Which colour film for scanning?

[Mike Rawcs]

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Pre digital age I always used colour transparency film because it gave a sharper, more saturated result and prints from negatives were generally poor because the paper couldn't handle the range of tones (the gradation from pure white to deep black).

 

With colour negative film being less contrasty than colour transparency film, and therefore being able to give greater gradation (less blocked up shadows and blown highlights), is it a better choice for scanning? Which colour film do you use for scanning?

 

Mike.

[adan]

I've spent about 4 years working with color negs over color slides, because of the tonal-range advantage you note, and because it is a simpler process for home-brewing. In the end, I still prefer transparencies for scanning.

 

1. the resolution advantage still goes to slide film (IMHO). Partly by default, since no one still makes an ISO 50 negative film to go up against Velvia 50.

 

To some extent this is also a Fuji-vs-Kodak thing: Kodak seems to emphasize tonal range and colo(u)r reproduction over fine grain and resolution; Fuji does the reverse (again IMHO, working with the more common ISO 50-160 films from each).

 

2. scanner software still has trouble interpreting reversed colors through an orange mask - I'm constantly fighting cyan/green casts in color neg scans. Which can't simply be white-balanced away without adding screaming red or magenta to the shadows.

 

3. Whether it is a scanning effect, or simply the reversing of tones from neg to positive scan, color neg has real trouble with skies - generating much more grain, and what is more, more differences in color of the grains in what should be a smooth blue.

 

Below are samples, with histograms, from Velvia 50 and Ektar 100 images (finest grain from slides or negs). The Ektar shows a much wider array of colors (cyans, magentas, blues, greens) and densities in representing identical smooth blue skies (as confirmed by the histogram and the standard deviation figure in the info box), whereas the Velvia sky is basically just shades of blue, with half the deviation figure.

 

So it kind of depends on where your priorities lie. Kodak Portra 160NC generally scans beautifully in terms of minimal color headaches (among neg films) and a really nice tonality. But its grain and resolution are about like Fuji Provia 400X transparency film - not Sensia or Provia 100.

 

For people, or gritty city shooting, I'd give the nod to color neg (especially Kodak's Portras). Noah Addis has reported very favorably on using Portra 400 with a Mamiya 6x7 for his documentary work.

 

For landscape or anything where detail and fine grain are trumps, color positives still win out.

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[Xmas]

Scanner software still has trouble interpreting reversed colors through an orange mask - I'm constantly fighting cyan/green casts in color neg scans. Which can't simply be white-balanced away without adding screaming red or magenta to the shadows.

I'd try an extra 1/2 stop and stop exposure to see if your shadows improved, and a grey card to monitor.

 

But I like the chromes better as well, if you can nail the exposure. Not a snide crack merely I frequent can't. Brides dresses are white, they can be fussy, hey they can ignore shadow colors.

 

Noel

[Mike Rawcs]

Thanks Andy, very interesting and informative reply.

 

Mike.

[tobey bilek]

Slides still look like slides even when scanned. Too much contrast.

 

Color neg is vastly easier to scan as it has less contrast. My KM5400 will show every grain in the sky just like color prints do.

 

I have been working with CS5 for a few days now and the new tools are wonderful, my favorite being the noise reduction in camera raw. I made an error this AM photographing my new furnace for my brother, 6 MP Nikon D40 at ISO 800. I could clean up the grain 100%. I also scanned some 4 year old color neg, Kodak Portra 160. them put the TIFF into camera raw and did wonders with the grain. You can also do some masking in photoshop to isolate the sky and run NR or even the Median filter at low opacity/amount to clean up a sky. I will also say the current Portra 160 and 400 scan almost grain free. They approach a quality full frame digital camera like my D3 Nikon.

 

Ektar is an amateur film with punch and contrast, not the best for scanning. Use the latest Portra 160 and scan to correct color balance and exposure only. Do everything else in photoshop where it is easy to go up in contrast and saturation, but difficult to go down just like optical printing.

 

Fuji 160S is also fine, but I believe it to be discontinued.

 

You can get C41 processed many places, E6 slides more difficult. If you do use slides, leave unmounted so they are flat. Scanners need flat film.

 

I am so impressed with CS5, I am considering shooting more color film in the Leicas now

and using the fancy digital Nikons less. It is that good.

[Xmas]

It is that good.

Hi Toby

 

No that is real bad, when it is dark the digital trolls will appear and eat your heart out while you still live.

 

Noel

[andybarton]

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I am, as I type, scanning something from a Kodak Royal Supra negative. The shot was taken about 6 years ago.

 

Already the colours are fading, despite the film being professionally processed and store in negative sheet holders in a file in the dark.

 

I'm not impressed and I am not a digital troll

Edited November 14, 2010 by andybarton

[Xmas]

Hi Andy

 

But the technique proposed by Toby is to scan the C41 film, which will ensure permanence while you retain a backup archive.

 

Even XP2 (and XP1) dye images can fade quite rapidly, but any C41 dye or E6 dye is exposed to fading, Kodachrome (dye) is longer lasting as is Cibachrome, but they are niche products.

 

Similar to Gresham's Law where the bad currency drives out the good. I used to only use Kodachrome 25.

 

Serpia toned a AgBr print will last a while longer.

 

Noel

[Stealth3kpl]

 

I have been working with CS5 for a few days now and the new tools are wonderful, my favorite being the noise reduction in camera raw.

I also scanned some 4 year old color neg, Kodak Portra 160. them put the TIFF into camera raw and did wonders with the grain. You can also do some masking in photoshop to isolate the sky and run NR or even the Median filter at low opacity/amount to clean up a sky. I will also say the current Portra 160 and 400 scan almost grain free. They approach a quality full frame digital camera like my D3 Nikon.

 

Use the latest Portra 160 and scan to correct color balance and exposure only. Do everything else in photoshop where it is easy to go up in contrast and saturation, but difficult to go down just like optical printing.

 

 

I am so impressed with CS5, I am considering shooting more color film in the Leicas now and using the fancy digital Nikons less. It is that good.

 

I would love to see your workflow in the style of this post (especially as I've just put all my Nikon gear on a certain auction site).

 

Pete

[MX5Bob]

Ektachrome transparencies shot 36 years ago are still true, while color neg shot 18 years ago has gone to hell. I'll stick with transparencies.

[ndjambrose]

...Ektar is an amateur film with punch and contrast, not the best for scanning...

 

I've nothing against people having opinions but I think it's important to distinguish between subjective and objective statements.

 

Ektar is easy to scan if you know what you're doing, and its fine grain and colour response is probably the closest match in the colour negative portfolio to the rich colours and smoothness of a transparency. If I were moving from Velvia/Provia to colour negative then Ektar would be my first choice.

 

Scanned correctly, it has a full tonal curve, no muddy tones and a pleasing vibrance without obvious colour cast. If you really want to see what it can do, try shooting it on 67 or larger. The results are worth it. Have to say it's now my preferred film stock for commercial work.

Edited November 15, 2010 by ndjambrose

[noah_addis]

I am a big fan of the Kodak Portra films. I've been using the 160NC and 400NC, though if the forthcoming Portra 400 (the new version that is neither NC or VC) has grain that is improved as much as Kodak says it is, I may just use that exclusively.

 

Negative film can be tricky to scan. With decent software (and a good scanner operator) the color should be fine. But the different grain structure of color neg is tough to get around. With a drum scanner you can vary the aperture to minimize the prominence of the grain. But with flatbeds and CCD film scanners it can be a problem. It's not insurmountable though. With Nikon scanners, for example, if you scan at 4000dpi then downsample a bit in photoshop, the results can be extremely good.

 

Some of what looks like different-colored grain in skies for example, may actually be color noise from the scanner. Depending on the intensity it may or may not show up in your final prints. But it's less of a problem with slide film.

 

Slide film may provide less grain and slightly better fine detail, but for me the tonality and overall look of the photographs is more important. I love the lower-contrast look of negative film. I can punch it up in post if I like, but it's much harder if not impossible to get chrome film to look like neg film.

 

One other problem is that some consumer scanners can't handle the density range of slide film, which tends to have a higher dmax than negative film.

 

Grain isn't as much of a problem for me since I'm shooting 6x7cm and increasingly more 4x5 (it's a slippery slope:eek:). It's natural to obsess over these things, but I recently did a set of 40x32in. Epson prints from 6x7cm. negs. They were on a mix of Portra 160NC and Portra 400NC. I know the 400 has more grain, but even at that large print size the difference in the final prints was minimal. My photographer friends couldn't tell the difference and in fact one experienced 4x5 shooter thought they looked more like prints from 4x5 than medium format. I know 35mm is a smaller format so grain and sharpness may be more critical with higher enlargement factors, but really, I think sometimes photographers worry too much about minute differences in grain, resolution, etc.

 

You're right to have asked about tonality, since that is the important difference. I'd argue that wet prints from negatives aren't bad. The problem with negatives is sort of the same as with scanning. If you give a negative to a lab they have no idea how you want it printed, so you'll likely end up with a flat mess with a different interpretation of color than you wanted. Wet c-prints from negs can be very beautiful. If you're having a high-end scan (or wet print) made from a lab, you'll get a better result by giving them a match print showing what you want in terms of color and contrast. It's better still to do it yourself.

 

I'll agree with others and say that a good scan from a chrome should look pretty much like the chrome. Negative film can give you a wider tonal range with less blown highlights and/or more shadow detail, and this can translate into a scan if it's done properly.

 

So my advice is to try a few films, maybe different ones like Velvia, one of the Portras, etc. Then you can narrow it down and use the one you like best.

[adan]

One other thing I'll throw in the mix - I tried processing Velvia in C-41 to see if I could get Velvia-fine grain in a negative. Didn't work - the grain was C-41-like. So the extra grain visible in neg scans seems to be inherent to either the C-41 chemical process, or (IMHO, more likely) the way scanning software has to handle color negs (reversal of tones plus adding contrast).

 

I think there may simply be an essential difference between grain structure as produced by chemical reversal/redevelopment during processing (slides) and as produced by light transmission "on the fly" when scanning or enlarging to paper.

[noah_addis]

...So the extra grain visible in neg scans seems to be inherent to either the C-41 chemical process, or (IMHO, more likely) the way scanning software has to handle color negs (reversal of tones plus adding contrast).

 

I think there may simply be an essential difference between grain structure as produced by chemical reversal/redevelopment during processing (slides) and as produced by light transmission "on the fly" when scanning or enlarging to paper.

 

I think the difference is in the grain structure in the processed film as opposed to the digital reversal of tones/removal of orange mask, etc. Just try scanning a negative as a positive--you'll get an orange reversed image and it will have the same grain structure as when you scan it as a neg. I tried it once, thinking that perhaps if I made the inversion manually in photoshop that it would work better. It didn't.

 

Now I don't know if the difference is in the film itself or in the processing, but to me it doesn't matter too much since the film and processing are linked. Cross processing doesn't produce good results unless you're going for a different look.

 

I may be mistaken, but I always just assumed that the grain (actually the dye clouds that form the image) are larger in negative film than in slide film. But I don't know why.

 

The new Portra 400 that is supposedly optimized for scanning should prove interesting.

[tgray]

You are right Noah (or are correct as I understand things). Slide film has smaller grain because it's reversal. The faster grains are exposed, developed, then bleached away, leaving behind the unexposed smaller (slower) grains that make up the reversal image. Obviously grains are correlated to dye clouds here.

 

I personally have been getting great images out of Portra. All of them. I'm not particularly bothered by texture from grain in skies, etc., so I'm still happy with 135.

[W4Leica]

To me, nothing beats Velvia 50 & 100.

[NZDavid]

Slides still look like slides even when scanned. Too much contrast....

 

Excellent!

 

Fuji Astia 100F and Kodak E100G go well. The Astia has superb shadow detail and non-existent grain. Extar 100 neg film is worth trying and quite saturated, but I still prefer slide film. I've just never had any luck with Velvia, just too saturated.