<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I recently migrated from the traditional darkroom to the digital darkroom in order to produce a small digital portfolio and have a question regarding the color management of film scans...</p>
<p>I'm currently using an Epson v700 with Vuescan. Previously, I outputted a 'raw' tiff file (I understand that Vuescan's 'raw' files are not equivalent to true, digital raw files) and then reopened them in Vuescan for further processing. It then occurred to me that this further processing was post-scan software manipulation, so I decided to skip Vuescan in this regard and import straight to Photoshop, where I prefer to process my photos (if anyone sees a hole in this logic, please let me know). The scans, when inverted, were very light with histograms scrunched to the far right and thus somewhat difficult to work with. I figured I might not be doing something right, but I was on a deadline so I rolled with it. For anyone interested, the resulting portfolio (my first real foray into digital output, so plenty of room for improvement) is posted here...</p>
<p>(Photos #1, 5-8 & 10-12 were made with the aforementioned process)</p>
<p>https://www.flickr.com/photos/112010584@N04/albums/72157661830539494</p>
<p>So, now that that's done, I'm revisiting my workflow. I've since discovered that the 'raw' tiff files I was using were untagged, linear gamma files, which I think explains why they were so light once assigned to ProPhoto (my Photoshop working space) and then inverted. After some color management research, I tried this: I made a custom RGB profile based on the 'SFprofT (PerfectionV700)' profile I found (which I believe is the appropriate canned profile for transparency scans with the v700), and assigned a gamma of 1 to it to correspond with the gamma uncorrected tiff files. I then 'assigned' this profile to the scans, and subsequently 'converted' them to ProPhoto. This has significantly altered the coloring (I'm scanning black and white film as if it were color - I've sometimes found it useful to use different channels) and has also moved the histograms to the left, decompressing the highlights and making the initial global curve easier to make.</p>
<p>Does this seem like a 'correct' workflow to everyone? Working with the linear files confuses me - was I essentially working with an unnecessarily light image (after inversion) because no gamma correction was done upfront? Does 'assigning' the linear profile and then 'converting' it to ProPhoto truly solve this problem or is there something else I should do before beginning to implement creative manipulations?</p>
<p>My goal is to do as absolutely little in Vuescan as possible. If Vuescan's image processing is truly post-scan, I would much prefer to do it in Photoshop. I've only scanned black and white film thus far so I've had it easy, but I intend to dive into color soon, where I assume that figuring this out and having a solid color management workflow in place will become truly critical, especially as I plan to begin printing digitally.</p>
<p>Thanks so much in advance to anyone who actually managed to read this entire post and can tell me whether or not I'm on the right track!</p>
<p>-Jake</p>