Epson V850 Pro scanner + SilverFast 9

[Shangai_Nobody]

Hello,

I am new to the forum.

I'm digitalising some of my photographs using an Epson V850 Pro flatbed scanner and SiverFast 9 software.

I noticed a couple of things that seem a bit strange. When scanning reflective photos, the black areas of a photo seem to appear with slightly green tones on my monitor.

My monitor was fully colour calibrated recently, and so was the scanner, using IT8 transparencies.

I'm scanning at 600dpi or 1200dpi, and leaving all automatic settings "unticked" except Unsharp Masking.

I don't seem to have the same issues when scanning film.

Does anyone who uses the same or similar scanner + software has come across these issues?

 

[bfilm]

I don't have any direct experience with this combination, but one thing that stands out to me from your description is that if you are going to use a scanner color profile generated with an IT8 target instead of the default scanner color profile, then in the case of scanning reflective photographs, you need to make the profile with an IT8 reflective target instead of the IT8 transparency target. Use the IT8 transparency target for making the scanner color profile that will be used when scanning color reversal film. If you don't currently have any IT8 reflective targets, then maybe try using the default scanner color profile and see how that works.

 

[Shangai_Nobody]

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense.

I do have a reflective IT8 somewhere so I will try that and see what happens.

 

[BCM]

Hello,

I am new to the forum.

I'm digitalising some of my photographs using an Epson V850 Pro flatbed scanner and SiverFast 9 software.

I noticed a couple of things that seem a bit strange. When scanning reflective photos, the black areas of a photo seem to appear with slightly green tones on my monitor.

My monitor was fully colour calibrated recently, and so was the scanner, using IT8 transparencies.

I'm scanning at 600dpi or 1200dpi, and leaving all automatic settings "unticked" except Unsharp Masking.

I don't seem to have the same issues when scanning film.

Does anyone who uses the same or similar scanner + software has come across these issues?

You might also consider using a white backing paper as I've seen this with both the wrong calibration and/or backscatter.

B

 

[koraks]

IT8 profiling is useful, but not a panacea. The profiles in my experience can end up having significant anomalies at their extremes, i.e. high and low densities. There's also the issue of metamerism in which the color rendition of a real object depends on interactions between the reflectance of the object, the light source and the observer. As a long-term user of the predecessor model to your scanner (4990), I really don't trust its ability to accurately record hues. I was doing color tests at some point and got pretty massive deviations on the cyan channel (in an IT8-calibrated setup) that "disappeared" when I sampled the prints with a photospectrometer instead of the scanner.

 

[bfilm]

You might also consider using a white backing paper as I've seen this with both the wrong calibration and/or backscatter.

Wouldn't a matte black paper work better for this? Of course, taking care not to include any of the paper in your scan selection in the software, so that it won't affect exposure or any other settings in the scan.

 

[Shangai_Nobody]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

I tried using an IT reflective target, and even though I could tell the colours changed, the final scan still came out with green tones, almost identical to the one I did with the IT8 transparency target.

So I've started playing with the input profiles, and the one that actually work was when I changed it to "none". So I don't seem to be working with a selected profile. Hope I'm doing this right.

Also, something I didn't mention before is that previously, some of the reflective colour photos I was scanning came out with a slight "flickering" effect when viewed them zoomed out, in some case the flickering was quite obvious. Does anyone know why this happens? With the profiled setup as "none", the flickering when zoomed out is almost gone, but not completely.

 

[koraks]

I'm not sure what your scanning workflow is, but for me, the following works, in GIMP, for reflective media:
Scan using Epson scan into GIMP
Assign color profile to the image (NB: not convert, but assign without conversion!!). I use the ICC profile I made with the IT8 target here.
Then convert to sRGB profile. The colors at this point are a near perfect match with a real print.

a slight "flickering" effect

I'm not sure how to imagine this. Maybe some kind of moire pattern?

 

[bfilm]

I'm not sure what your scanning workflow is, but for me, the following works, in GIMP, for reflective media:
Scan using Epson scan into GIMP
Assign color profile to the image (NB: not convert, but assign without conversion!!). I use the ICC profile I made with the IT8 target here.
Then convert to sRGB profile. The colors at this point are a near perfect match with a real print.

I think this is a good workflow for GIMP. Because something I have only recently realized while doing research for some slide film scanning I am going to begin soon, is that while GIMP lets you import, assign, and convert to any color profile, it really only works properly editing with sRGB. Because with some of the internal processing GIMP does for editing operations, it has hardcoded sRGB parameters and assumes that you are in this color space.

I still like GIMP when it fits the working scenario. But for this reason, I have begun exploring Krita more for my upcoming work with 16 bit TIFF film scans using custom scanner profiles and the Chrome Space 100 or Ekta Space PS 5 working space profiles. I think that Krita more correctly follows the color profiles. For example, if you are using a color profile with perceptual gamma or point TRC, then Krita will not "silently" linearize the RGB values like GIMP does (with hardcoded sRGB parameters) for certain editing operations. Krita will follow the mode that matches your color profile.

 

[koraks]

That's interesting, @bfilm. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights on how GIMP handles profiles. I'm not surprised by what you say. I'm OK with doing pretty much everything in sRGB; it's only at the source (scanning) that I sometimes have to deviate from this, or at the output side (digital printing/inkjet).

I've not yet looked into Krita. I understand it's tailored to illustrators; i.e. digital drawing. Doesn't matter per se; the kind of adjustments I tend to make for photo editing are so basic that I can't imagine that what I'd want to do with it, would be impossible. A big bonus is that they seem to have a provision for what Adobe calls dynamic adjustment layers (Krita calls it non-destructive filter layers apparently). That's a major advantage.

 

[bfilm]

Yes, Krita has been becoming more and more interesting to me. I think its purpose and reputation as a digital painting program has kept a lot of people from exploring it for photography. But like you, I have pretty simple needs for editing adjustments--I like to keep things pretty natural--and Krita does what I want.

Yes, it has filter layers. Among the options in the filter layers are levels and color adjustment (curves), including per channel adjustments if desired. And of course, you have the crop tool, scale image to new size, and color management. It should be noted, that if you want to be able to assign color profiles--in addition to convert--this ability has to be activated in the Settings > Configure Krita > Python Plugin Manager.

 

[koraks]

I played with filter layers in Krita a little yesterday; seemed to work fine, except that I couldn't find a quick way to mask the filter layer. When applying a mask layer to the filter layer, it just masks the entire image. Still have to dig around a little. Otherwise, it took me only a couple of minutes to set up and get going. I might explore a little more one day; it looks promising.

 

[bfilm]

I played with filter layers in Krita a little yesterday; seemed to work fine, except that I couldn't find a quick way to mask the filter layer. When applying a mask layer to the filter layer, it just masks the entire image. Still have to dig around a little. Otherwise, it took me only a couple of minutes to set up and get going. I might explore a little more one day; it looks promising.

If I understand correctly what you are trying to do, you will add a Filter Mask instead of a Filter Layer. I think the Filter Layer always applies to the entire canvas.

Introduction to Layers and Masks

Filter Layer

Filter Masks

 

[koraks]

@bfilm thanks; I get it now. My thinking was the other way around because that's how it is in PS if memory serves. The PS logic was that you would add a filter (adjustment) layer and then selectively mask that layer. The thinking in Krita is sort of the other way around: you apply a mask to the image, and then filter (adjust) the unmasked area. The net result is more or less the same; I just overlooked that the logic is different. But - it works perfectly well!