Digital copies of analog prints.

dpurdy

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I recently decided I wanted to photograph my platinum prints rather than scan them. I bought a like new condition Nikon 2Xs and a 60mm Micro Nikkor lens. I tested the lens and indeed it is very sharp, well sharp enough to compete with scanner results. However now I am trying to make digital copies of my prints I am having a nightmarish problem with accurate color. I have shot with incandescent and with flash and spent tons of time trying to nail the WB and it just seems like there is a built in color shift and often a color crossover. Does anyone have any advice for me? Is it my sensor or my memory card or my light source? When I put prints on my scanner there is no problem with color. My editing programs are Photoshop elements, Photoshop CS5 and Preview. My images often come out pink.. or just weird.
Thank you.
 

koraks

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What light source are you using?
What you're doing works best with old-fashioned flash/strobes and some modifiers to diffuse the light. Then set the white balance to flash and the colors will come out pretty much OK. Further fine tuning you can do in your raw converter program by adjusting white balance and perhaps color curves as desired.

It all starts with a controlled lighting setup, otherwise it's indeed a frustrating uphill battle.
 

foc

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Hi, can you post a sample of a scanned print and that same print photographed with your digital camera, Please?
 
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dpurdy

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Ah I hadn't thought of trying raw yet. My flash is White Lightening unmodified Flash tube though I have tried with a small soft box. My incandescent source so far has been the modeling light on the flash. I don't have a great spot for evenly lit natural light. I have currently set the WB for flash and adjusted it a bit one way or the other.
 
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dpurdy

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foc said:
Hi, can you post a sample of a scanned print and that same print photographed with your digital camera, Please?
Click to expand...

I am not sure, I think they are both pretty large files. Can I post screen shots?
 

koraks

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dpurdy said:
My flash is White Lightening unmodified Flash tube though I have tried with a small soft box.
Click to expand...

That sounds good, esp. with the soft box and/or bounced. A bare flash strobe tends to make too much of a hot spot and emphasizes any paper texture rather ruthlessly.
Incandescent is OK too in principle, but I usually stick with strobes.

Natural light isn't too great if you're looking for consistent color reproduction as it's just too variable.

Give raw a try and see if helps if you manually adjust the balance a bit in post.
 

jeffreyg

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Do you have your camera set for the light source you are using? Try when post processing in PS to copy, make a new file, paste, change to grayscale, select duo tone, select the tones (3) if necessary that give you close to what you want, usually darker and more contrast (save as a preset) revert to rgb copy bring it back to the original as a new layer and adjust with the fill slider.Taken with my phone but close On my desktop the tones are accurate It is a horizontal sorry
 

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dpurdy

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Well I switched to raw and took the WB setting off Flash and put it on auto (which goes against my nature) and knock on wood it looks much better..
 

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koraks

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@dpurdy Yes, that does look very good. I can't judge the hues of the original of course, but this looks perfectly realistic to me. You could try recording the color temperature the camera chooses and then set that manually for future shots. That way you get consistent results even if the hues of the originals change (this will affect the AWB algorithm).

Another thing to take into consideration is getting the print and the camera angled perfectly; this saves you some trouble in post processing trying to correct the perspective.
 

Pieter12

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Try shooting a color chart such as the Datacolor Spyderchecker or at least a gray card. Adjust the file to be accurate, then apply those adjustments to your copy shots.
 
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dpurdy

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I just want to post a huge Thank You for the advice of koraks. I have totally solved the problems I was having, I figured out that it was being caused by some odd mixed coloration from the bare flash tube. The images would come out both green and red, like in the old days when you printed from color slides and would get a green/red "cross over". I assumed the bare flash tube issue must be related to uv exposure somehow. So I put a soft box and for good measure put a uv filter on the camera and the color issue went away. But what really has blown me away is working in RAW. I haven't done much in digital photography so I didn't know what the RAW adjustments were capable of. They can tell you the color temperature, and make exposure suggestions. Along with a bunch of other stuff but that was definitely useful. So thank you for the suggestion.
 

wiltw

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One thing to keep in mind about White Lightning...once well known and documented by many decades ago is the color shift of the White Lightning especially when on its lowest power setting.
One reply in 2015 by a Buff tech stated "WhiteLighting and AlienBees use the same technology in Voltage control flash, and therefore will render color the exact same way. As power (Voltage) is reduced, the color temperature shifts to the red end of the spectrum" https://www.paulcbuff-techforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4799
 
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dpurdy

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Wow, I did not know that. I used them, the Ultras, for years commercially but usually at higher settings for large format. For these copies I was using one at nearly the lowest setting. After putting on a soft box I also moved the light much farther away and so turned the power up to half. That probably fixed the color.
 
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