Are CF System's ColorPerfect and ColorNeg the hardest to use software EVER?

[plasticman]

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Anyone with a good handle on these almost impenetrable and arcane pieces of software - I'd gladly take advice.

 

I've followed the documentation (which in itself is pretty impenetrable), and also some good information here, but I'm wondering if anyone has produced a good stage-by-stage visual breakdown of a standard workflow?

 

Or generally any tips, in fact.

 

I bought the CF System package and Vuescan Pro yesterday, and the test scan on the Coolscan 9000 came out amazingly detailed and with lovely color - but I feel there's more that could be got out of this combination if only I could get a handle on the almost bizarre arrangement of the CF software. It really doesn't follow any of Apple's GUI guidelines, and maybe I should've paid more attention during math class if I want to understand the manual...

[el.nino]

pretty easy to use if you get used to it.

 

here is my workflow:

 

- scanning the raw-negative

- open it in photoshop

- open colorperfect

- selecting the film => this should already bring you pretty close

- adjusting brightness by moving the black-slider (first field)

- you may want to select the hightlight-stop on top to prevent burn out highlights

- adjusting contrast and saturation by moving the white-slider (second field)

- adjusting whitebalance by clicking in a neutral area of the image

- you can finetune the whitebalance by entering values in the R G B fields (that's what also happens if you click a neutral area in the image). e.g. writing +5 in the R-field gives you more red. writing -5 in this field removes red by adding green and blue.

and so on...

 

this should be enough to get you very very far.

there are a few other useful possibilities, but you shouldn't focus on the other stuff at the beginning.

[plasticman]

Thanks for the example workflow .

 

This is pretty much what I tried and I'm actually really happy with the result - definitely better color than using NikonScan, Vuescan or Silverlight to make positive scans - but the user-interface is such a mess, and the terms used are non-standard, so that you really can't ever be sure that you're doing the right thing imo.

 

Cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can make one application that defies pretty much every single rule in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines - radio buttons that don't select an item until the user clicks in the adjacent dialog box, non-standard undo, no scrolling of a zoomed image, no aliasing of the image (one of the weakest points in the app), curve graphs that overlay your image, and then (best of all) using window scroll controls as the main input instead of standard sliders (with virtually no visual feedback as to which item is actively being changed, and no scale on the scrollbar).

 

Really, if the results weren't so good I'd be queuing for my $70 back - though to be fair, there's a trial - so you know what you're getting into.

 

Maybe someone with Cocoa-programming experience can give the guy a hand?

[el.nino]

Cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can make one application that defies pretty much every single rule in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines - radio buttons that don't select an item until the user clicks in the adjacent dialog box, non-standard undo, no scrolling of a zoomed image, no aliasing of the image (one of the weakest points in the app), curve graphs that overlay your image, and then (best of all) using window scroll controls as the main input instead of standard sliders (with virtually no visual feedback as to which item is actively being changed, and no scale on the scrollbar).

 

I know exactly what you mean, but I can live with that.

As far as I understood it was developed for windows and then just adapted and this seemed not to be very easy. apparently they don't even have a mac to test.

 

there is a very helpful user-group on flickr: Flickr: CF Systems ColorNeg/ColorPerfect User Group

I think the developers are posting and helping there as well.