What's wrong with SilverFast?

[Jonathan Wienke]

Ugh. I just remembered why I shoot digital...

[Mark D Segal]

No kidding - so do I, since a year ago. Acquired a well-maintained second-hand 1Ds when the 1Ds2 hit the market, and never looked back - except for this legacy of colour negatives I have from travels to exotic corners of the globe. So I've developed actually quite a successful digital workflow getting respectable prints from them, but the time and effort involved compared with the 1Ds is AT LEAST 20:1. Colour negative material properly handled does exhibit excellent tonal range, shadow detail and natural colour - but then again, so does the 1Ds!

[Ray]

If there is no input profile available, because you are scanning a negative, or because you don't have IT8 calibration, there is no actual conversion into ProPhoto, because no reference is available for the input data. The output is being tagged as ProPhoto and this results in the highly saturated images.

Mark,
The above statement from LaserSoft needs clarification. The way this reads to me is that there is conversion into ProPhoto when scanning negatives provided one has calibrated the scanner with an IT8 target.

If this is true, then this would be a good reason to calibrate one's scanner.

[Mark D Segal]

Ray, what he told me seems clear and correct to me, perhaps because I have researched this colour negative profiling problem as widely as I was able to find useful resources on the net. The problem is that ONE CANNOT profile the scanner for colour negative films in the way it can be profiled for colour positive films. There are no IT8 targets for negative materials. That is why they have Negafix, which is quite a strong selling-point for Silverfast in the domain of scanning negatives. It has more film presets and "tweakability" than either Vuescan or DimageScan. But it is not an ICC profile. To the best of my knowledge it operates on the scanned data in the process of conversion from negative to positive image data. I agree with you that IF we could profile the scanner in the conventional way for the specific negative material being scanned the problem would likely be at least substantially mitigated, but alas..............

[Ray]

I see. It's still confusingly expressed. I have not calibrated my scanner with an IT8 target, yet I do have an input profile and conversion into ProPhoto when scanning positives.

I've considered buying an IT8 target from LaserSoft, but my reasoning is; if I'm getting an accurate match between preview and scanned image, then little purpose would be served. Is that your understanding?

[Mark D Segal]

There are two aspects: (1) preview scan and image file look the same - which for you is working fine on positives; (2) are the colours correct? I.E. when you compare the colours in the image file with the colour transparency you scanned, if the colours match you are all set; if they don't, scanner calibration would sound like a good idea.

[Ray]

Ah! Well here's the rub. I'm not photographing (and then scanning) glasses of beer in a particular light which must look totally realistic to the beer consumer. I'm scanning faded slides, and later not so faded color negatives but also some really faded ones that are not my own.

There's not much point in matching the preview to the slide on a light box. I'm simply adjusting familiar hues to a credible (hey! not just credible; hopefully even inspiring) state.

The match between preview and scanned result is paramount, but I'd prefer to start off with something close to a credible hue, if possible.

[Mark D Segal]

Ray, that makes sense - question: are you getting those credible hues now? If you are, you're done; if you're not, you could probably benefit going the extra mile for better colour management in the scanner. Will save you time thereafter.

[Ray]

Ray, that makes sense - question: are you getting those credible hues now?

In my own mind, yes. Other peoples' opinions may differ   .