[Oliver Ritter-Wolff Silver Member Posts: 198]

General

on: December 29, 2020 at 8:30 am

Hello,

as I am looking for a new medium format scanner as a successor to the Nikon ED9000 and am increasingly focusing on the Braun FS120 (identical in construction to the Reflecta MF5000), my eyes fell on another tool called Color Perfect while updating my scanning software Silverfast Studio AI and Vuescan Pro:

https://www.colorperfect.de/Dias-und-Negative-scannen/Diascans/Negativscans/Hamrick-Software/VueScan/

The whole thing looks quite interesting in the context of raw scanning, so I’ll take a closer look in the coming weeks.

But maybe someone here already has experience with it?

Oliver

https://www.riwodot.de

https://vero.co/riwodot

https://www.instagram.com/riwodot/

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #1 on: January 1, 2021 at 6:06 pm

I have had experience with both VueScan and ColorPerfect as stand-alone applications, but not working with them combined as described. It seems from reading the page you linked that the main role for ColorPerfect in VueScan is to create linear output. If you are updating SilverFast (it’s free within SilverFast 8 but not free if you upgrade to the new SilverFast 9) and you already know that software, perhaps this is the cheapest and easiest way to produce linear scans if that is what you are looking for. You set the Gamma to 1.0 in Preferences>CMS and that does it. That said, I’m not sure what this buys you, because you will be leaving linear gamut in post-scan processing anyhow. The main thing you want to avoid is clipping of highlights and shadows at the scan stage, but you don’t necessarily need a linear scan to achieve that objective – depending on the image of course.

[Oliver Ritter-Wolff Silver Member Posts: 198]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #2 on: January 1, 2021 at 7:24 pm

Mark D Segal wrote:

I have had experience with both VueScan and ColorPerfect as stand-alone applications, but not working with them combined as described. It seems from reading the page you linked that the main role for ColorPerfect in VueScan is to create linear output. If you are updating SilverFast (it’s free within SilverFast 8 but not free if you upgrade to the new SilverFast 9) and you already know that software, perhaps this is the cheapest and easiest way to produce linear scans if that is what you are looking for. You set the Gamma to 1.0 in Preferences>CMS and that does it. That said, I’m not sure what this buys you, because you will be leaving linear gamut in post-scan processing anyhow. The main thing you want to avoid is clipping of highlights and shadows at the scan stage, but you don’t necessarily need a linear scan to achieve that objective – depending on the image of course.

Hello Marc,

as I just wrote in the other post, I am currently researching on the net alternative ways to digitize slides and film negatives without using a medium format scanner.

Before that, however, I looked into the medium format scanners currently available on the market and came across one or two interesting articles, such as the one mentioned above, about software products that I am not yet familiar with, such as ColorPerfect.

I myself used VueScan with my Epson V750 Pro as well as Silverfast Studio AI version 6.5 with the Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED. With the new higher versions of Silverfast, however, it seems to have changed again a bit, as you also write. A linear gamma would be a starting point for the post processing to get as much image information as possible in the initial scan process. As far as I know this is also the case when scanning gamma linear RAW files in VueScan into DNG format, which as far as I know is almost identical to TIFF except for the mentioned tonal response curve?

But until now I had always scanned my medium format slides to TIFF 16Bit and then archived them. That was my starting point for further post-processing of these files.

Many greetings
Oliver

https://www.riwodot.de

https://vero.co/riwodot

https://www.instagram.com/riwodot/

[Oliver Ritter-Wolff Silver Member Posts: 198]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #3 on: January 1, 2021 at 7:31 pm

… and not to forget, a happy new year and above all a healthy new year, hoping that we will gradually get a grip on COVID-19, even if I fear that it will take until 2022.

Oliver

https://www.riwodot.de

https://vero.co/riwodot

https://www.instagram.com/riwodot/

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #4 on: January 1, 2021 at 7:52 pm

Hi Oliver – yes, a happy new year to you too. Let us hope some time into this year we overcome the COVID business. It will depend on the vaccine programs world-wide. Like you I think we are looking at late in the year for anything nearing normalcy, if we are fortunate.

So to be clear about the file formats: in the scanning business a raw scan strictly means that the raw data is culled from the scanner without being processed any more than needed to make an image of it. Call it “scanner raw”. This data can be given a DNG shell making it compatible with any image editor that can process DNG raw files. In SilverFast, and in Vuescan, you can set the gamma to 1.0 to provide a linear rendition of the data, whereby input = output. It is true that contrast-related compression doesn’t happen if the gamma is 1.0, but you would never keep an image in this condition, so whether you produce a minimally acceptable scan in the scanning software before sending it to another image editor, or keep it linear and then do everything in the external editor is largely a matter of personal preference. If you do very aggressive contrast enhancement in the scan software, then yes, you can compress more data that you may later regret having compressed. But moderate tonal adjustments in the scan software can make sense because the result gives you more editing headway in the next editing application down the line.

[Oliver Ritter-Wolff Silver Member Posts: 198]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #5 on: January 2, 2021 at 1:04 pm

“But moderate tonal adjustments in the scan software can make sense because the result gives you more editing headway in the next editing application down the line.”

… that’s interesting. Until now, I had honestly always avoided using additional image processing functions in the scanning software and did that afterwards in Photoshop or later Affinity Photo.

Oliver

https://www.riwodot.de

https://vero.co/riwodot

https://www.instagram.com/riwodot/

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #6 on: January 2, 2021 at 1:33 pm

Much of this is a matter of personal preference – no hard and fast rules. But there are some relevant considerations, such as the quality and power of the scanning software one is using, and the need to avoid permanent damage at the scan stage. For example, I have always avoided any sharpening (not the same as focusing) in scanner software because once that gets baked-in it’s really hard to do anything about it afterward, and I always had more controllable, better quality sharpening results from Photokit Sharpener than from any of these scanner applications. But some tone and colour editing in SilverFast, especially with Version 8 can be very useful; especially with conversion of negatives and for making sure there is no clipping of highlights and shadows. So the guiding principle is, as often the case: “it depends”. I know that’s as good as nailing jelly to a wall, but with some reasoning, experimentation and experience one gets to land on where to do what. 🙂

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 416]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #7 on: January 4, 2021 at 1:37 pm

Define “RAW Scanning” and what you hope to accomplish with something raw vs. cooked?

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Oliver Ritter-Wolff Silver Member Posts: 198]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #8 on: January 4, 2021 at 6:38 pm

Andrew Rodney wrote:

Define “RAW Scanning” and what you hope to accomplish with something raw vs. cooked?

Hello Andrew,

I’m not sure I understand the background of the question?

From RAW files one expects in general the original data that a CCD sensor or other camera sensor outputs to get files with the largest possible post-processing reserve.

In addition, I think it’s a positive side effect that these “digital negatives” are more likely to resist accidental modification in common software than typical image file formats.

However, for years I have mostly scanned my medium format slides directly to TIFF and then archived them on Verbatim Archival M discs.

Oliver

https://www.riwodot.de

https://vero.co/riwodot

https://www.instagram.com/riwodot/

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 416]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #9 on: January 4, 2021 at 8:24 pm

High bit, scanner profile (descriptor of input color space).

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Oliver Ritter-Wolff Silver Member Posts: 198]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #10 on: January 16, 2021 at 8:28 am

Mark D Segal wrote:

Much of this is a matter of personal preference – no hard and fast rules. But there are some relevant considerations, such as the quality and power of the scanning software one is using, and the need to avoid permanent damage at the scan stage. For example, I have always avoided any sharpening (not the same as focusing) in scanner software because once that gets baked-in it’s really hard to do anything about it afterward, and I always had more controllable, better quality sharpening results from Photokit Sharpener than from any of these scanner applications. But some tone and colour editing in SilverFast, especially with Version 8 can be very useful; especially with conversion of negatives and for making sure there is no clipping of highlights and shadows. So the guiding principle is, as often the case: “it depends”. I know that’s as good as nailing jelly to a wall, but with some reasoning, experimentation and experience one gets to land on where to do what. 🙂

Hello Marc,

I have since installed Silverfast AI Studio version 9 for my Epson V750 Pro and have put the new Advanced Targets (ISO 12641-2 compliant 2019) to work for calibration.

The software runs much better than the old v6.x and the calibrated slide scans look good.

For the new Advanced Target, in addition to the CXF reference files, I also got CGATS TXT files from Silverfast on request, so I can also use them with my “old” Profile Maker 5. I updated my old Win XP machine to Win 10 Pro (32bit) and with a new dongle driver I even got Profile Maker 5, the measure tool with the i1 IO Table working again. In addition, the old hard drive was replaced with an SSD and the whole thing runs quite usable again. Also the old colorimeter Xrite DTB94b is usable again with DisplayCal/AgryllCMS :).

In parallel, I continue to experiment with camera digitization on all levels in terms of hardware and software. I am currently building an anti-glare channel so that I can also digitize during the day without having to darken the whole room. I’m currently testing the Lomography film carrier:

https://shop.lomography.com/de/digitaliza-35mm-scanning-mask
https://shop.lomography.com/de/digitaliza-120-scanning-mask

At the moment I’m looking at slides in this context first, then negative film separately later. With the blue filter, however, I have already made a few test images and can already see that this is helpful.

Oliver

https://www.riwodot.de

https://vero.co/riwodot

https://www.instagram.com/riwodot/

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Color Perfect (RAW Scanning)

Reply #11 on: January 16, 2021 at 10:06 am

Hi Oliver, could you post some results of using your blue filter?

Mark

[Author]

Posts