~140€) would work better than my previous negfix8+ImageMagick (0€) solution.

also, you may be aware of blog posts like this one, where it is about the inversion/conversion directly in EpsonScan software (so Epson V scanner):
https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2019/10/16/manual-inversion-of-color-negative-film

i used Gimp for a while in a similar way, and just recorded the steps and set them as batch for processing of the rest of a roll. (batch mode make GUI easy with the BIMP plugin).

 

[runswithsizzers]

NLP allows you to create an inverted positive which you can continue to tweak in Lightroom. Speaking of B&W, I am actually starting to use NLP for that too, because it saves me time. I would suggest "Gamma" inversion profile, followed by a slight brightness adjustment and quick click on "soft highlights" to see if there's improvement. 99% of the time this gives me the look I want.

Yes, it does as I mentioned "...unless you take further steps..." But the problem with that is this: a RAW file from the camera I use to copy film is 33.5MB. But if I convert it to a NLP positive (as a 16-bit TIFF), the resulting new file is about 90MB. And that is in addition to the original RAW file. Plus, now I have two copies of the same file on my hard drive, unless I delete the origional RAW. Several alternatives, but none are particularly attractive to me.

So I am curious, how do deal with this?
a. Keep both files, and just keep buying new hard drives?
b. Delete the original RAW file and hope you don't want to start over from scratch?
c. Convert the new positive to an 8-bit TIFF (40MB), or a JPEG (10MB) rather than a 16-bit TIFF (90MB)?
d. Something else?

 

[urnem57]

Wow! That images pops.

 

[PhilBurton]

NLP allows you to create an inverted positive which you can continue to tweak in Lightroom. Speaking of B&W, I am actually starting to use NLP for that too, because it saves me time. I would suggest "Gamma" inversion profile, followed by a slight brightness adjustment and quick click on "soft highlights" to see if there's improvement. 99% of the time this gives me the look I want.

@Old Gregg
Using NLP with Lightroom, how much effort was it for you to deal with the "work backwards" sliders?

For me, that's a major, major issue with adopting NLP to deal with scanned images, so now I'm inclined to learn about PS tools for doing inversions for both B&W and color.

 

[PhilBurton]

I will definitely package up a B&W action with a write up to share this weekend. I’ll try to do the color neg too. I can’t claim my method is superior, good, or not convoluted. But maybe it is useful to someone.

+1

 

[urnem57]

I have been playing around with both the FLP and the NLP trials. Great to be able to try both. For my use, I don’t do much with LR, as I use Photo Mechanic and the PS for my editing. I really have little need for LR. It’s simple to move a 16 bit TIFF to PS from NLP or FLP. At least for B/W both programs create a decent starting point. I will also be doing color, so I haven’t decided yet. But the FLP subscription model is not appealing. To purchase it, the price is 2x that of NLP.

 

[grat]

Darktable. Negadoctor. Non-destructive editing. Repeatable recipes. Windows, Mac, Linux.

Yeah, darktable's interface paradigm is a little tricky to get used to. But it works well once mastered.

 

[urnem57]

Thanks. I didn’t know that one existed.

 

[Mesabound]

@Old Gregg
Using NLP with Lightroom, how much effort was it for you to deal with the "work backwards" sliders?

For me, that's a major, major issue with adopting NLP to deal with scanned images, so now I'm inclined to learn about PS tools for doing inversions for both B&W and color.

As Gregg mentioned, once you create the inverted positive (via checking a box in the NLP conversion window) the ensuing file is able to be edited normally within LR (i.e. the sliders are not reversed). Also as Gregg (and runswithsizzers) mentioned, this is not ideal, but absolutely the only sensible way of approaching an edit in LR w/ an NLP conversion. IMO the duplicate file is the biggest drawback to NLP and one I would classify as a "necessary evil" in avoiding the intensive labor involved in PS manual conversions (if you are very on top of your file management the duplicates may not prove to be such a headache, but I have a propensity to let the volume of images I'm typically converting sweep me away from organizational tasks, leaving my library a mess). That said, it's very handy for batch converting 35mm and 120. I bought it after spending probably ~10 min balancing the color of one manual PS conversion that NLP surpassed in 15 seconds.

 

[grat]

Interestingly, while playing with DSLR scanning and stitching large images together with Affinity, I discovered that the "Auto Colors" option under Affinity did a pretty accurate job of fixing colors, either pre- or post- inversion, at least on Portra 400 film.

 

[urnem57]

Interesting. I will try that, as I already have Affinity on an IPad. No question about the time saved with NLP. The 4x5 B/W are done one at a time, but when I start on 30+ years of 35mm negs, one at a time won’t cut it. I am learning a lot on here. Thank you!