Nikon IT8 Profile - what & how?

[schimmey]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Hi. I am trying to set up my scanner to ensure I get the most out of it. I have recently purchased VueScan professional and read the section 'Scanner Profiling with IT8 Targets'. It says that most scanners are included with IT8 targets. I have a Nikon 5000 and cannot find anything of such. Can anyone advise where I can find one and what I need to do with it? It is all so confusing. Thanks, Paul.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[hoppyman]

Vuescan Pro has or had a function to make these profiles and there are/were commercial programs that you pay more for to make these profiles too. I would say that Google is your friend if you want to learn more. You need an IT8 target made for the specific film that you are working with. There are a number of sources and prices I think.

A few years back when scanning Provia etc I got mine from a supplier in Germany by the name of Wolf Faust who was extremely quick and professional to deal with

The color tools site (CMS, ICC,...).

You could get various combinations but basically you get reference slides with extremely precise tonal values for each swatch and/or prints which are scanned and those scans are measured for variation on how the defined tonal values are measured.

 

Really this is just for hard core commercial demands where every aspect must be nailed down for precisely reproducable work. But the targets weren't all that expensive. There are so many variables in the process of scanning from your originals that you need to be prepared to work at your process there to make this level of control meaningful .

Personally, I'd suggest experimenting a lot first with the provided film options in your Vuescan menus to see if you can't come up with something that suits you well without going to this extent.

 

Have fun and do report in. Sorry I can't give more detail currently as I no longer use film.

[adan]

IT8 targets look like this: http://www.fcenter.ru/img/article/scaners/Canon_CanoScan_8800F/115850.jpg

 

The two main color panels and the grayscale at the bottom are "standard" to the IT8 specification. The stuff in the right-hand column can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer (this is Kodak's "Shirley").

 

To calibrate flatbed reflective scanners, one just puts a flat, opaque, letter-sized (or 5x7) IT8 target on the scanner and scans it. For film scanners, the target has to be photographed with the film of choice, or purchased already photographed on the same film you'll be using for pictures (lots o' luck!).

 

At one time film scanners often came with a slide of an IT8 target included. However, the problem is that if the supplied target was on, say, Ektachrome 100N, and your preferred film was Agfa RSX or Kodachrome or Provia 100/400, it wasn't much use - because films reproduce color differently (and for that matter, labs may develop film slightly differently, shifting the color response).

 

Where you find one (two examples):

 

it8 target

IT8 target - Adorama.com

 

What you do with it: For a film scanner like the 5000, photograph it on the film(s) you plan to use, under the general kind of light you plan to use (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent). Get the film processed by the lab you plan to use. Sit down with your processed slides, your scanner, and your Vuescan instructions and proceed from there.

 

I don't know Vuescan's exact process (I guess something like this: Film Profiling with IT8 Targets), but basically it will be scanning your slide or neg, and having Vuescan's electrons calculate where the scanned colors differ from the original, standard, known colors on the target and building a "profile" or table of corrections. The theory being that if your profile can reproduce the IT8 accurately, it will then reproduce any other colors shot with that film perfectly.

 

All profiling (printers, scanners, monitors, digital cameras, films) work on the same theory. Start with a precisely standardized set of colors and gray tones, reproduce them via the device being profiled, and then compare the reproduction to the original colors, ideally via software of some kind (less easily fooled than the eye).

 

Realistically, unless you have a lab that is rigidly invariable in its processing, you'd really have to shoot an IT8 on every roll, and produce a scanner profile for every roll. But so long as your lab's consistency is "pretty good," just doing an IT8 profile every few months will get "pretty good" accuracy.