Scanning Portra: How on earth do you get the "Look"?

<p><i>"Perhaps you could give me some tipps on how to achieve them with Photoshop?"</i></p>

 

<p>Specific Photoshop tips? Probably not, but I will comment a bit further on scanning philosophy and workflow.</p>

 

<p>What I want from my scanner/scanning software is a relatively neutral and accurate image. Absolutely no clipping - in fact I prefer a small bit of headroom at both ends - and no blocking at either end of the tonal range. This should be, and generally is, easily accomplished, given the relatively limited range of a color negative. I've found Nikon scanners to generally do a good job with auto-exposure, but I will often tweak slightly from the first pre-scan depending on initial results. Obviously, focus is important as well. I also want colors to be as close as possible to spot on - though I generally expect to tweak slightly in post processing. And, of course, no sharpening.</p>

 

<p>This drives the general workflow to follow in PS, which for a typical image will consist of 4 major steps. Any minor color tweaks, tonal/contrast adjustment, "capture" sharpening and finally sizing/cropping and output sharpening for final results.</p>

 

<p>The devil here is obviously in the details. For example, most here probably know what a "typical" contrast curve looks like, but it takes practice, experience and a certain measure of artistic judgment to do this well, particularly with film scans. The difference between close and spot-on can have a huge impact on the general impression of quality in an image. There is no formula to follow, only experience and a good eye. The same applies to color and sharpening. Even with good tools, like Photokit, when sharpening you should still expect to tweak to suit each image. For example, I typically find that I'll adjust the sharpening masks created by PK (increase the density) for most color negative scans, and I'll almost always decrease the sharpening layer opacity from the color neg defaults.</p>

 

<p>The point here is that the difference between what looks subjectively good and right in one photographer's film scans, and what looks a bit rough and lacking tonal subtlety in another probably has less to do with the specific steps taken, and far more to do with the good, well-practiced eye employed cumulatively in the steps which created the better image.</p>

 

<p>And finally, revisiting the final output and resizing - don't discount how much poor resampling can impact the overall quality of an image. Poorly resampled and output sharpened images can look rough and yet can lack detail at the same time. And the roughness isn't about grain, as such, but rather about how tonal, detail and color subtlety can all be lost due to the way grain and fine detail are rendered in the re-sampling.</p>

 

<p>Enough. Once again, this is longer than I'd intended, but it seems that perhaps you're looking for a silver bullet, when the differences are more likely in details. Or perhaps I don't completely understand what you're looking for. Good luck in any case.</p>

 

<p>Scott</p>

Join the party:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00K9nh

 

I've since gotten a Nikon 9000 and it's not gotten much better. Best results so far have been Vuescan (not as a positive, I found that never helps) for the scan with the "most info" (flat, sort of washed out, no clipping) and then some tweaking with ColorWasher.

<a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/137/317674970_ca1c9052c5_m.jpg" width="160" height="240" alt="" /></a>

 

stronger:

<a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/140/327031121_95edc759b3.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="" /></a>

 

those these were taken digitally, you can acheieve that creamy texture by duplicating the layer, converting to bw (however you please), setting the layer to soft light and opacity 50% or so. Maybe even add diffuse glow if needed.

This was scanned with Minolta ScanDual III and its software. I too find that Vuescan produces more grain with negatives, although it renders more shadow details than the Minolta software. I use Vuescan for my Kodachrome scans, which come out beautifully.<div></div>

and one more - both are from the Huntington Gardens<div></div>

"I too find that Vuescan produces more grain with negatives, although it renders more shadow details than the Minolta software."

 

That's just the black point setting- how much shadow detail (or noise) do you accept before turning it solid black? Move the left slider in levels to accomplish the same thing.