Colour neg curves

[Alex Ramsay]

Anyone have any thoughts as to an appropriate Lightroom curve to apply to digital images of colour negs (of several different types, unfortunately)? The main problem, obviously, is the orange mask.

 

Alex

[Martyn]

Not sure how helpful this will be as I don't use Lightroom but .... I digitise the neg using my Fuji XT.1 leaving a sliver of the neg rebate in shot. Opening in Photoshop, I select curves, click on the white point dropper and click in the orange rebate then invert ... and the result is usually pretty close colour wise ... I would guess that initial selection of the white point could be saved as a preset for each different type of film ... although maybe just a quick to do it on each individual shot.

 

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

I'd say it was worth trying the trial version of Negative Lab Pro if you are using Lightroom, you'd have to judge if it was worth the expense for however many you want to convert:

https://www.negativelabpro.com/

 

This is a good tutorial for Photoshop, I think it's beneficial after inversion to adjust the individual channels so that they are each at the point of clipping at each end:

https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2019/10/16/manual-inversion-of-color-negative-film

 

 

[spacecadet]

14 hours ago, Martyn said:

Not sure how helpful this will be as I don't use Lightroom but .... I digitise the neg using my Fuji XT.1 leaving a sliver of the neg rebate in shot. Opening in Photoshop, I select curves, click on the white point dropper and click in the orange rebate then invert ... and the result is usually pretty close colour wise ... I would guess that initial selection of the white point could be saved as a preset for each different type of film ... although maybe just a quick to do it on each individual shot.

 

 

 

 

Same here, eyedropper on the rebate or a known white area in the image. I have a preset to invert the neg as well- Harry's tutorial covers that. Then just select a batch of scans and apply it to all of them. I don't think it's as complicated as the likes of Negative Lab Pro think it is. You can get a cast in the shadows but you adjust the curve in the appropriate channel. If the original is underexposed (DAMHIK- remember crossed curves?) it's quite difficult. You're likely to spend a lot longer spotting than colour correcting anyway.

Edited May 27 by spacecadet

[Alex Ramsay]

Thanks all - very helpful advice

 

Alex