Problems Digitizing Slides

[Dusty Negative]

Lots of reading for you
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...c-41-reversal-and-orange-mask-removal.166696/
Lots of us have no desire to subscribe to Adobe for Photoshop.

Great thread, if a little depressing. Five photographers, ten opinions ;-) I, too, find color scanning more complicated, time-intensive, and inconsistent (in results) than many others do. I about died to read about the fellow who wrote code to automate his workflow. I am all of about 1-2 years (very part time) deep into the film business, meaning I’m pretty much the village idiot around here. NLP has saved me a great deal of time and stress — but I readily admit that this is likely in part because I don’t really understand what is going on behind the curtain.

PHOTRIO and engaged users such as yourself are gold. Thank you for forwarding that link!

 

[JWMster]

I've just been wrestling with this again: DSLR scanning of negatives and soon.. slides. I've used NLP and it's fine. Helps when you're doing rolls of film to speed the process. But it requires LR or PS... and there's resistance among many to that. Not me. I've been a CaptureOne guy, but not above using LR or whatever it takes to shorten the time involved in this.

Three links worth looking more at:

Peter Krogh's site. He's a pro and a 2nd or 3rd generation photographer, and had a lot of archives to deal with, wrote a book on DAM, and does work on this for the National Archives. B&H has a video of his process that runs over an hour. Worth a look. Peter is equipment agnostic... so you'll see a lot of alternatives. Link to his site: https://thedambook.com/dyp/lights/ You'll note that Peter also builds and sells some slide rigs for digitizing to assure a square-on shoot process... and this hasn't changed much from slide dupe steps years back.

From the LargeFormatPhotography podcast the other day I picked up 2 other links:

There's a 35mmc review of Grain2Pixel's alternative to NLP which gets reviewed ( https://www.35mmc.com/31/07/2020/grain2pixel-review-photoshop-plugin/ ) as less blue focused and more balanced with the reds. I'd agree with the latter that NLP leaves the reds a bit muted by default. But there's a tendency to think that NLP or Grain2Pixel will do it all for you... and it won't. It's a good start, but only a start. Grain2Pixel works only with Photoshop which I don't have. Link: https://grain2pixel.com/

Finally, the recent LFP podcast was interviewing Alex Burke who many may know. I bought one of his ebooks when I began the LF journey, but aside from that, he adheres to a manual conversion process, admitting his preference for control, but also the reality that if you're shooting 35mm or 120 and facing more than 1 to 4 negatives at a time... or at least 8 to 12... you might find it a tad tedious. Yes, but you can usually save a configuration as a "setting" or equivalent and that speeds things somewhat. He outlines his process here on his blogsite: https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2019/10/16/manual-inversion-of-color-negative-film

For my bit, I've acquired Negative Supply film holders (though their LF 4X5 unit isn't the be all and end all, 35mm and 120 are good). I'm also using a Logan light which I'm not happy with, but will be upgrading that, too. I've picked up a used Kaiser copy stand sold by Adorama, and am loving that given that I shoot 35mm, 120 and LF these days and need the ability to adjust the rig. My conversion process is still unsettled for DSLR scanning.... particularly C41 and E6. B&W is easy with this stuff. Color conversion pends. I'm impressed with what I think I see in Grain2Pixel's review and think he's at least capturing my experience with NLP acurately. Whether the step up from Grain2Pixel will deliver more is an open question. And I may simply find I'm moving back to Alex Burke's manual process. Dunno. Last time I did C41 in quantity, I was using an old Nikon LS8000, but that was waaaaay slow and I'm not going there again.

Hope these links are useful. Good luck!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Skip, Have you considered shooting positive chromes so you don't have to deal with color negative conversion, orange masks, etc when you use negative film? I was scanning Ektar and had those problems so I went back to Velvia 50. I boought Alex Burke ebook too and enjoy his work and methods. But his process for color correction of Ektar would induce me to shoot myself first.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I've just been wrestling with this again: DSLR scanning of negatives and soon.. slides. I've used NLP and it's fine. Helps when you're doing rolls of film to speed the process. But it requires LR or PS... and there's resistance among many to that. Not me. I've been a CaptureOne guy, but not above using LR or whatever it takes to shorten the time involved in this.

Three links worth looking more at:

Peter Krogh's site. He's a pro and a 2nd or 3rd generation photographer, and had a lot of archives to deal with, wrote a book on DAM, and does work on this for the National Archives. B&H has a video of his process that runs over an hour. Worth a look. Peter is equipment agnostic... so you'll see a lot of alternatives. Link to his site: https://thedambook.com/dyp/lights/ You'll note that Peter also builds and sells some slide rigs for digitizing to assure a square-on shoot process... and this hasn't changed much from slide dupe steps years back.

From the LargeFormatPhotography podcast the other day I picked up 2 other links:

There's a 35mmc review of Grain2Pixel's alternative to NLP which gets reviewed ( https://www.35mmc.com/31/07/2020/grain2pixel-review-photoshop-plugin/ ) as less blue focused and more balanced with the reds. I'd agree with the latter that NLP leaves the reds a bit muted by default. But there's a tendency to think that NLP or Grain2Pixel will do it all for you... and it won't. It's a good start, but only a start. Grain2Pixel works only with Photoshop which I don't have. Link: https://grain2pixel.com/

Finally, the recent LFP podcast was interviewing Alex Burke who many may know. I bought one of his ebooks when I began the LF journey, but aside from that, he adheres to a manual conversion process, admitting his preference for control, but also the reality that if you're shooting 35mm or 120 and facing more than 1 to 4 negatives at a time... or at least 8 to 12... you might find it a tad tedious. Yes, but you can usually save a configuration as a "setting" or equivalent and that speeds things somewhat. He outlines his process here on his blogsite: https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2019/10/16/manual-inversion-of-color-negative-film

For my bit, I've acquired Negative Supply film holders (though their LF 4X5 unit isn't the be all and end all, 35mm and 120 are good). I'm also using a Logan light which I'm not happy with, but will be upgrading that, too. I've picked up a used Kaiser copy stand sold by Adorama, and am loving that given that I shoot 35mm, 120 and LF these days and need the ability to adjust the rig. My conversion process is still unsettled for DSLR scanning.... particularly C41 and E6. B&W is easy with this stuff. Color conversion pends. I'm impressed with what I think I see in Grain2Pixel's review and think he's at least capturing my experience with NLP acurately. Whether the step up from Grain2Pixel will deliver more is an open question. And I may simply find I'm moving back to Alex Burke's manual process. Dunno. Last time I did C41 in quantity, I was using an old Nikon LS8000, but that was waaaaay slow and I'm not going there again.

Hope these links are useful. Good luck!

this is great information

 

[JWMster]

Alan: Oh... you made me laugh. Thank you!! Yeah... I just ran 5 rolls of E-100 and have sent them out for E-6 processing as I haven't wanted to open that box just yet. My local dip and dunk lab runs $10 a roll, and they do pretty good work. (Haven't actually tried all their services 'cause mostly I develop my own stuff). So we'll see. But with the current flaws in my DSLR conversion process - i.e. I haven't seen the difference I expected to see between Portra 160 and Ektar 100 and boy was THAT disappointing!!... I think there's quite a bit of room to upgrade the process for speed, quality and color. The last is a re-run. Last time I bailed and went out and bought the Nikon scanner that I'm trying to keep in storage.

Another idea I'll have to try is simply to work the exposure more. Alex Burke suggests a tad underexposure can bring out the vibrancy of the color a bit at times, and maybe we'll give that a run, too. It's all in these small details.... a lot more than we think. But yes, I'm also sensitive to the possibilities of chromes... and much as it pains me, slipping back to digital for color work isn't beyond the pale of possibilities. Ouch, and yes, I wince on saying that. But hey... if you haven't paid attention to how Nikon has upgraded the firmware to the Z6 and Z7 and what users are finding there now... it's worth another look. More so when they move to the 2nd gen and flesh out the advantages of the new range of glass (I'd run mostly with the lens adapter though). I think they're on the right track... and just hope to get my color film process moving similarly.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Underexposing chromes do increase the contrast and saturation. It also helps prevent clipping the highlights. Of course, if its underexposed a little too much, it becomes too dark and unusable. So don't overdo it. -1/3 stop not more.