Ektar 100 Pro. Very nice for "reality" colour.

[sfage]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I'm not sure about the film profiles. I never use them. I just set it to generic.

 

As far as SF goes, I have had nothing but really bad luck with it. For example, I set up all the colours I want, the brightness, etc... and something from outer space comes out.

 

So, upon more than one occasion I have said : "okay, I'm done with this."

[sfage]

I'll take Andy's words to heart and try another test. I'll take some stuff that I usually do and see if I can get the Ektar to really screw the colours up.

 

Question: I have an older Leitz Cron 50. Is there any advantage to me buying one of the newer Canadian-assembled models? I wouldn't think so but I'd be interested to hear people's opinions.

[tgray]

I don't think they've changed in the last 12 years or so that I've been using Vuescan. From memory they relate to films that were around when Photo CD was 'the next big thing'.

 

Indeed, that's where Ed Hamrick says they are from. Obviously new films aren't getting added in to Photo CD by Kodak, so they won't get added in to Vuescan. Besides, if you read up a bit on what those profiles are actually supposed to do, I don't think most of us would want to use them anyway.

 

I would suspect most of us want good conversion of the scan, while still retaining the characteristic of the film, i.e. if the film has very saturated blues relative to other colors, we want to keep that saturated blue. As I understand it, Photo CD (and Vuescan) profiles try to profile out the film and recreate the scene, i.e. compensate for that very saturated blue by desaturating it.

 

That being said, I find Vuescan's profiles to be pretty horrible and fail even at the above objective. Just take a look at one of the Portra 400 profiles and compare it to Portra 800. Unfortunately, even selecting 'Generic color negative' applies a film profile, supposedly something similar to the Gold 100 one. Which is why I started just skipping the inversion step in Vuescan and do it myself in Photoshop.

 

We don't want recreation of the scene, we want recreation of the film. Which is more akin to wet printing it - the inversion process is fixed by the paper characteristics, and the characteristics of the film are allowed to show through (combined with those of the paper). If you look at the basic controls in wet printing, ignoring contrast, you have overall exposure (black point) and filtration (which adjusts individual RGB blackpoints). The white point is fixed relative to the black points by the paper's contrast for that color. You can obviously think of the white point as being set by exposure and the black point being set relative to that by the paper contrast - the principle is the same. Set one end of the scale using your printing controls and the other end lines up relative to it.

 

While I found Colorperfect to approximate this, sometimes it gave funky results, and it's got the worst interface ever. Silverfast's negafix profile, in advanced mode, should give you all the control you should ever need to accomplish the above. At the same time, curves or levels in Photoshop will also let you do this, which is what I settled on doing.

[treeplanter]

I'm new to Vuescan but, so far, I am not impressed. Maybe I'll learn it's secrets the more I use it, but for now, its a disappointment. As for Silverfast, when it works, it does a real fine job, but it's also very consistent in its operation and results.

 

I just got through scanning some 120 B&W negs (Tri-x). The Vuescan scans were a joke, muddy and soft. Silverfast, using the Tr-X Nefafix profile, gave me a pretty good scan I could easily tweak in Photoshop. The best scans though, were using the Epson software that came with my 4490 scanner. Nice tonal range and sharp.

 

Jim B.

[stunsworth]

I just got through scanning some 120 B&W negs (Tri-x). The Vuescan scans were a joke, muddy and soft.

 

Maybe it was user error?

[treeplanter]

Maybe it was user error?

 

Could be, as explained in my other post, I'm new to Vuescan. But why I should labor to get a good scan with Vuescan when I can use Silverfast or the basic Epson scan software instead?

 

Jim B.

[Nando]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Getting back to Ektar 100. I'm very satisfied with the results I get.

 

My Mother, Salvaterra de Magos by ~ Nando ~, on Flickr

 

Duas Santinhas, Fátima by ~ Nando ~, on Flickr

 

Baskets, Rua da Louça, Coimbra by ~ Nando ~, on Flickr

 

Confession, Igreja de Santiago, Coimbra by ~ Nando ~, on Flickr

 

I do my own C-41 processing using the K2 Unicolor chemicals. I scan the negatives with my Nikon Coolscan V using Vuescan. I set up Vuescan to give me the most amount of information possible in a scan. The resulting image is flat and very low contrast. All processing options in Vuescan are turned off. I do all my post processing in Photoshop but its not much. I set black and white points for each colour channel separately, increase the contrast slightly in the curves tool and then I reduce the colour saturation by 10-15%. That's it.

 

I find that exposure is critical with Ektar. At 100 ISO, I get good results. Overexposure brings more saturated colours and strong magentas in the shadows. Underexposure brings a blue cast. It is also very sensitive to light temperature.