Hi,
I am hoping to get some advice on scanning 35mm film with my PrimeFilm XAs scanner. I have sent my film to a lab before and did not have problems with skin colors. I also developed film before (even in the age when this was the default) and while there is certainly room for improvement, I am doing okay. Scanning is a different story. First of all, a small print on the scanner asks me to insert the pictures in a 321 order which is impossible to do. So, I am assuming what they are trying to tell me is to use ascending numbers/order. I am using VueScan. There are some issues with VueScan such that its film presets brighten the image too much or destroy the pupils in portrait photography. My main question for today, however, are skin colors. What I usually do, is leaving all the color settings on default and only changing the white point to 0.02 to have a flat image that captures more detail (but I also tried without this). My scans are sharp and for most parts, I am okay with the colors. I use gimp and rawtherapee for white balancing, levels, microcontrast, and so on, all seems fine. However, I cannot get skin colors under control. They all come out very pale. This is particularly troublesome as it makes adjusting levels almost impossible. I am using a 50% gray mask/layer to do so and pick whites and black by hand and the midpoint from the black areas of this gray layer in difference mode. This is usually very effective, but as the skin is pale, it remains mostly unchanged. If I change the saturation and so on, the skin changes too slow compared to the rest of the image. My lab has this under control, so it is either the scanner, the software, or a lack of skill on my side (or some combination). As a new user, I cannot post a picture but here is a link: Pasteboard - Uploaded Image . The smaller the face is as part of the overall photo, the more problematic this very pale and gray skin tone becomes. I am sure there are some complex ways of fixing this in postprocessing, but how does my lab do it in seconds or automatically? I am happy to learn.
Kris
