Inconsistent color between LS 2000 and LS 4000

I just got my LS-4000, having previously used a friend's LS-2000. I

noticed almost immediately that there is a considerable difference in

the colour balance of the output. I'm using Adobe RGB (1998),

scanning the same piece of film, and doing a neutral white point

adjustment at the scanning stage. Nikon CMS is on. The output from

the LS-4000 is cooler than that from the LS-2000 by something like

10CC. I thought that the whole point of scanner colour management was

to eliminate the variable colour characteristics of different

scanners from the process so in principle all scanners would produce

the same colours. The difference is quite noticable, and I'm

wondering if there is any way I can "recalibrate" my scanner. I can

work with the files, but with the LS-2000 I didn't have to do colour

adjustment for Ektachromes, while now I do. Any comments by people

who have used both?

You need to profile your scanners using an IT-8 target slide. Try going to

<A HREF =http://www.hutchcolor.com> http://www.hutchcolor.com</A> for a

very high quality IT-8 target. Monaco, ColorVision & Gretag-Macbeth all make

software to profile your scanner, but maybe LaserFast and Vuescan and

Nikon do too.

Ilkka,

 

Ellis's suggestion of profiling your scanner will solve your color matching problems. In the mean time, experiment with the color space settings on your 4000. First, I assume you have the Nikon CMS enabled, and are using your monitor profile? My 4000 gave very cool colors in Adobe RGB as well. I found that scanning into Wide Gamut RGB gave very accurate colors. Your scanner may well work better on a different color setting than mine. A custom profile improved things even more.

I hope you are not using NikonScan; it has all sorts of problems. Try <a href="http://www.hamrick.com/">VueScan</a> instead.

Emre,

 

I was a true Nikon Scan hater until version 3.1.(1 or 2) came along. The newest version works like a charm, the quality is excellent, and nary a crash. I have scanned 10000 images give or take a couple of thousand, and have only had Nikon Scan-related crashes a handful of times. Vuescan is a powerful tool, but somewhat clunky. I load up the little box with a pile of slides, push go, and let it churn and grind away overnight.

It seems to work, but just scan a negative and look at the histogram. Hey what's that, Zone 0 isn't there! And that's with version 3.1.2 -- before that I could barely load strip film due to a bug! VueScan is better in every way (except that it's not free).

Ok, I got things working.

 

I disabled Nikon CMS from the scanning software, and set the file profile (in Corel Photopaint 10, I don't have Photoshop yet) to the Nikon LS-40/4000 profile supplied with the scanner. I set monitor profile to Trinitron and the printer profile to Epson 890. This turned out correctly balanced printouts, and the image on the monitor was also correct. It seems that Nikon CMS doesn't do the right thing, and is best left off. Other than that, I'm happy so far with Nikon Scan (3.1.2). On the other hand, error messages and a little unstable behaviour appear quite "normal" with PhotoPaint when operated with 100-MB files.

 

About the scan quality: 1) From slides: I'm amazed by the quality of the prints on Epson's premium photo paper. I don't ever want to go to sleep again, let alone to work! :-) The scans are really sharp and shadows are beautiful. Even 50% area crops from E100SW look nice, much better than I ever expected.

 

2) From colour negatives: My initial impression is that there is a lot of grain in colour negatives (scanned Supra 100 looks quite a bit grainier than Astia). Type C printing is probably going to give quite a bit better results on people photographs than scanning 35 mm and printing at home. I suppose it's time to turn GEM and ICE on.

 

Thanks for the responses. I will look into those calibration products, though I am not sure if its worth the cost for me at this time.