Grain2Pixel - Colour negative conversion plug-in for Photoshop

[excalibur2]

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 - anyone 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!

So G2P is handy for those who can't be bothered to read tutorials on getting the best out of Epscan, Vuescan etc and can't be bothered learning how to use Photoshop?

 

[FishyFish]

So G2P is handy for those who can't be bothered to read tutorials on getting the best out of Epscan, Vuescan etc and can't be bothered learning how to use Photoshop?

No.

It's for people who can do those things but are still dissatisfied with the results. If I could get scans directly out of Espson Scan, Silverfast, or Vuescan for colour negatives that I was satisfied with (as I can with B&W), then I'd use those.

Grain2Pixel isn't perfect - it's given me some odd results - but so far on the whole it gives me a much better starting point with much less work than my other options.

This thread was started so I (and anyone else who uses it) can share results. I've a number of other colour emulsions to test it on yet. So far, Kodak Gold has had the worst results (although probably easily fixable with some simple tweaks), but everything else seems very good to me.

 

[excalibur2]

No.

It's for people who can do those things but are still dissatisfied with the results. If I could get scans directly out of Espson Scan, Silverfast, or Vuescan for colour negatives that I was satisfied with (as I can with B&W), then I'd use those.

Grain2Pixel isn't perfect - it's given me some odd results - but so far on the whole it gives me a much better starting point with much less work than my other options.

This thread was started so I (and anyone else who uses it) can share results. I've a number of other colour emulsions to test it on yet. So far, Kodak Gold has had the worst results (although probably easily fixable with some simple tweaks), but everything else seems very good to me.

Oh well..but it would still be interesting to know how those expensive labs get their results.