Negative color casts?

emtor · Jan 4, 2011

Alan Klein said:
That's very sharp. MIne does not come out as sharp out of the scan. I belive the V750 allows you to adjust how high the negative is above the glass. The V600 doesn't. I suppose I could shim it up a bit using paper to see if it comes out better but not down. I wonder if anyone else out there has adjusted the film height???

One thing I haven't gotten an answer is does the level adjustment you made in the Silverfast program change what it gets out of the scan by changing the scan itself. Or is the Silverfast program just editing the data after the scan. If its the first, then the scan lighting would have to change. If it is the latter, than the editing could just as well be done with Photoshop after the scan. Have you found the answer to this?

Last thing first: It seems like Silverfast is changing the scan itself, because when I move the levels-sliders before the scanning starts the preview changes. Also, when adjusting all three channels in equal amounts there is no color change, only luminance change. If I change the color-channels non-equally I get a color cast.

As for film height,-does the V600 have a different film-holder than the V750?
My filmholder can be adjusted in three steps: 2,5 mm, 3,0mm and 3,5 mm.
Anything above 3,5 mm would have to be shimmed, and anything below 2,5 mm would need a homemade filmholder or a third party holder which sits closer to the glass plate. A home-made filmholder shouldn't be difficult to make. It may be that your scanner is as sharp as mine once you find the focusing sweet-spot. After what I hear this sweet spot is likely to vary between scanners of the same make and type since they are not precision made. I have found that the sweet spot is not an exact height but rather a height range since the scanner's optics has a certain depth of field. My scanner seems to have the same sharpness in an area around 3,0 mm.

pellicle · Jan 4, 2011

very cute

often thought of putting together something like a hybrid of a survey tripod and a head suitable for my 4x5

emtor said:
so I went across the border to Finland and bought a levelling tripod at the

wow ... I'll tell my wife. Being a Finn, she's under the impression that it goes the other way normally ... perhaps thats only for booze ;-)

to put some related content into this, I've been playing around with HDR more for my landscapes and have had some acceptable results in contrasty conditions (not as good as neg, but none the less)

eborValley by aquinas_56

and for low contrast situations the Photomatix software allows me to get quite good results from my RAW files, bringing up more of the subtle details than anything else I've used

young Kookaburra by obakesan

Photomatix 4 has some nice advances over 3

enjoy the lights

emtor · Jan 4, 2011

Karigasniemi is only a few miles away from Karasjok so I'm often there buying stuff that is cheaper than here, and that day I made them dig out the tripod I had spotted some time earlier. When I told the guy behind the counter what I planned to do with it in Sami he just replied "perkele" and rolled his eyes.

Those images are very nice. The bird is stunning with lots of nice detail. Photomatix 4 seems to have developed quite a bit, and it looks a lot like the results you'd get from Oloneo. I need to try Photomatix 4.

pellicle · Jan 4, 2011

emtor said:
Sami he just replied "perkele" and rolled his eyes.

hah ... he was probably thinking "if this guy even trys to bring this back..."

but I can think of some worse things he could say ;-)

about the tone mapping, yes, I've found photomatix good in the past:

For instance this page. Its always been a little clunky with sliders n stuff ... at least now we have some "pre visualisation" thumbs along the bottom to get you started with some "presets"

works well ... although the G1 shows up more floor noise in the files than my 10D did....

emtor · Jan 5, 2011

Photomatix 4 has really grown up. Very nice piece of software.
Finally it's easy to avoid overcooked HDR's.

Dead Link Removed

pellicle · Jan 5, 2011

my thoughts exactly

Alan Klein · Jan 5, 2011

I like that HDR pciture. It's one of the few I've seen that looks pretty natural. Regarding the pre-scan, the fact you can change the preview says that its in the program. Obviously the pre-scan is not pre-scanning again so the image change is strictly program. Of course that might change during the actual scan, but the pre-scan changes don't prove anything. Alan

pellicle · Jan 6, 2011

Allan

not sure if you noticed it, but the picture in my post #27 was also a HDR

There are quite a number of people using HDR to make realistic images.

They also work well in challenging lighting situations such as this:

Tampere Cathedral Interior by obakesan, on Flickr

all the images on my latest blog post are either HDR or tonemapped

emtor · Jan 6, 2011

Alan Klein said:
Regarding the pre-scan, the fact you can change the preview says that its in the program. Obviously the pre-scan is not pre-scanning again so the image change is strictly program. Of course that might change during the actual scan, but the pre-scan changes don't prove anything. Alan

The contents of the pre-scan window changes, but another pre-scan is not executed, so it's maybe software based. I have an impression that Epson gives out very little info on the internals of their scanners, things like focusing height etc. Another thing indicating that this may be software: When moving the levels sliders severe banding occurs in the preview window, and when you let go of the sliders the rendering returns to normal again. The banding only occurs during the movement of the sliders indicating that the banding effect is caused by number crunching in the software.

Alan Klein · Jan 6, 2011

That's a pretty good picture in the church but there's something about HDR that I find unnatural. I think I just realized what it is. The areas that were dark become totally flat when the area is brightened. The church ceiling for example. The brightness level is equal throughout the roof. There are no shadows anywhere. Everything is the same. That's probably because it is the same brightness in the original darkened area. So when HDR raises the brightness, while you can see it better, it's just plain flat and unnatural. Our eyes are not used to seeing shadow areas that way. Shadows area may be flat but because they are so dark we don't look for transitions.

Someone has to come out with a program that will put light and dark areas into the original shadow areas while also allowing that whole area to be about 1EV less the the bright areas. Then it would be more natural.

What do you think?

pellicle · Jan 6, 2011

Hi

Alan Klein said:
That's a pretty good picture in the church but there's something about HDR that I find unnatural. I think I just realized what it is. The areas that were dark become totally flat when the area is brightened. The church ceiling for example.

well, it is a domed ceiling, it is essentially the inner parts of a curve lit from the interior. Thus one would not expect many shadows or imperfections in the ceiling to be cast as shadows.

To have got the stained glass details in as well (rather than them being a wash out) was part of my aim.

I think it looked as close to the original scene as I saw it while in there.

Subtitles such as shadows and tonal flatness can be explained by how well one tunes a monitor. I know some of my images here (on my profiled monitor) look either flat or contrasty on monitors of friends and colleagues at work.

Alan Klein · Jan 6, 2011

I didn't notice the stained glass. Wouldn't it have been more noticeable if you just allowed the ceiling to go darker to bring out the stain glass if you wanted that to be the subject of the picture. Right now the ceiling is.

I don't think its your church's ceiling in particular that creates the flat no contrast look. It's a common feature of HDR. The shadow areas just turn out flat. No contrast. The subject becomes uninteresting becasue there are no shadows no plays of light and dark. Everything is the same intensity. It's not your pictures, its HDR that's doing it.

pellicle · Jan 6, 2011

well ... the ceiling wasn't darker ... of course each person will print or render the same thing differently. You can always play more with the contrast to make it to your taste. After all, just because you don't like the way I've rendered it does not mean you could not render it in a way which pleased you.

However without the technique one could not get images of reasonable colour rendition in such lighting conditions in any other way.

Tampere Cathedral Interior by obakesan, on Flickr

wblynch · Jan 7, 2011

Alan Klein said:
...I guess ignorance is bliss...

...Is there something I should be expecting to do when I get to scan these negatives or should I just stay "ignorant"?...

Well I'd say remain ignorant. Your scans are beautiful with wonderful colors, especially the underwater ones.

Alan Klein · Jan 7, 2011

I like the second cathedral shot. Much more natural. My aim is to find a program that would best match the more realistic results you'd get from a grad ND filter when you're shooting skies and ground when the ground is in some shadow.

Thanks Lynch about the underwater shots. If I recall correctly, those were the shots I let Epson scan software automatically adjust the colors during the scan. It got rid of the typical underwater blue cast and allow a lot of the natural colors to come through. The only problem with 35mm, is the darker areas choke up and really don't scan as well as the medium format shots. Alan

Negative color casts?

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