New Portra and NPH not scanning very well.....printer in San Francisco?

[rich815]

I got my new free sample Portra films from Kodak and bought some of the "new"

NPH anxious to try them in my Hassy and Rolleiflex as I'd read both are more

formulated for better and easier scanning. I shot a few rolls and each and

using my Epson 4990 and with EpsonScan or Vuescan both look like crap with

colors being garish, unbalanced and very hard to control and

adjust....actually no better than old NPH and or even NPS in the scanning

problems I used to have with those. I get great results from my Epson 4990

with many other films be they color, B&W and slide so am surprised. I really

had high hopes for these films based on the publications from the companies

and the chatter.

 

Anyone else have any hints on how they've been able to scan them successfully?

 

I'm shooting a friend's wedding soon (nothing professional, formal or fancy,

just a few shots here and there for a friend) and was hoping to test out the

Portra 160 and 400 VC and Fuji NPH films and choose one type to use for the

wedding, then scan and make prints for her on my 2200. But with the funky,

garish colors I'm getting I'm squashing that idea unless someone can give me

some ideas.

 

As a back up I guess I can shoot the same films and then bring them to a local

pro lab, get some contact sheets and then get the lab to print them. Other

than New Lab in San Francisco any other local (San Francisco or East Bay) that

ayone can recommend that can do a good job on this kind of work without being

through the roof expensive if possible?

 

Thanks.

[ldw]

Rich-

 

I had some similar issues very recently scanning 6x6 Fuji 160S and Portra with my 4990. I wound up trying Epson's scanning software without good results and instead used Silverfast with there "Negafix" option set to the film I was using. This made a HUGE difference with my 160S negatives though I still had trouble with Portra. It seemed with 160S I was getting a orange-ish color cast using the Epson software and Silverfast resolved that.

 

I recently moved out of San Francisco, I sometimes would use Oscar's on Brannan. They are pretty good, smaller lab than the Newlab so they are a bit more flexible. I will say though, from a quality perspective I never found anything better in SF than the Newlab, I agree it is pricy though.

[stan_belyaev]

A&I developed and printed my first free roll of the new Portra 160VC. I noticed that on all prints light blue color (sky, my wife's coat, etc...) became of a different hue - turquoise (saturated green-blue). The other colors were fine. Dynamic range was excellent.

I scanned a couple of frames on Minolta multi Pro+Vuescan and should admit that it was more difficult to color balance the images than the images from UC400 and UC100. Even gold 200 was easer to scan.

The scans are very sharp, it looks like the grain of 160NC is very small, tight and sharp (it reminds me of grain ot some B&W films). I have not notices any color noise over the dark/shadow ares (like uc400). Overall it is a very good film, I guess the labs don't have profiles for it yet, although it should have the same profile as the other Portra films.

[stan_belyaev]

Few samples .....

100%crop

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=407311836&size=o

 

Original image

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=407311832&size=o

 

100%crop

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=407311829&size=o

 

Original image

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=407311823&size=o

 

 

I forgot to mention that the skin tones are very nice.

[ronald_moravec1]

I ahve tried Fuji 160 s and it scans just fine. So did my free Portra 160VC.

 

Attached is an electronic contact sheet made from 6 six frame strips made on an Epson 4870 and CS2 picture package I customized. No individual exposure or color correction was done.<div></div>

[ronald_moravec1]

Here is one frame from the roll.<div></div>

[ronald_moravec1]

Here is a Fuji 160S. This and the one above were home processed C41. I find consumer labs make difficult negs.<div></div>

[rich815]

Thanks guys. Stan, those look great. I take it scanned at the lab? Ronald, 03:50 looks way too magenta to me. And your contact sheet looks just like my results---which to me are a bit off and I just cannot get good balanced color no matter how I try. Too much cross over---correct for one color ruins another....I want results like Stan's.

[ldw]

Rich-

 

I just posted this shot that was scanned with my 4990 and it was Portra 160VC - http://www.photo.net/photo/5667769.

[stan_belyaev]

Rich,

I guess color balance of the films depends on many factors including how the films were exposed and processed. I use A&I lab (mailers). I should admit that their results have been quite consistent in terms of development quality.

I intentionally have not corrected the color of the sky. It was light blue, but on the prints and on the scans it is of turquoise color. It is possible that the new 160VC have problems with cyan. Unfortunately, that was the only roll of new 160vc that I had.

If you had a multi pro scanner, I could email you the profiles for vuescan.

[steven_palmer1]

Rich, I agree with your observations. I definitely would not say that Ronald's contact sheet is an example of a good scan. I cant see how cyan skies and magenta and yellow colour casts are indicative of a good scan. As far as the colour balanced photo is concerned, since when is snow magenta in colour?

 

Rich, if your scans look like Ronald's contact sheet then they are not good scans and you should seek a solution. I have the epson 4990 and think it is a good scanner, however, from my experience it scans positive far better than it scans negative. Perhaps a change to postive film will relieve some of your problems.

 

Steve

[bill_tuthill]

Rich 815, you might post some example so we could possibly diagnose

the problem. For specific questions about the Epson 4990, you might

have better luck in the Digital Darkroom forum.

[jtk]

Vuescan.

[rich815]

John said: "Vuescan"

 

I said in my original post:

 

"...and using my Epson 4990 and with EpsonScan or Vuescan both look like crap..."

 

Or did I miss something?

[rich815]

Ok, some examples of my scans I'm not particularly pleased with.<div></div>

[rich815]

Another.<div></div>

[rich815]

Last one for now...

 

...and BTW, the first, and this one, are after a LOT of tweaking and really trying to balance and get good color. And let me add, I consider myself a pretty decent scanner, with great success with Reala, Gold 100/200, 400UC (sort of), and slide films such as Astia, Sensia and Velvia.

[bill_tuthill]

All of them seem too bright and look better to me with Levels set

to .40, .80, and .60. The second one also looks too green. Are these

with Vuescan, and if so, which film profile?

[rich815]

Thanks for the suggestions Bill. In terms of profile in Vuescan I cannot remember. I simply must have tried EVERYTHING.

 

Good news is I stumbled upon what looks like a decent solution for a roll of 400NC-2 I shot. On a complete whim I tried the Kodak Funtime profile as it looked almost like good colors but with merely a cyan mask. Unfortunately once in PS it was not as simple as that and I had trouble again. I then tried clicking around the image with the middle grey and white eye dropper in Levels just to see what I'd get. One of them seemed to "click" and looked promising. I then slightly tweaked that eye dropper result in the Levels just to cut back a bit on the highlights, saved that Levels profile so I could load it later, and then added some Saturation and a little bit of contrast using a contract Action I created (based on an unsharp mask contrast technique I learned somewhere) and voila! I hit on a result I think is pretty good. See attached.

 

Now, to see if I can have the same serendipity with NPH and 400VC...<div></div>

[bill_tuthill]

Your last two scans actually seem quite good, Rich. The first was

merely overly bright (gamma setting too high) in my opinion.

Here is my attempt to improve the second. I could not simultaneously

optimize both the face and landscape, so I selected the face, added

yellow and magenta, inverted selection, then increased contrast and

saturation in the landscape.

 

Most people I know use the Vuescan 160NC/160VC/400NC/400VC settings for Portra. Whether this is good advice for new Portra remains to

be seen.<div></div>

[rich815]

Thanks for your efforts Bill. Very appreciated. I think I may have hit it on Pro400H too tonight. See attached. Bottom line is none of the Vuescan profiles seem to work for me and I have to fiddle with the eye dropper to get close and then levels and saturation control tweaks to get it right. Although the Pro400H one required a bit of PS Selective Color tweaks too. Phew! This may sound like the standard way to work in PS for color but I've never worked this hard for Gold 100/200 or Reala. Back to B&W for me.... ;-)<div></div>

[bill_tuthill]

Yes, Vuescan didn't have a good profile for NPH either, which is

supposedly the same film as 400H with a different name. That's why

I stopped shooting NPH and switched to 400UC, which scans easily

using Vuescan's Royal Gold 100 (or 400) Gen2. Opinions vary.