Elusive Reds.

[Stealth3kpl]

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All the other colours are perfect. The head band is spot on and the rucsac colour is perfect. Why are reds so difficult? Should I just accept it? I was hoping ColorPerfect would sort this problem. Admittedly it's better than just inverting the image in Photoshop. Any advice appreciated.

Pete

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[el.nino]

have a look here: http://www.colorneg.com/color_casts.html?lang=en

[rob_x2004]

I know you are trying to get the scan right 'out of the box'. Great idea. But if it is jsut a case of red correction couldnt you write yourself a little routine in photoshop, flick the RGB red curve independently a bit?

 

The problem I get in the hills is the scan outcome is weather dependent, something to do with the direction and intensity of the light, ultraviolet, and Leica lenses delivering 'nicest' in soft light and easily frazzled, so there is always something I have to fix.

 

On your image, a lot of the lightweight red sprayproofs are that colour anyway flipping past I wouldnt have picked it as being far wrong.

[Stealth3kpl]

I know you are trying to get the scan right 'out of the box'. Great idea. But if it is jsut a case of red correction couldnt you write yourself a little routine in photoshop, flick the RGB red curve independently a bit?.

 

How do I set about doing this? Do you think it's workable? I don't want magenta fire engines!

Pete

[rob_x2004]

You probably want to googe "Actions" for photoshop. There are bound to be tutorials on youtube too, though I admit I havent checked. Basically you record your keystrokes and replay them, or apply them from a saved folder to the file or selected batch of files.

If you sit down and work your way through, it is all pretty simple stuff.

The Jamies of this world are probably pretty gun on this, and it is going to take a little bit of understanding on what it takes to fix the file in the first place, but because the exact problem is specific to your film, your kit, your shooting and your workflow, you are going to have to work through it anyway.

If I had a consistent problem with the red channel then I would attack it in RGB curves, trial an error till you get it right, then record what you do and apply to future.

[rob_x2004]

Ps ... Over in New Zealand you get that hard clear light, and the rusty greens in the alps that people mistakenly think is european green, and that I figure you come across in scotland and stuff. Seems to brown off depending on the time of year but also with the reflection of the sun. this and that and whaterver round the tanin filled tarns.

[Stealth3kpl]

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I think I've solved it. Julian Thompson sent me an IT8 scanner profile and a film profile so I plugged them in to the most likely places and the result is much better.

I think i'll invest in an IT8 target and try to profile the scanner properly.

Thanks Julian,

Pete

 

PS The folk at ColorPerfect have kindly offered to have a look at the file so we'll see if they suggest a different avenue.

 

 

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[Julian Thompson]

Yes that's much better Pete, but as you say I guess that my profile is unique to my scanner so I suspect that profiling yourself will take matters to a satisfactory conclusion :-))

[rubenkok]

Hi Pete,

Had to give it a try with the auto correction in iPhoto

Used your first picture, here's the result.

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Hope this is some help.

Kind regards,

Ruben

[Stealth3kpl]

That's very impressive. All the info is there then.

Thanks.

Pete

[tobey bilek]

If the last are correct, the culprit is too much of either cyan or blue from the scanner.

 

I normally set up a neutral and multicolored object for a test frame and light it properly with flash or bright sun. I then color balance it and save the setting. All further films get that manual setting used and I have little trouble.

 

Auto scans see all the excessive red/magenta in the jacket and try to correct it out giving a cyan/green color cast where there was none to begin..

 

In the days of consumer color printing, this was called subject failure. A missnomer because the subject did not fail, the color balance program failed like it did here.

 

I rarely auto scan and just use the preset I made manually. This works until you change films or abuse the films like exposing daylight film under fluorescent or tungsten.

[Stealth3kpl]

That's interesting, and an excellent tip Toby thanks. I've ordered a IT8 card and I'll set about getting a profile for ektar and portra.

Thanks for your comments.

Pete

[Stealth3kpl]

Just for closure on this (in case anyone finds this in the future whilst having a problem) I've discovered where I was going wrong. After conversion with Vuescan to a tiff raw, i had got into the routine of applying an RGB profile on opening the file in Photoshop and then opening in ColorPerfect. This was where the colours were going off. I should not apply this (extra!) RGB profile.

Pete

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[el.nino]

Thats what i wanted to tell you with the Link to the colorneg tutorial. in there is a Link to a color profile tutorial on the same website.

the best thing to do is to ASSIGN (Not CONVERT to) the srgb profile after opening the file in Photoshop. solved all my red-issues.

 

here is the direct link: http://www.colorneg.com/working_spaces.html?lang=en