Help with old Pentax, scanning etc please!

[ChrisR]

Hi, this is only my 3rd or 4th post on TP, so please bear with me. I may be asking too many questions in one here, and I think I'm not entirely clear what my questions are. To go back a bit...

I've recently bought a Fuji X10 after a decade of wholly auto P&S, and it's reminded me that I ought to (re-)learn a bit of the photographic techniques I used to know. At around the same time, my son gave me back the old Pentax ME (with 50mm f/1.7 lens) I bought from new in the 1970s. It had a film in it so I finished it off and had it processed; the results were disappointing, but it was only Boots film. So I bought a roll of Fuji Superia 200 and had another try near home (Kenilworth). I took my X10 with me, and took at least one comparison shot with the X10 at its "50mm" lens setting. I took this film to Snappy Snaps in Coventry, and got developing plus a CD with lo res scans on it. I was always intending to scan the negatives using my Plustek 7500i (with Silverfast SE Plus 6.6) that I've scanned some 4,000 slides and negatives already, including a few from this camera in earlier days.

So much for the background, now to the point. I'm not expecting it to show at these resolutions or this picture, but I'm left feeling the Pentax lens is soft, whereas it's generally described as sharp. But what stunned me was the poor colour rendering and also high grain on the higher resolution scans. Maybe it's simply the Fuji film profile on Silverfast being... rubbish, but I just couldn't get the colour right. As you can see the low res scan from Snappy Snaps is much closer to the X10 colour (which roughly fits my memory, it was a sunny day). There are also lots of drying streaks on other negatives, ad this one has some scrapes on it, I think (centre building to right of window), all absent from the lo res scans.

So if I want decent higher res scans, am I going to have to get a lab to do them at time of processing?

And if I want better colour, am I better off using colour reversal film?

OK, here are the pics. First the X10:



Then the lo res Pentax scan:



Then my own higher res Pentax scan (obviously reduced here):



Thanks! Chris

 

[robhooley167]

Snappysnaps will probably have applied some sort of colour correction to the scan, so that will probably say why it looks similar to your digital version.
The film profiles in silverfast are generally rubbish, i havent managed to find one which gave reasonable results, your scan appears to be very magenta on my screen, so if you turn the magenta down a bit it should look more realistic

 

[robhooley167]

I had a play with it in Lightroom, i will take it down if you want

Toned down the magenta, warmed the colour temperature up a bit, added some saturation

Edit - Taken it down as photobucket compression has ruined the colours, will stick it back up later

 

[AJQS]

The film profiles in silverfast are generally rubbish

This. They somehow alter colour and contrast behind the scenes that uou have no way of altering. I was ready to jack in colour film altogether until my Minolta scanner with Minolta's wn software came along and showed me what the real colour of stuff was!

That Pentax lens IS sharp, one of the best litle 50mms ever made in fact, unfortunately scanned film is very soft compared to a native digital image.

I always found the best results from my Plustek were achieved by setting everything to Fuji 160NS and then playing with the brightness, histogram, curves and colour shift tool until something vaguely decent came out, but it has to be done on a frame by frame basis.

 

[ChrisR]

+SF+ somehow alter colour and contrast behind the scenes that uou have no way of altering. I was ready to jack in colour film altogether until my Minolta scanner with Minolta's own software came along and showed me what the real colour of stuff was!

As I'm on a Mac I never tried the other software that came in the Plustek box... and I definitely can't afford a replacement scanner, this one caused enough trouble at t'mill!

That Pentax lens IS sharp, one of the best litle 50mms ever made in fact, unfortunately scanned film is very soft compared to a native digital image.

Relived to hear that on the lens; I was wondering if it might be growing something nasty inside, but I can't see anything....

I always found the best results from my Plustek were achieved by setting everything to Fuji 160NS and then playing with the brightness, histogram, curves and colour shift tool until something vaguely decent came out, but it has to be done on a frame by frame basis.

I've had to do that sort of thing for much older film, or where I've not know what it was, but I was hoping this time that since I really DID know the film, it would be OK. Well, it isn't! I'm thinking of trying transparency again (just when Kodak gives up and Fuji promises to raise its prices :bonk

 

[ChrisR]

I had a play with it in Lightroom, i will take it down if you want

Toned down the magenta, warmed the colour temperature up a bit, added some saturation

Edit - Taken it down as photobucket compression has ruined the colours, will stick it back up later

I'd be perfectly happy for you to play and leave it up, if it works. I'm using Aperture but not really any expertise. I had a play with the magenta setting in the colour slider, but it didn't seem to make much improvement. But since I don't know what I'm doing, anything that needs more than one adjustment to get its effect is a bit beyond me, I'm afraid! I'd really like to know WHY you were suggesting those adjustments...

 

[robhooley167]

Those adjustments were really just trying to compensate for any colour casts the scanner may have imparted, mainly a case of fiddling with the sliders until it looks like it should be

 

[excalibur2]

Hi Chris

For colour negs try out a Asda superstore they will dev and low scan to CD for £2.98 usually in 1 hour... then beg or borrow a copy of Photoshop (you should be able to get an old version for peanuts), copy the jpgs into photoshop and adjust the gamma to suit your taste also usually you're gonna have some dust spots so you can correct these, also any colour cast because of a sloppy operator. I also use a special sharpening macro to give the shot a boost...anyway if you have a good Asda in your area and the dev machine is used frequently and the operator is not a plank then Asda is all you need for showing your shots on a computer screen or for small prints.
I used to go to Tesco before and they send the film away now, but if you want to spend the least amount of money, I think they will dev for only 99p.

 

[ChrisR]

Ahem, I now realise that the film was C200 not Superia 200. Maybe I'll try scanning that frame again!

I've shot another roll, this time Superia, and I'm going to send it off to a better lab...

 

[Jakska]

With regards to 'better labs', give Protech on the Heathcote Industrial Estate a go. I used to take my colour films there when I was at Warwickshire College (souped/printed my own B&W) and the bloke who runs it is usually friendly and helpful, although I've not been there for 3 years or so so things might have changed.

 

[ChrisR]

Last night I re-scanned the strip with the sample image from the first post in this thread. I tried:

a) fiddling around with the Silverfast Fuji negative presets to try to find the most "natural"; in the end I picked ProPlus1, scanned at 2400 dpi

b) turned the negative strip over and scanned with the same settings from the other side (having read somewhere that it makes a difference, and that the right way up depends on your scanner; I couldn't find any Plustek documentation to say which way up is "right"!)

c) repeated the last scan with Vuescan, similar settings, nearest possible negative preset

d) I also scanned it as a positive, linear 16-bit TIFF, ready for some experimenting with ColorPerfect and negfix8 (or whatever) when I can get these working.

The result of (a) was slightly less magenta, but still way out in terms of colour. Turning it over did slightly improve the vitality and look of the image but no real change to the colours. The Vuescan was worse; desparately faded.

It looks as if experimenting with ColorPerfect is going to be a pain, as it requires version 7 of Photoshop Elements for the Mac (which I don't have and can't find), or PhotoLine (which I've not heard of before). In case anyone has ColorPerfect or neg8fix and is willing to experiement, I've added the (45mb!) TIFF to my Public DropBox; should be at

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7889148/CN1204PTS233rpos.tiff

I've marked this CC-BY to make clear that anyone can use it for any purpose (as long as they credit me).

One final thing; you can't really see it at this resolution, but looking at my 9mp Plustek scans and the original 1.6mp Snappy Snap scans, there is more detail in the tree branches in the central window in the latter, despite the lower resolution. This means either:

- my Plustek is extremely soft despite the higher resolution (which would surprise me since I've had some really nice scans for older negatives and slides), or

- the negatives were originally scanned in process, and have since dried out with lots of gunk on them (for which there is some evidence in terms of drop marks and other defects not present on the "original" scans).

If the latter is the case, then it really speaks for both a better lab and also scanning at source. Which might mean I'm better off selling the Plustek (once I've done the other 50 or so packets from when our children were growing up!)...

 

[AJQS]

Plustek scanners only make good resolution waaaaaay above where they say they are, think the max resolution is omething lik 3200dpi, but you'll only get it by scanning at 7200dpi indicated. This was a big factor in not replacing my plustek like for like, I don't have a laptop capable of working with such ridiculously large files. I scanned at around 6000indicated, which gave resolution identical to my 2820 real dpi Minolta.

What this boils down to is that using what you think is the same resolution, is actually a much smaller image blown up - hence it's soft and lacking detail in comparison.

The labs scans will have been produced on a better scanner and not using any of the crappy consumer software forced upon home scanning. I linked elsewhere an article on methods or scanning colour negative, have a look at it it may help.

 

[Mr_T]

ChrisR, I'm more than happy to run this through Colorperfect for you but it looks as though your scanning software has applied the sRGB colour space to the file which will severely limit the quality of the results.

A useful guide for making linear scans for colorperfect can be found here.

 

[ChrisR]

ChrisR, I'm more than happy to run this through Colorperfect for you but it looks as though your scanning software has applied the sRGB colour space to the file which will severely limit the quality of the results.

Thanks for the offer. I'm just back from the Post Office, having sent the strips away, so I can't rescan them for a few weeks. However, I do have the original straight out of SilverFast (the one I put up in Dropbox had been through Aperture, which probably changed the colour space), scanned as far as I can tell as those pages recommend. Preview tells me the Mac ColorSync profile is SFprofT (PlusTek OpticFilm 750), which seems to be the default for 48-bit scanning, and not something I know how to change. I'll put that up... when it's finished syncing it should be at

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7889148/CN1204PTS233rpos.tif

 

[Mr_T]

Right, I've just put this through colorperfect and got:



I tend to prefer the results to be quite flat out of colorperfect as it gives you quite a bit of leverage when it comes to PPing. In this case I have made a few tweaks in adjustment layers to get the gamma and microcontrast where I think it should be. The result was also pretty flat colour wise so the saturated has been boosted to reflect this.

If you're happy with this I can provide you the full sized TIFF with all the layers included so that hopefully you'll be able to make it look exactly how you want.

*EDIT*

The JPEG looks quite a bit "muddier" than the TIFF, it should only be used as a rough guide!

 

[ChrisR]

That looks so much more like the first two images in this thread, and has completely lost the magenta tint of the third! Thanks very much indeed. It looks like I'm going to have to try PhotoLine and ColorPerfect seriously. Thanks again,

 

[ChrisR]

If you're happy with this I can provide you the full sized TIFF with all the layers included so that hopefully you'll be able to make it look exactly how you want.

Um, layers... sounds like Photoshop, which I don't have... or did you mean merge all the editing into a new tiff? Anyway, I'd love to get hold of it if possible. Thanks again.

 

[Mr_T]

Um, layers... sounds like Photoshop, which I don't have... or did you mean merge all the editing into a new tiff? Anyway, I'd love to get hold of it if possible. Thanks again.

Layers should be compatible with different software packages, it's not solely for PhotoShop users. It's just a non-destructive way of editing, your original scan is underneath the tweaks should you wish to revert any changes. How would you like me to get the TIFF to you, I've got a dropbox account should you want to do this via a share, it's entirely up to you.

 

[ChrisR]

Could you stick it in your public Dropbox folder and send me the link? They are a bit large, aren't they!

 

[Mr_T]

All done now, updated the image in post #15 to the version without the awful cast. I think the most noticeable difference is how much more detail is being retained in the sky. The digital version is pretty blown out and even from the low resolution scan it doesn't look as though there is any blue sky on the frame.

 

[Cuchulainn]

Was the colorperfect correction done on a neg or a positive file? I'm tempted by the software if it works so well with ektar!

 

[Mr_T]

Linear positive scan of the negative. I couldn't seem to find C200 anywhere in Colorperfect so I had to do some manual correction too. It's not usually a problem with Ektar even with scans thought to be previously unusable. For easiest colour correction there needs to be something grey though such as a cloud or structure (I have had big problems with a particular shot of bluebells with nothing grey at all to work with!).

If you want me to try doing conversions for any scans you're having problems with I suggest you scan using the appropriate guide I linked to in post #13 and contacting me via PM.

 

[Cuchulainn]

Thanks - there aren't any particular ones I want, but I'm generally interested in it!

 

[ChrisR]

OK, I got my second roll developed and scanned by Photo Express in Hull. Their default scanning resolution seems to be 2000 dpi, which is pretty much what I want; everyone else seems to charge extra for more than bare minimum canning. Service was fantastic: I sent the film off first class Thursday afternoon, and got the results back Saturday morning! They confirmed they do a 50p per film discount for TP members, but you need two films to take advantage of it because of their minimum charge of £5.

I also sent the other Pentax test film (from which the images at the start of this thread were taken) off to Photo Express; they scan up to 40 images for £5 at the same 2000 dpi resolution.

Some observations:

- Photo Express got the colour just right

- at first I thought they must have cleaned the negatives up, as there is no evidence of drying spots, or that scrape on the scanned negative at the start of this thread (see middle right of centre tower). However, I've re-scanned that image and the scrape is still there, so I'm guessing they have got much superior spot-scratch removel (perhaps Digital ICE rather than Silverfast's iSRD?).

- sharpness is notably better than my scan. Playing with the iSRD settings on the rescan, it does appear that iSRD was messing with the tree branches I was using as a sharpness guide .

I also realise that I've spectacularly failed as an experimental scientist (!), having failed to either control for or record the relevant parameters!It's not surprising the same branches were softer in the X10 photos, as it was certainly focused on the near tower rather than the branches, which were 3 times further away. The X10 was at f/3.6, but I didn't note what the Pentax was set at, nor where it focused!

Anyway, here's the image as scanned by Photo Express (and reduced to the same size as the above):



and at the same scale, here's my original positive scan (45 MB tiff) reworked by Mr_T (185MB tiff) with ColorPerfect (thanks very much, Mr_T):



So, I'm happy with the resolution of my Pentax f/1.7, and I'm happy to have found a develop and scan solution that works. I'm happy that I know about a way to deal with negatives where Silverfast doesn't have a good NegaFix. I'm unhappy with the dust and scratch features of SilverFast, but happy that it's better than spot-fixing on a large scale. I'm likely to keep using the PlusTek 7500i for my long-term project to scan the negatives from when my children were growing up, but I'll keep a more wary eye on quality in future!

I have not yet decided whether to invest in PhotoLine and ColorPerfect. Apart from everything else, images will take up at least 10 times as much disk space!

 

[s162216]

- at first I thought they must have cleaned the negatives up, as there is no evidence of drying spots, or that scrape on the scanned negative at the start of this thread (see middle right of centre tower). However, I've re-scanned that image and the scrape is still there, so I'm guessing they have got much superior spot-scratch removel (perhaps Digital ICE rather than Silverfast's iSRD?).

I'm unhappy with the dust and scratch features of SilverFast, but happy that it's better than spot-fixing on a large scale.

The problem is more to do with the scanner than the software used, the Plustek 7500i was quite criticised in reviews for its weak scratch and dust removal and its tendency to destroy fine detail (see here: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7500i.html) when compared to other similar scanners. However they did improve it quite a bit for its successor, the 7600i (see here: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7600i.html)

Additionally, the Noritsu scanners used by most labs are far superior to nearly all reasonably priced scanners so thats likely a bearing on why the scans from Photo Express are superior.

 

[boliston]

I think that scanning software can cause a lot of problems with scanning as many of them try and "help" by applying auto colour corrections which are often way off.

For example I was ready to give up on vuescan until I discovered the "manual" colour balance setting as all the other settings seemed to give colour casts to my scans of some type.

I find a good "starting" manual colour setting is:
Neutral Red: 0.5
Neutral Green: 1
Neutral Blue: 1

Which will normally get a fairly good "ballpark" colour balance on Colour Negative film.

I have tried seeing what the "negative vendor/brand/type" settings do but they don't have a setting for Superia 200 (which I normally use) and the other film type settings seem to end up looking a bit strange so I prefer to stick with "generic". I have tried out settings in the "filter" tab like "restore fading" etc but they just seem to give odd colours but I guess my negatives have not yet faded