Grain2Pixel - Colour negative conversion plug-in for Photoshop

FishyFish

FishyFish

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Nige
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This has already been discussed a little in the Big film scanner thread, but I though it might be worth breaking out on its own.

Grain2Pixel is a Photoshop plug-in that converts your colour negatives to colour corrected positives. Now, normal scanner software such as Epson Scan, Silverfast, Vuescan et al will do this anyway, and there are other plug-ins and add-ons that also do a similar job - noteably Negative Lab Pro. My own attempts with scanner software rarely produces results I'm happy with and, while I've heard good things about Negative Lab Pro, it costs around £60.

Grain2Pixel is currently free (for the standard edition - a "Pro" edition is apparently in the pipeline) and, from my initial tests, seems to do a pretty good job of converting negatives and producing colours that I'm happy with. It works quickly (now that I've replaced my PC's faulty RAM at least!), taking around 10 seconds to convert a 35mm negative scanned at 3600dpi on my Plustek (which is approximately 3350 pixels on the short side). Even using the Plustek's "1 frame at a time" feed, I can probably scan and convert a full roll in an hour or so.

I'll use this thread to post examples and thoughts on the plug-in.

1 - Olympus Trip 35 & Portra 160. Scanned on my Epson V550 with Epson Scan. No post processing.

Sculpture by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

2- Olympus Trip 35 & Portra 160. Scanned on my Plustek 8100 with Vuescan and converted using Grain2Pixel. No post processing.

Sculpture-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr


3 - Olympus Trip 35 & Agfa Vista Plus. Scanned on my Epson V550 with Epson Scan. Probably some post-processing - it's my original Flickr upload of this image from three years ago.

FILM - City Clipper by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

4- Olympus Trip 35 & Agfa Vista Plus. Scanned on my Plustek 8100 with Vuescan and converted using Grain2Pixel. No post processing.

City Clipper by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr
 
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Now bearing in mind that I am colour blind, I would say that the second examples are definitely better looking to my eyes. I only really scan 5 X 4 colour negatives but this might be a big help.
 
Thanks for posting this Nige, I’m really interested in this. For ages now I’ve struggled to get good negatives scan results, so I’m very keen to look into this. Just to confirm, I trust you scan it as a transparency?

Scanning slide causes me much fewer issues, which is a tiny component towards why I keep shooting it.
 
Having had a look at the images, I prefer the skin tones in the 1st and the rest of the colours in the 2nd. It appears to be red saturation, because the bus wheel jumps out at you on the 2nd image whilst it's hidden in the 1st. Similarly the brick wall comes to life in the 2nd. Sadly so does gray-jacket-man's sunroof!
 
Woodsy said:
Thanks for posting this Nige, I’m really interested in this. For ages now I’ve struggled to get good negatives scan results, so I’m very keen to look into this. Just to confirm, I trust you scan it as a transparency?

Scanning slide causes me much fewer issues, which is a tiny component towards why I keep shooting it.
Click to expand...

Yep. You need to start with an unconverted image complete with orange mask. I'm using Vuescan to save a linear tiff file.

I'm in the same boat when it comes to getting colour negative scans looking right, which is why I started getting lab scans, and why this looks promising.

Harlequin565 said:
Having had a look at the images, I prefer the skin tones in the 1st and the rest of the colours in the 2nd. It appears to be red saturation, because the bus wheel jumps out at you on the 2nd image whilst it's hidden in the 1st. Similarly the brick wall comes to life in the 2nd. Sadly so does gray-jacket-man's sunroof!
Click to expand...

I agree, the reds do seem to have more saturation in the G2P scans. Not sure how much of this is down to the conversion and how much is down to the film stock. I'll try to pick some images with reds when I scan further shots from different film stocks as a comparison.

The Epson Scan image of the bus probably has some post processing applied as its my original upload to Flickr from a few years ago. I'll take a look at the original to see how that compares later. Maybe the chap has caught the sun. :D

I've deliberately left the scans from G2P untouched (apart from some dust spottingand cropping) so they reflect what it generates as a starting point. So far, its a much better starting point than I've been getting from other methods. To my eyes at least. :)

I'll do some comparisons against lab scans too.
 
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The colours are considerably more saturated in the second versions, with a more magenta hue, and skin tones heading towards that of uncooked bacon. If you could just find something to reduce the grain significantly then you'd probably be on your way to discovering the alchemy that turns Poundland Vista into Ektar 100! ;)
 
Mr Badger said:
The colours are considerably more saturated in the second versions, with a more magenta hue, and skin tones heading towards that of uncooked bacon. If you could just find something to reduce the grain significantly then you'd probably be on your way to discovering the alchemy that turns Poundland Vista into Ektar 100! ;)
Click to expand...

I think you're right about the hint of magenta. It's not too strong, but it's there. I'll scan more photos with people as I go through the process - some of the others shot on different stocks that I've converted so far are looking less "sunburnt".
 
A selection of Kodak Colorplus photos here.
All Nikon F70 & Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.

The Epson Scan images are much more muddy looking that the G2P conversions.

1 - Epson Scan. No PP except dust-spotting. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Cranes by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

2 - Grain2Pixel conversion of a Plustek / Vuescan linear tiff. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Cranes-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

3 - Epson Scan. No PP except dust-spotting. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Skeggy pier by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

4 - Grain2Pixel conversion of a Plustek / Vuescan linear tiff. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Skeggy pier-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

5 - Epson Scan. No PP except dust-spotting. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Big Ice-cream #1 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

6 - Grain2Pixel conversion of a Plustek / Vuescan linear tiff. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Big Ice-cream #1-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

7 - Epson Scan. No PP except dust-spotting. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Big Ice-cream #2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

8 - Grain2Pixel conversion of a Plustek / Vuescan linear tiff. No PP other than dust-spotting / cropping.

Big Ice-cream #2-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr
 
I think I'd turn the colour saturation down just a notch on some of them, the lifeguard station looks OK though.
 
On my screen it looks like many of the Epson scans have a yellow cast?
 
Mr Badger said:
I think I'd turn the colour saturation down just a notch on some of them, the lifeguard station looks OK though.
Click to expand...

The aim here is to show the results as they come straight from the plug-in. I'd likely do more stuff with them in a real-world situation to tweak them to how I like. The warmer tones look a little oversaturated by default, but the rest of the colours are not too bad to my eyes (and monitor).

excalibur2 said:
On my screen it looks like many of the Epson scans have a yellow cast?
Click to expand...

They have a definite muddy look to them - yellowish green. The Grain2Pixel plug-in versions don't suffer from this and are giving me a much nicer baseline to start from.
 
Well Nige I've used three Epson scannners and have two now and don't get muddy results (well maybe with a crap neg)....have you ticked the box "color restoration" using the Epson. The last time I used the Epson was to post scenery shots here, when at meet at the peak, and most people seem to like them with no complaints.
A bit off topic:-
I was amazed what a V750 can do scanning a 4X5 etrs print....I'm not suggesting the Epson is better for getting detail off a neg compared to a Plusnet but you have to admit the Epson is a good all rounder.
lzB1sRY.jpg
 
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excalibur2 said:
Well Nige I've used three Epson scannners and have two now and don't get muddy results (well maybe with a crap neg)....have you ticked the box "color restoration" using the Epson. The last time I used the Epson was to post scenery shots here, when at meet at the peak, and most people seem to like them with no complaints.
A bit off topic:-
I was amazed what a V750 can do scanning a 4X5 etrs print....I'm not suggesting the Epson is better for getting detail off a neg compared to a Plusnet but you have to admit the Epson is a good all rounder.
lzB1sRY.jpg
Click to expand...

l’ve used the colour restoration option before. Like the auto-colour feature in Photoshop, sometimes it does a good job, other times less so In my own experience.

Not all my Epson Scans have looked muddy, some looked fine initially. It’s when comparing them with lots of other scans from other people (particularly when looking at something like Portra) that I realised that I was dissatisfied with my own results. I’ve had similar dissatisfaction with scans from my Plustek scanned using Silverfast too - although they’re an improvement to my eyes over my Epson scans - and I’ll be comparing these to Grain2Pixel conversions too. I’ll also compare with some lab scans as well.

Note: this thread is not about comparing scanner capability in terms of resolution, dynamic range etc. It’s purely based on the way the colours are rendered, specifically when converted using the Grain2Pixel plug-in. It’ll also be subjective based on my (or anyone else who participates) own personal preferences.
 
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How long does it take to process a negative? All that happens when I try it is it just hangs, I must be doing something wrong.
 
angelpaaul said:
How long does it take to process a negative? All that happens when I try it is it just hangs, I must be doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

Well I don't know about using grain2pixel but for other scanning using Epson own scanner software....I've never had an Epson scanner hang...but the time it takes for scanning depends what you set the scanner to start scanning e.g. 1200 or 6400dpi the higher takes longer and if you click on "digital ice" it adds to the time.
 
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angelpaaul said:
How long does it take to process a negative? All that happens when I try it is it just hangs, I must be doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

Takes about 10 seconds for me (on a 35mm negative).

Where does it hang? I had a problem where it seemed to be hanging but I then realised that it was waiting for me to adjust the crop area on-screen. As soon as I did that and clicked the tick at the top of the page it whirred into life again.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well I've never had an Epson scanner hang...but the time it takes for scanning depends what you set the scanner to start scanning e.g. 1200 or 6400dpi the higher takes longer and if you click on "dgital ice" it adds to the time.
Click to expand...

The plug-in doesn't carry out the actual scanning, it just converts an already scanned negative to a positive.
 
FishyFish said:
Takes about 10 seconds for me (on a 35mm negative).

Where does it hang? I had a problem where it seemed to be hanging but I then realised that it was waiting for me to adjust the crop area on-screen. As soon as I did that and clicked the tick at the top of the page it whirred into life again.
Click to expand...

I tried that and it still didn't work. So, I uninstalled and reinstalled it, following the instructions very carefully!! It now works a treat.

I must have done something wrong first time :thinking:
 
angelpaaul said:
I tried that and it still didn't work. So, I uninstalled and reinstalled it, following the instructions very carefully!! It now works a treat.

I must have done something wrong first time :thinking:
Click to expand...

Well I thought I'd try grain2pixel but got stuck even trying to install it in Photoshop, Photoshop being "unfriendly" doesn't help :(
Adding actions is so much easier and no problem adding Topaz erm well there is, as every time I want to use an effect it asked for a serial number :rolleyes:
 
excalibur2 said:
Well I thought I'd try grain2pixel but got stuck even trying to install it in Photoshop, Photoshop being "unfriendly" doesn't help :(
Adding actions is so much easier and no problem adding Topaz erm well there is, as every time I want to use an effect it asked for a serial number :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Did you watch the (slightly long-winded) instalation video on the Grain2Pixel website? I followed that, watching the video and then pausing it while I recreated each step.


A bit of a faff, but it worked.
 
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FishyFish said:
Dig you watch the (slightly long-winded) instalation video on the Grain2Pixel website? I followed that, watching the video and then pausing it while I recreated each step.


A bit of a faff, but it worked.
Click to expand...

Well I did but have a short term memory of a gold fish and need to have another go and write the steps down (rather than trying to use my memory). :rolleyes:
 
A few more test conversions, this time some shots from a roll of expired Dixons 200asa film (expired 2004). The G2P conversions look very nice, but I'm not as convinced by the colour accuracy here, which seems pretty saturated. I'm not sure if it's down to how G2P handles this film (which I believe is rebadged Fuji C200), or if the age of the film has caused some change to the colours. I still like the G2P scans, and as they're untouched, I could tweak them to calm the colours if needed.

All shot on an Olympus 35RC

1 - Epsonscan - Scanned on V550. No editing.

Autumn bandstand G2P by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

2 - G2P - Scanned on Plustek 8100. No editing other than sharpening.

Autumn bandstand G2P-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

3 - Epsonscan - Scanned on V550. No editing.

Autumn Weston Park G2P by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

4 - G2P - Scanned on Plustek 8100. No editing other than sharpening.

Autumn Weston Park G2P-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

5 - Epsonscan - Scanned on V550. No editing.

Signal Box G2P by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

6 - G2P - Scanned on Plustek 8100. No editing other than sharpening.

Signal Box G2P-2 by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr
 
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Well got grain2pixel installed but it seems useless for me as I don't have any tiff files, so it doesn't work for jpgs ?
 
FishyFish said:
It only takes TIFFs or DNG files of the actual negative. So you would open a file like the following (not to scale!) example in Grain2Pixel, and it would then convert it to a positive.

View attachment 290866
Click to expand...

Well I converted a jpg to tif and used g2p and am just not impressed as the picture looked terrible with orange streaks on peoples bare legs. But I might be doing something wrong as g2p converted the filmdev shot into a negative and had to changed it to a positive using Photoshop.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well I converted a jpg to tif and used g2p and am just not impressed as the picture looked terrible with orange streaks on peoples bare legs. But I might be doing something wrong as g2p converted the filmdev shot into a negative and had to changed it to a positive using Photoshop.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify my understanding, are you using it on JPG scans that you've already received from Filmdev? If that's the case - and apologies if I've got it wrong - that's not what it's for. It's to convert from a linear scan of the negative. Even if you have a JPG negative, I suspect converting it to a TIF and then running it through G2P will give poor results as you'll be losing a lot of image data.
 
FishyFish said:
Just to clarify my understanding, are you using it on JPG scans that you've already received from Filmdev? If that's the case - and apologies if I've got it wrong - that's not what it's for. It's to convert from a linear scan of the negative. Even if you have a JPG negative, I suspect converting it to a TIF and then running it through G2P will give poor results as you'll be losing a lot of image data.
Click to expand...

Well might be a daft question as I've never had to do it.........So how do you use a scanner to scan a negative to get a negative tif file?
 
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FishyFish said:
What software are you using to scan with? I know you can make them with Vuescan and Silverfast. Not sure about Epson Scan.
Click to expand...

Epscan...I'll have to look to see if there is a box to click.
I'll try it again if I get a VG shot from Filmdev low scan that needs to be improved by home scannning that frame.
 
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Some Kodak Ektar conversions & comparisons. All shot with my Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16.

The first shot of each pair is my original Epson V550 / Epsonscan image. The second an Epson V550 / Vuescan / Grain2Pixel image. Apart from some straightening / dust spotting, there has been no editing of the images.

1 - Epsonscan.

Clumber greenhouse by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

2 - Vuescan / Grain2Pixel conversion.

Clumber greenhouse-Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

3 - Epsonscan.

Clumber Park by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

4 - Vuescan / Grain2Pixel conversion.

Clumber Park-Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

5 - Epsonscan.

Clumber greenhouse watering cans by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

6 - Vuescan / Grain2Pixel conversion.

Clumber greenhouse watering cans-Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr
 
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I am impressed by the Grain2Pixel conversions - unfortunately my version pf PS is too old to use it, and I will not be giving Adobe any money soon. I have tried CNMY but the results are only marginally better than I can obtain in PS using a masking layer.
 
dcbrookes said:
I am impressed by the Grain2Pixel conversions - unfortunately my version pf PS is too old to use it, and I will not be giving Adobe any money soon. I have tried CNMY but the results are only marginally better than I can obtain in PS using a masking layer.
Click to expand...
Have you tried ColorPerfect?
 
A few more comparisons...

All Kodak Gold 200. I think that Grain2Pixel is tending towards blue with these, although it's pretty easy to correct if needs be.

1 - Filmdev Noritsu scan. Unedited.

Log - Filmdev by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

2 - Plustek / Vuescan scan converted in Grain2Pixel. Unedited.

Log - Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

3 - Filmdev Noritsu scan. Unedited.

House beside the barley - Filmdev by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

4 - Plustek / Silverfast scan. Unedited.

House beside the barley - Silverfast by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

5 - Plustek / Vuescan scan converted in Grain2Pixel. Unedited.

House beside the barley - Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr

Not all results are quite as good...

The one below is waaay too green (although it's easily corrected).

6 - Plustek / Vuescan scan converted in Grain2Pixel. Unedited.

Too green - Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr


I don't know what happened to this one. Not sure if it's Grain2Pixel, or if the Plustek / Vuescan didn't like the negative.

7 - Plustek / Vuescan scan converted in Grain2Pixel. Unedited.

What happened here? - Grain2Pixel by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr
 
Did you run it on a raw unedited 16bit per channel positive file out of Vuescan (or any tool you use)?

excalibur2 said:
H'mm it's not free....I've tried it but found there wasn't much difference compared to just clicking on "auto color" in Photoshop
Click to expand...
 
trypdal said:
Did you run it on a raw unedited 16bit per channel positive file out of Vuescan (or any tool you use)?
Click to expand...

erm No.
Where's that lab guy that pops in here now and again as the way I look at it is..do the best labs scan to get a neg tif then use colour perfect (or whatever) to convert to a positive.
 
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Apologies Excalibur2 I think that might incorrect. I think these tools (Grain2Pixel, Colorperfect, NegativeLabPro, etc) all require the rawest, most complete and unedited file you can get out of your scanner. The actual scanner (whether a flatbed, frontier, film scanner) is not the point here - any will do. These tools are not tasked with somehow giving you a sharper or better picture; they are just meant to "take over" the inversion+mask removal duties from whatever scanning tool you use (Epson scan, Silverfast, Vuescan) as they propose they can do a better job at inverting the negative than Epsonscan, Vuescan or whatever software a minilab uses.

So my understanding is

1. use ANY scanner you like (flatbed, Frontier, dedicated)- doesn't really matter
2. get a raw positive file with the highest number of bits per pixel you can out of your favourite scanning tool. It is trivial to get a file like this from Vuescan, but I believe it is possible to get something along these lines even from Silverfast or Epsonscan.
3. An already edited, processed or inverted file from a minilab will not be suitable. These programs, in order to work well, need 'the raw data from the scanner' so to say.

Please anyone correct me if I'm wrong!

excalibur2 said:
erm No.
Where's that lab guy that pops in here now and again as the way I look at it is..do the better labs scan to get a neg tif then use colour perfect (or whatever) to convert to a positive.
Click to expand...
 
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