Color Negative Manual Conversion Advice

[LolaColor]

So, that would mean both right exposure and white balance, correct?

Yes, or very close. For that negative, a digital photo taken at the same time and with the same lens has the F16 patch coming in at middle grey brightness using the default Adobe profiles in ACR, and white balance for the shot is 5000, tint +4. So not quite the 5500K that film is probably designed for, but close enough.

I guess the variable here is Darktable. Why is it used? I presume the method would work if doing fully manually?)

I wasn't happy with the results from ACR (the linear profile you can generate is not really linear) so I went in search of another RAW converter that would convert RAW to a TIFF with linear gamma. Before this I tried RAW Therapee and it did make a linear TIFF, I think, but the results were not good. By "not good" I mean the excessive colour cast and other colour wonkiness I showed above. It looks to me like Darktable with WB turned off (and I think that's the key) gives good results when inverted. I'm not sure what you mean about "fully manually" - you have to process the RAW file somehow. But it looks like how it's converted will have implications for the results.

Then another levels layer to adjust the red and blue to match green using F16 patch? If possible could you explain the steps here and how?

So I get a TIFF with linear gamma from Darktable and then everything after that is a reference to adjustment layers in Photoshop. The file is still in linear ProPhoto space. Normally ProPhoto has a gamma of 1.8 but this is a special variant with a gamma of 1.0. So I'm using the gamma sliders of the individual channels of the Levels adjustment layer(s) to adjust exposure and global colour balance of the scan. However, the order that you do them in seems to be important at least for some operations (specifically, the exposure adjustment layer should be on top of the invert layer, not underneath). The order I describe above is what worked for me.

Yes, I'm being very meticulous about getting patch F16 bang on. That's so I can compare the results to a Noritsu scan and an RA4 print where I was just as meticulous. Then I can see, for example, that ACR gave me results that are off, as did RawTherapee and Darktable with WB module turned on. But Darktable with WB module turned off was good.

In reality you wouldn't be carefully balancing from a grey reference, you'd be doing it by eye in search of whatever looks good to you. But I think it's too slow a process for doing large batches as there's too much faffing about in Photoshop. If I was doing a batch of negs then I'd get one of the plugins that interact with ACR.

BTW, Darktable has a negative inversion function built in. It's called "negadoctor". It has lots of sliders but I haven't looked too closely at it in terms of assessing its colour accuracy or integrity.

 

[LolaColor]

OK, so now I've looked at the negadoctor module within Darktable and I would highly recommend it as a solution for DSLR scanning due to the quality of the file produced and the ease of workflow. This is the result with a few clicks and sliders and there doesn't seem to be anything weird happening with either colour casts or colour reproduction:

Forget about everything in my last couple of posts. You can do all the major balancing within Darktable and contrast correction too. In terms of your original post and with reference to Adrian's method, this method removes the orange mask and balances the neg for colour and exposure resulting in a scan that preserves the inherent colour cast of the film and avoids a wrong and strong colour cast. It falls short of balancing grey cards at all exposures and colorimetrically altering hues to match a colour chart, as it should in my opinion.

First turn off some of the modules that are on by default in Darktable.

Turn off
- filmic rgb
- sharpen
- highlight reconstruction

Then add negadoctor module. You only need to do 2 things here:

- click on the film base to remove orange mask:

- in the second tab "corrections", use the highlights sliders ("illuminant red gain" etc) to adjust global colour balance. These operate like CMY filters when optically printing (and in reality must be the gain multipliers that Adrian was referring to):

Now you have a colour balanced image. But, for some reason, if you try to adjust exposure using either the "exposure" module or the "scanner exposure settings" in the first tab you lose the colour balance you've set. One way around that is to move (ctrl+shift drag) the "exposure" module so that it's above the "negadoctor" module. Another is to use the third tab of negadoctor, "print properties/virtual paper properties" to adjust overall exposure and contrast too, if desired. The colour balance you set then stays the same.

So with a few clicks and slides you can get a nice flat, neutral, well exposed image with good colour. And if you tweak the virtual paper properties you can get the contrast right and may not need to do much at all in another application for editing.

I think the colour reproduction with this method is good, and it's relatively fast. It's a good piece of software and it's also free!

 

[Lewipix]

Yes, or very close. For that negative, a digital photo taken at the same time and with the same lens has the F16 patch coming in at middle grey brightness using the default Adobe profiles in ACR, and white balance for the shot is 5000, tint +4. So not quite the 5500K that film is probably designed for, but close enough.


I wasn't happy with the results from ACR (the linear profile you can generate is not really linear) so I went in search of another RAW converter that would convert RAW to a TIFF with linear gamma. Before this I tried RAW Therapee and it did make a linear TIFF, I think, but the results were not good. By "not good" I mean the excessive colour cast and other colour wonkiness I showed above. It looks to me like Darktable with WB turned off (and I think that's the key) gives good results when inverted. I'm not sure what you mean about "fully manually" - you have to process the RAW file somehow. But it looks like how it's converted will have implications for the results.


So I get a TIFF with linear gamma from Darktable and then everything after that is a reference to adjustment layers in Photoshop. The file is still in linear ProPhoto space. Normally ProPhoto has a gamma of 1.8 but this is a special variant with a gamma of 1.0. So I'm using the gamma sliders of the individual channels of the Levels adjustment layer(s) to adjust exposure and global colour balance of the scan. However, the order that you do them in seems to be important at least for some operations (specifically, the exposure adjustment layer should be on top of the invert layer, not underneath). The order I describe above is what worked for me.

Yes, I'm being very meticulous about getting patch F16 bang on. That's so I can compare the results to a Noritsu scan and an RA4 print where I was just as meticulous. Then I can see, for example, that ACR gave me results that are off, as did RawTherapee and Darktable with WB module turned on. But Darktable with WB module turned off was good.

In reality you wouldn't be carefully balancing from a grey reference, you'd be doing it by eye in search of whatever looks good to you. But I think it's too slow a process for doing large batches as there's too much faffing about in Photoshop. If I was doing a batch of negs then I'd get one of the plugins that interact with ACR.

BTW, Darktable has a negative inversion function built in. It's called "negadoctor". It has lots of sliders but I haven't looked too closely at it in terms of assessing its colour accuracy or integrity.

Thank you very much for your explanation. I have read your next post (below) with the change/modification of recommendation to incorporate NegaDoctor but nonetheless, the above is still great info, thanks

BTW, yes I Initially forgot what "darktable" was thinking it was one of those "plugins" to do the conversion (like NLP) as opposed to a raw processor in its own right (with its own plugin/s - modules)

OK, so now I've looked at the negadoctor module within Darktable and I would highly recommend it as a solution for DSLR scanning due to the quality of the file produced and the ease of workflow. This is the result with a few clicks and sliders and there doesn't seem to be anything weird happening with either colour casts or colour reproduction:

View attachment 305711

@grat seems to be also a fan

Color Negative Manual Conversion Advice

Hi All, Firstly, I am aware that there are great software options for color neg conversion/ inversion eg NLP, CP, Negmaster and so on. I am also aware that manual color negative conversion is a complex topic and at times controversial eg making global adjustments for orange masks...... but wish...

www.photrio.com

Forget about everything in my last couple of posts. You can do all the major balancing within Darktable and contrast correction too. In terms of your original post and with reference to Adrian's method, this method removes the orange mask and balances the neg for colour and exposure resulting in a scan that preserves the inherent colour cast of the film and avoids a wrong and strong colour cast. It falls short of balancing grey cards at all exposures and colorimetrically altering hues to match a colour chart, as it should in my opinion.


First turn off some of the modules that are on by default in Darktable.

View attachment 305704
Turn off
- filmic rgb
- sharpen
- highlight reconstruction

Then add negadoctor module. You only need to do 2 things here:

- click on the film base to remove orange mask:

View attachment 305707

- in the second tab "corrections", use the highlights sliders ("illuminant red gain" etc) to adjust global colour balance. These operate like CMY filters when optically printing (and in reality must be the gain multipliers that Adrian was referring to):

View attachment 305708

Now you have a colour balanced image. But, for some reason, if you try to adjust exposure using either the "exposure" module or the "scanner exposure settings" in the first tab you lose the colour balance you've set. One way around that is to move (ctrl+shift drag) the "exposure" module so that it's above the "negadoctor" module. Another is to use the third tab of negadoctor, "print properties/virtual paper properties" to adjust overall exposure and contrast too, if desired. The colour balance you set then stays the same.

View attachment 305710

So with a few clicks and slides you can get a nice flat, neutral, well exposed image with good colour. And if you tweak the virtual paper properties you can get the contrast right and may not need to do much at all in another application for editing.

I think the colour reproduction with this method is good, and it's relatively fast. It's a good piece of software and it's also free!

Thank you so much for this 'tutorial'. Appreciated, and will give it a go.

It is very interesting what you have commented about the color casts and oddly reappearing depending on workflow. I had actually discounted Darktable/Negadoctor because I read a couple of fairly strong comments about the color casts as compared to ColorPerfecet or NegMaster. I suspect now it might be just a quirk that one needs to learn about. FWIW I read exactly the same sort of comments about CP, that it wasn't initially successful but on revisiting after some further reading, they got great results.

Thanks again +++ . I am going to download Darktable/Negadoctor and have a play.

Cheers
David

 

[grat]

OK, so now I've looked at the negadoctor module within Darktable and I would highly recommend it as a solution for DSLR scanning due to the quality of the file produced and the ease of workflow.

You can also, if you're having color problems, on the "Corrections" tab, select a highlight region and/or a shadow region. This can correct color issues faster than using the sliders.

Finally, an underappreciated feature of Darktable is being able to copy some, or all, of the History on an image-- for instance, once you've got the color corrections dialed in with Negadoctor, you can copy those settings, and paste them onto the rest of the images from that roll, rather than having to go in and modify each image.

Now, if I can just wrap my brain around the retouching module.....

 

[LolaColor]

You can also, if you're having color problems, on the "Corrections" tab, select a highlight region and/or a shadow region. This can correct color issues faster than using the sliders.

Yes, that seems like a great way of getting a fairly neutral result from it. However, and to revert to Lewipix's analogy of the audiophile, if you're interested in preserving the colour cast inherent to the film (I mean that you are still doing a global colour balance to taste, which might mean neutral midtones but a slight colour cast in the shadows and highlights that it is particular to each film stock) then it seems to me at the moment with my very limited experience of using this software that sampling the film base and then using gain (highlight) sliders probably does that. I think the offset (shadow) function might throw that out of alignment.

 

[cayenne]

Hello all,

Wow..what an interesting thread. And a good bit of it, over my head in parts...haha.

I'm about to dip my toe into the water of scanning, using my GFX100, etc.

My plan, was to scan with camera and then try to keep a full RAW workflow for as much of the process as I could, to try to have full range of controls.

I'm planning to use Capture One as my RAW converter/work area, and I started with this link: Scanning film negatives with Capture One

I thought I'd start by setting the curve in C1 to "Linear Response" to try to start as neutral as possible and from there, set the WB using the plan negative just outside the frame, and go from there.

Anyway, my hope was to keep as much of the work in RAW....

Any thoughts or suggestions for going this route?

For my pixel editor, I'd be using Affinity Photo....I'm off the Adobe bandwagon for awhile...


Thank you in advance!!

cayenne

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Hi All,

Firstly, I am aware that there are great software options for color neg conversion/ inversion eg NLP, CP, Negmaster and so on. I am also aware that manual color negative conversion is a complex topic and at times controversial eg making global adjustments for orange masks...... but wish to avoid revisiting such discussions if possible.

I am seeking some practical How-To advice based on a couple of threads here where @Adrian Bacon was a main participant.

A lot of the technical discussion is above my pay-grade but I want to give manual conversions a go.

Adrian to the best of my understanding, works with his own code and with raw samples in a non color managed environment. I work in ACR/Photoshop with 35mm film and hope to emulate some of the steps within the boundaries that the tools allow.

So, to my questions:

1) The first step, if I have this right, is to make the gamma of each RGB channel the same, aka linear gamma aka normalize to same gamma = gamma 1.0
Question - How do I do this in ACR or PS? ( In Levels the gamma is already "1.0" for the respective channels by default)

2) Apply Gamma Multipliers "apply gain/multipliers to each channel until the film base plus fog is the same exposure, which will render it as light grey to white,"
Question - How do I do this in ACR or PS?
Question - is this step different to, or related to, White Balancing?

3) Invert (no problems here unless there is a special method?)

4) Shoot a series of gray cards over a range of exposures to see if there are any color casts still apparent

5) Which Color space - perhaps this should have been step 1
I would normally use Adode RGB


As an alternative to step 2, I gather sampling the orange color onto a new layer with Divide blend mode may negate the mask but may or may not be as effective as "multipliers".
Another possibility may be to use the channel mixer tool/layer but I do not know the method.

Anyway, TIA for any tips. Hopefully this may also help others that may be curious.

Cheers
David

Even though I'm mentioned in this thread, for some reason I didn't get a notification about it and just happened to stumble on it. I've not yet read the whole thread, but will give a brief response.

1) Each color channel is not linear. You scanned it in with a sensor that has a mostly linear response, but actual density response of the film itself is not a linear curve (linear being a gamma of 1.0). The blue channel is closest to linear, followed by green, then red (as the camera sees the negative). What you want to do is linearize the films response. The easiest way to do this in ACR or PS is with the RGB tone curve tool. You'll need to know how much to stretch each channel back out to get it mostly linear. The simplest way to do that is to just shoot a grey exposure card with correct exposure, 2 stops under, and 3 stops over. Adjust the tone curve for each channel until the two stops under and the 3 stops over have the same distance between them for each color channel.

2) Use the white balance dropper tool and white balance on the correctly exposed middle grey.

3) Invert. Nothing special to do here.

4) If you did step one correctly, this isn't totally necessary, but can be a good sanity check.

5) Use the biggest color space possible. I recommend ProPhoto mainly because ACR and LR both internally use that and it cuts down on color space conversions.

Other notes: Contrary to what others may say here on photrio, if you did steps 1 and 2 reasonably well, the film mask automatically will go away by itself and you don't have to do anything about it. It will turn black (after inversion) where there's no color response in the 3 channels. If the film base plus fog has a color cast, one or more of your color channels isn't quite linearized right and needs more contrast. It really is that simple. There's nothing complicated about getting rid of the color mask.

The easiest order of operations in ACR/PS would be

1. adjust exposure of the scanned negative so that the correctly exposed grey card is in the middle of the histogram.
2. white balance on said grey card.
3. Use the tone curve tool to stretch the red and blue color channels to match the blue color channel (for the 2 stops under, 3 stops over patches)
4. Use the master tone curve (affects all color channels equally) to finish stretching all the channels so that you have mostly white (but not clipping) film base plus fog and the highlights are mostly black.
5. invert.
6. make any adjustments to taste.

You'll probably find that the white balance can't quite get there as it just doesn't give enough range, you can compensate for this by changing the color of your light to reduce how much the white balance has to move. You'll need to experiment. Once the exposure is so that the correctly exposed grey card is in the middle of the histogram, whichever color is lowest is the color you need to add to your light with gels (or if you are using an RGB light, just make the adjustment to the light).

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I hope people don't get upset with me for for asking this:

What if your digital processing workflow is centered around Lightroom, and jumping over to Photoshop for final touches for challenging images?

There is nothing wrong with that. Adobe Lightroom is ACR with a catalog manager wrapped around it.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I found his posts where he discussed it, the standartization was done for specific films (Portras). Which again does not contradict what I said: you have to tune several variables to get the print you want, and the tuning happens after shooting [1]

In another old thread about scanning, Adrian demonstrated his approach of making all films look like Portra 400, which again aligns nicely with treating color negative film only as a starting foundation to create any look you want. Basically, a flexible "analog RAW", open for tweaking.

[1] Of course you're right about light & filters, but those are always available for all films and all mediums.

That was very early in my path down this road. I currently use a profile that is a blend of everything that is currently available in c-41 land and apply it to everything, which lets differences (relative to the blend) come shining through.

 

[McDiesel]

I just recently discovered grain2pixel Photoshop plugin. It is free yet somehow it beats both Negative Lab Pro and Negmaster in my book. I do not know the differences under the hood, but I am quite impressed with the starting point it generates: it is already super close in overall appearance to my manual conversions. It is also the only tool I trust in batch mode.

Here's Kodak Gold in 120, very few tweaks were applied after grain2pixel here:

 

[Lewipix]

Even though I'm mentioned in this thread, for some reason I didn't get a notification about it and just happened to stumble on it. I've not yet read the whole thread, but will give a brief response.

1) Each color channel is not linear. You scanned it in with a sensor that has a mostly linear response, but actual density response of the film itself is not a linear curve (linear being a gamma of 1.0). The blue channel is closest to linear, followed by green, then red (as the camera sees the negative). What you want to do is linearize the films response. The easiest way to do this in ACR or PS is with the RGB tone curve tool. You'll need to know how much to stretch each channel back out to get it mostly linear. The simplest way to do that is to just shoot a grey exposure card with correct exposure, 2 stops under, and 3 stops over. Adjust the tone curve for each channel until the two stops under and the 3 stops over have the same distance between them for each color channel.

2) Use the white balance dropper tool and white balance on the correctly exposed middle grey.

3) Invert. Nothing special to do here.

4) If you did step one correctly, this isn't totally necessary, but can be a good sanity check.

5) Use the biggest color space possible. I recommend ProPhoto mainly because ACR and LR both internally use that and it cuts down on color space conversions.

Other notes: Contrary to what others may say here on photrio, if you did steps 1 and 2 reasonably well, the film mask automatically will go away by itself and you don't have to do anything about it. It will turn black (after inversion) where there's no color response in the 3 channels. If the film base plus fog has a color cast, one or more of your color channels isn't quite linearized right and needs more contrast. It really is that simple. There's nothing complicated about getting rid of the color mask.

The easiest order of operations in ACR/PS would be

1. adjust exposure of the scanned negative so that the correctly exposed grey card is in the middle of the histogram.
2. white balance on said grey card.
3. Use the tone curve tool to stretch the red and blue color channels to match the blue color channel (for the 2 stops under, 3 stops over patches)
4. Use the master tone curve (affects all color channels equally) to finish stretching all the channels so that you have mostly white (but not clipping) film base plus fog and the highlights are mostly black.
5. invert.
6. make any adjustments to taste.

You'll probably find that the white balance can't quite get there as it just doesn't give enough range, you can compensate for this by changing the color of your light to reduce how much the white balance has to move. You'll need to experiment. Once the exposure is so that the correctly exposed grey card is in the middle of the histogram, whichever color is lowest is the color you need to add to your light with gels (or if you are using an RGB light, just make the adjustment to the light).

Hi Adrian
Thank You for your detailed reply !

I have read many of your old posts with great interest. I know I cannot apply the same algorithms that you use but I have been curious as to the principles involved and possibly might be adopted, to some extent in ACR or PS, given the tools available there.

I get that the RGB channel's gamma should be equal (presumably equal to 1.0 = Linear) but are often a bit off due to the film response being uneven.

Some really basic questions if I may.

1) Re shooting a grey card. I have a thousand or more color negatives from one to two decades ago like Kodak CP 100. I don't have a IT8 transparency target to use with my back-lighting and my camera is digital (Sony A7r4). I could shoot my ColorChecker reflective target using the same LED light source, Neewer 660 Pro at 5600K (that temperature is adjustable). Would that be usable in this context?

2) Presuming yes for above, so now I proceed to get 5 individual grey card images with the bracketed exposures you mentioned. I know how to "stretch" each RGB channel by trimming the white and black points (in curves or levels) but how do i know at what point they become linear or otherwise equal or matching? ...For each of the five images you adjust each RGB channel until your have the same distance between them but what "distance" am I eyeballing or measuring (told you the questions were basic) in say the curves adjustment layer?
When done, how does this information for 5 different grey card images get applied to the camera scans of subsequent negatives? IOW how does this inform the next scan of a color negative? Do you repeat the bracketed exposures on each scan??

Cheers and thanks
David

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Hi Adrian
Thank You for your detailed reply !

I have read many of your old posts with great interest. I know I cannot apply the same algorithms that you use but I have been curious as to the principles involved and possibly might be adopted, to some extent in ACR or PS, given the tools available there.

I get that the RGB channel's gamma should be equal (presumably equal to 1.0 = Linear) but are often a bit off due to the film response being uneven.

Some really basic questions if I may.

1) Re shooting a grey card. I have a thousand or more color negatives from one to two decades ago like Kodak CP 100. I don't have a IT8 transparency target to use with my back-lighting and my camera is digital (Sony A7r4). I could shoot my ColorChecker reflective target using the same LED light source, Neewer 660 Pro at 5600K (that temperature is adjustable). Would that be usable in this context?

2) Presuming yes for above, so now I proceed to get 5 individual grey card images with the bracketed exposures you mentioned. I know how to "stretch" each RGB channel by trimming the white and black points (in curves or levels) but how do i know at what point they become linear or otherwise equal or matching? ...For each of the five images you adjust each RGB channel until your have the same distance between them but what "distance" am I eyeballing or measuring (told you the questions were basic) in say the curves adjustment layer?
When done, how does this information for 5 different grey card images get applied to the camera scans of subsequent negatives? IOW how does this inform the next scan of a color negative? Do you repeat the bracketed exposures on each scan??

Cheers and thanks
David

1) you shoot the grey card exposures on film. I’m not sure what else you’re referring to here.

2) they likely won’t be linear, but they do need to have matching contrast. assuming the correctly exposed grey card is centered in the middle of the scanner cameras histogram and has had the white balance set for it, you’ll be able to see if they match using the histogram. I don’t recommend levels as you can’t do nifty things like drop an anchor point in the middle to keep the white balance from moving around on you while you stretch and contort the tonal distribution.

2b) c-41 is standardized, once you have it worked out, make a note of the settings, and as long as you’re not changing how you capture the frames, it should apply to future rolls with very minor tweaking from roll to roll.

 

[Lewipix]

1) you shoot the grey card exposures on film. I’m not sure what else you’re referring to here.

2) they likely won’t be linear, but they do need to have matching contrast. assuming the correctly exposed grey card is centered in the middle of the scanner cameras histogram and has had the white balance set for it, you’ll be able to see if they match using the histogram. I don’t recommend levels as you can’t do nifty things like drop an anchor point in the middle to keep the white balance from moving around on you while you stretch and contort the tonal distribution.

2b) c-41 is standardized, once you have it worked out, make a note of the settings, and as long as you’re not changing how you capture the frames, it should apply to future rolls with very minor tweaking from roll to roll.

Hi Adrian,

1) I dont have a film camera (just lots of old negs) but I suppose I could hire one to shoot a gray card. Without using a film camera I was pondering if shooting a film target might suffice (probably makes no sense).


2) I guess I also thought all film stock would vary especially from ones that are 20 years old etc, and that shooting a grey card would only be relevant for each roll, or maybe each brand or something

So, (I have never done this) but imagining in my head stretching out each 5 curves, more or less, making all 5 shots align and centered in the middle of their respective histograms, matching the correctly exposed shot

Cheers and thanks

David

 

[Lewipix]

I just recently discovered grain2pixel Photoshop plugin. It is free yet somehow it beats both Negative Lab Pro and Negmaster in my book. I do not know the differences under the hood, but I am quite impressed with the starting point it generates: it is already super close in overall appearance to my manual conversions. It is also the only tool I trust in batch mode.

Here's Kodak Gold in 120, very few tweaks were applied after grain2pixel here:

View attachment 307970

View attachment 307971

Nice.

I just tried it and was amazed at how easy it is to use. Not a great number of options but results out of the can impressive.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Hi Adrian,

1) I dont have a film camera (just lots of old negs) but I suppose I could hire one to shoot a gray card. Without using a film camera I was pondering if shooting a film target might suffice (probably makes no sense).


2) I guess I also thought all film stock would vary especially from ones that are 20 years old etc, and that shooting a grey card would only be relevant for each roll, or maybe each brand or something

So, (I have never done this) but imagining in my head stretching out each 5 curves, more or less, making all 5 shots align and centered in the middle of their respective histograms, matching the correctly exposed shot

Cheers and thanks

David

1) No Sense.

2) C-41 is standardized. This is why you can print pretty much all C-41 negatives on the same RA-4 paper. The only difference between old negs and new negs is the dyes in the old negs may have faded depending on how old they are and how well they were kept, and the color balance usually isn't the same and new negs. I scan old negs in all the time no problem. Once you have that "digital RA-4 paper", it works just fine.

 

[cayenne]

I just recently discovered grain2pixel Photoshop plugin. It is free yet somehow it beats both Negative Lab Pro and Negmaster in my book. I do not know the differences under the hood, but I am quite impressed with the starting point it generates: it is already super close in overall appearance to my manual conversions. It is also the only tool I trust in batch mode.

Here's Kodak Gold in 120, very few tweaks were applied after grain2pixel here:

View attachment 307970

View attachment 307971

Hmm.
I hit the grain2pixel website....looks interesting. I may download it and see if I can get it to work inside Affinity Photo.


I jumped off the Adobe *rental* model years ago....so, will see if this might work.

Otherwise, just keep doing it manual in Capture One and keep the workflow in RAW as long as possible.

cayenne

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I have spent a good deal of time investigating manual colour negative conversion methods and in the end went back to working with ColorPerfect, as it provides much more consistent and high quality results; working from Nikon Coolscan 9000 sourced linear tiff files.

The approach of sampling the film base and performing a division on the image layer doesn't seem to work well for me; and in terms of performing corrections via use of curves, the documentation for CP warns against this approach.

The misconception of RGB curves / ColorPerfect - The misconception of common curve adjustments