Pastels with Portra Question

[IanH]

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Hello, I’ve got a similar but different issue… the negatives are returned from the local chemist/lab with a printed contacts sheet. Portra 400 images look wonderful on gloss at thumbnail size. 
I run them through Vue scan on a Nikon coolscan ls-50 at home and the images are flat. The scan resolution is brilliant, but the colours miss the punch from the contacts page by a mile. 

Other forums suggest post process manipulation, but I’d just like to scan and save- life is too short for photoshop.

Good luck with the scanning op.

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[frame-it]

28 minutes ago, IanH said:

Hello, I’ve got a similar but different issue… the negatives are returned from the local chemist/lab with a printed contacts sheet. Portra 400 images look wonderful on gloss at thumbnail size. 
I run them through Vue scan on a Nikon coolscan ls-50 at home and the images are flat. The scan resolution is brilliant, but the colours miss the punch from the contacts page by a mile. 

Other forums suggest post process manipulation, but I’d just like to scan and save- life is too short for photoshop.

Good luck with the scanning op.

the contact sheet is probably a fast scan that's printed, in which case they have probably automatically applied the film profile.

when i first shot a roll of fuji industrial in Japan i printed the whole roll. looked amazing, later on when i tried scanning other rolls of the same film at home, the images just never had the same color, finally spoke to someone in Tokyo, who informed me that the fuji scanner has the CYO100 / industrial profile..which i have now manually matched and saved as a preset in lightroom

for example:

without the profile  has a weird yellow-greenish tint>

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With the manually-matched-profile >

 

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by frame-it

[frame-it]

since silverfast has no profiles for exotic films, im thinking of shooting a color chart for each film that i use and save the profile in C1, dunno how to do it in LR

[adan]

11 hours ago, IanH said:

I run them through Vue scan on a Nikon coolscan ls-50 at home and the images are flat. The scan resolution is brilliant, but the colours miss the punch from the contacts page by a mile. 

Other forums suggest post process manipulation, but I’d just like to scan and save- life is too short for photoshop.

If you are using VueScan, that offers the option to save the scan as a .DNG file (same format as a Leica digital camera raw file). Save that, and then deal with PS/Adobe Camera Raw at any point in the future to edit (and re-edit, and re-edit again) the basic scan data into a photograph. Non-destructively (the original .DNG data does not get changed).

It is a basic bug/feature of color-neg film that the color negative, (unlike, say, a color-positive slide) is only half-baked. Someone has to do a lot of work to turn reversed orange gelatin/plastic into a usable, well-toned picture. Either you let the lab do it all for you (at the best resolution they can achieve) - or - you do it yourself.

As a corollary to that, color neg film is a bit more - variable - in the actual processing, since it is assumed that all pictures made on it will have to be adjusted anyway. Color neg film doesn't come with a "straight-out-of-the camera .jpeg" option like digital cameras.

THAT really hasn't changed since 1960 (B&W or color) - a lab/drugstore does it for you, or you go into the darkroom/Photoshop and do it with the quality you want, having acquired the necessary skills.

You could 1) ask your lab to make high-res. scans, as well as those used for the "contact sheet." Which should just be bigger files with the same color/tone/etc. as the contact.

or 2) Drop an email to Ed Hamrick (VueScan creator) to see if he has a recommendation for Vue-Scan pre-settings to get the "best drugstore picture file" from Portra 400. Except at the full res your Nikon Scanner can achieve.

or 2A) read the .pdf VueScan manual for similar information.

Sample (VueScan Manual 2007, p. 27):

Quote

Scanning Color Negative Film

Color negative film is able to capture a much wider range of intensities than slide film, and this can create a problem when scanning negative film.

Slide film maps a density range of 0:2.7 to an intensity range of 1:500, but negative film maps a smaller density range of 0:2.4 to a larger intensity range of 1:4000.

Imagine taking a picture of a typical outdoor scene with a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds along with a person standing in the shade under a tree. Further, imagine taking this picture with both slide film and negative film.

When taking this picture with slide film, the photographer has to set the exposure to either capture the details of the sky and clouds, or set the exposure to capture the details of the person standing in the shade under the tree. Once the picture is taken of one of the two intensity ranges, there's no way to get back the other intensity range after developing the film. However, when taking this picture with an automatic camera using negative film, the camera will usually set the exposure so that both the details in the clouds and in the shadows are captured.

Editorial comment: So yes, a basic scan from a color negative will contain more tonal range, but with less difference between tones (less saturation and contrast - "flat and no punch"). Therefore YOU (or someone) has to make it prettier.

With some work up front, you should be able to come up with some Vue-Scan settings you can "save" as pre-sets for use with all subsequent negs: color space, contrast/gamma curve, white clip, black clip, auto WB (or neutral, or others), Portra 400 profile or generic color-neg profile or custom-home-made profile from a calibration target.

At that point, scanning may become more of a "just push the button" process - so long as you remember that "automation" is always just an opportunity for the computer to make your mistakes for you.

It will require occasional input from a human mind.

[IanH]

Thank you @adanfor the thoughtful response. I can better understand the steps ahead of me now and I’ll need to invest in some time to test different settings. A few years back I scanned Ektar 100 colour negative regularly and it was much closer to what I thought it should look like. Like others have said, I may have sold myself on the Californian blue sky and soft pastel hues expected of Portra.

Something to enjoy having a play with over the Christmas break. I might also dig out the old negatives I scanned with my epson v750 and the bundled epson software and see if the Nikon machine makes a noticeable difference if I find the time.

 

 

[Mr.Prime]

I've also been experimenting with Portra 400 (35mm) and it's really a film that needs some practice. I am finding that it's very easy to under-expose it and shadows/grain are not pleasant. I'm still at the beginning of this learning curve and I can see that it is a film that isn't suitable for every subject. My sense so far is that you want a scene without a lot of shadows to start with and then expose it at EI200 or EI320. I haven't tried the Portra 160 yet, but in images I've seen posted on-line it has a cooler colour balance compared with Portra 400. When the Portra 400 is exposed well with the right scene the grain magically disappears. 

 

This shot was taken with Portra 400; it is not an example of low grain, my best shots are of family and I don't like to post their images here without permission.

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Edited February 19, 2022 by Mr.Prime