Epson V700 - Slide film.

[rayonline_nz]

Hi, with the V700 scanner, color neg film comes out great.

I have tried to scan Velvia 50 and Provia 100F the colors come out a lot more saturated and blocked up, even Provia 100F skin imperfections show up more and more like a pumpkin.

My monitor is calibrated.

Would you suggest me a iT8? Would these work for all slide film, would it work with Kodachrome?

What I am trying to do is to get a quick decent scan for preview usages and not needing to PP every time.

Cheers.

 

[pellicle]

are you assigning profiles right in photoshop?

how is your colour setting in the Epson scan??

are you scanning with epson scan???

 

[rayonline_nz]

Yes, using Epson Scan. I get the same results with Silverfast SE or Vuescan.

I don't use any settings. I just hit preview and scan. I turn off all of the features but only recently I used a bit of unsharp mask.

I have no idea of the color space being used.

All I am doing are low reso scans to be archived away, I just want a no frills approach to get a decent adequate file and in future if I like it I would take the film out and rescan again in high reso.


Cheers.

 

[rayonline_nz]

Epson configuration:
Color Control: Continous auto exposure, Display Gamma 1.8.

I chose not to use ICM.

Epson does not have color space settings or profiles.
I am saving to JPEG.

If I take control of the scanner in Photoshop, the same result happens. In PS my default is Adobe RGB. I cannot assign profiles because I have not bought any iT8 therefore no icc files. My monitor is calibrated.

 

[pellicle]

Ray

I suggest you set it to something like this:

this will take the mystery out of it as Epson scales the data values but does not actually assign the profile (especially if you are scanning into software such as photoshop)

if you don't choose an ICM you'll have to 'fish' for the right colour profile ... probably something like Epson v700 TPU or the like

I use a 4990 (among others) and that's what I do to get good results.

let me know how it goes for you

 

[rayonline_nz]

I tried that, thanks

It's much darker than the actual slide. I'm scanning Velvia 50 RVP if that helps, I have read it is a denser film for the limited DR on the Epsons ...

Would iT8 be the way to go?
I've found auto scans off Epson and Vuescan and Silverfast to give okay images but I want it to be a bit better (for general images). I've found skyscraper shots of dark blue glass buildings the scanner blocks up.

 

[pellicle]

Ray

try adjusting the sliders on the histogram preview to hit the 0 line on the left slider ... for instance:

make sure the dark end is hard pegged against the left hand side (ignore the values in that diagram histogram, that is because I'm scanning negative as positive in that example).

I have found that driving the dark ends of R G and B level hard over to the left actually increases scan times and results in better dark penetration. The default position is about 10 points shy.

you may find this helpful too
http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2009/05/bulk-scanning-with-epson-flatbed.html

as to the target, as I understood it is just a data set of corrections to make ... I don't think it will improve your dark end, it will just make the colour more 'right' in the middle.

Can't test anything here right now as its all enroute to Australia

 

[rayonline_nz]

Thanks for that,

Can you tell me what is ColorMatch RGB? Where is it from, is that one of Adobe's default?

Every time I try ColorMatch, it goes way dark. I am on a PC so I don't use that AFAIK.

I tried changing the highlights settings - looks more of a haze but I get more details from it.

I managed to change it to auto, gamma as 2.0 and works nice instead of 1.8.

 

[pellicle]

Essentially all are just colour spaces ... you must match your display with the colour profile (in colour management aware software like Photoshop) or it will look f*ck3d (unless you are working totally in sRGB). Without going into a tute on this, as long as your display software knows about profiles, and is set to open a file and display it according to the right profile (not to over ride or ignore it) then you're sweet. If your software does not (say, CorelPaint) then you're up the creek.

worse, if the image does not have the profile embedded ... you have to know or guess ... happens to me quite a bit with places scanning into their printer profile, then not embedding it ... sigh



The differences between the colour spaces have to do with gamut of the colours which can be represented within the data range of that space.

I typically use that one for my Epson simply because it doesn't happen to have many in its kit standard. On my Nikon I use Bruce RGB

if you're not familiar with the gamut ranges

http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?WorkingSpaceInfo.html

some software has really nice 3D animations of the colour gamut ranges. Colour is one of the most hair raising issues in photography if you ask me.



don't know if this helps, but:

http://www.gballard.net/psd/assignconvert.html

not astoundingly hand holding, but to the point. Read each paragraph as many times as required to get his point.



lastly (not trying to teach you to suck eggs if you already know this stuff)

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-space-conversion.htm

worth stepping through this set too
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-management1.htm

I liked this 'analogy' of his in discussing what the profile does with the data in terms of perception of hot food:

Let's say that you're at a restaurant with a friend and are about to order a spicy dish. Although you enjoy spiciness, your threshold for it is limited, and so you also wish to specify a pleasurable amount. The dilemma is this: a "mild" degree of spiciness may represent one level of spice in Thailand, and a completely different level in England. Restaurants could standardize this by establishing that one pepper equals "mild," two equals "medium," and so on, however this would not be universal. Spice varies not just with the number of peppers included in the dish, but also depends on how sensitive the taster is to each pepper. "Mild" would have a different meaning for you and your friend, in addition to meaning something different at other restaurants.

 

[rayonline_nz]

I think I did use ColorMatch and it was dark in Epson preview and so was in Photoshop, I thought that Photoshop would be more color aware ....
When I opened the file, it said no profile embedded.
Will try again or maybe incorporate Epson input scanning within PS but I think it does go much darker ...
Will try other settings, maybe those profiles are just off for my scanner ....

Never used the ColorMatch in my other settings.
I know that my monitor calibrator is under as "Spyder2Express" and Photoshop and LR afaik auto senses that ....