RAW DNG Negative Film Scanned from Plustek Optic Film

[LuiG]

Hello, I trying to search for help and see if anyone knows the workflow I could adopt inside Affinity for my DNG RAW Film Scanned files.

I scanned my films with a Plustek Opticfilm scanner and Silverfast, but I'm not doing colour correction inside Silverfast, my usual workflow is that I extract a DNG RAW file from silverfish and I Grade the Negative in Lightroom, this process is very straight forward for me because Lightroom gives me the RAW file as it should, with the sepia tones I expect from importing a raw file into any software, the problem here is that this color management is the only one that binds me to Lightroom

I tried Affinity photo's trial mode 2 months ago and when I imported the raw file the colour were... odd, it did't resembled any of the colours I had in Lightroom, also I tried (as a test) importing the files in 2 compositing softwares, Nuke and Fusion, all gave me the exact same result as I tend to do it in Lightroom except Affinity.

My workflow is simple, import into Lightroom the DNG file, pick colour to balance white point, invert RGB curves separately and that's it. I tried the same workflow in Affinity and I get stuck right when I import the raw file due to I don't get the same "colour space".

This is the only featured it keeps me attached to Lightroom, if I can figure out how to solve this workflow I will definitely switch to Affinity, I think is a great software and the fact that is a pay to keep it is an amazing plus, I really hate the paid subscriptions.

Info of the file:

OpticFilm 8200i

Negative / 48bit HDR / Saved as DNG.

Thanks, I'm adding the raw file and the images I get from Lightroom. (sorry, I don't have access to the trial of affinity anymore to post the difference of colours a get)

OLYMPUS_-_Fujicolor_200_-_2020-05-01_B_-_RAW__(11).dng

[Callum]

Hi @LuiG

Welcome to the forums

After attempting to open the file using various workarounds and in our latest beta I haven't been able to get the file to open with the colour shown in your attached screenshot. However I have found this thread which seems to be describing similar issues to yours. Please if possible could you try the .TIFF suggestion found here? A the bottom of that thread one of our forum regulars John mentions that he uses SilverFast so I'm going to message him to see if he's ever had a similar experience. 

Thanks

C

[John Rostron]

@LuiG, @Callum,

I downloaded the DNG file and it opened OK in my APhoto (1.8.5.703). Your colours look similar to a masked negative film (with an orange cast). My image in Photo looked more like a straight negative:

I developed this and inverted the image. I then cropped and adjusted the levels to get this:

My thoughts are that lightroom is not accommodating the orange mask, and APhoto is (Kudos to Affinity for this).

As a matter of interest, why are you not letting Silverfast do the image inversion and mask removal for you? It is just a matter of selecting the colour negative filem option.

John

[v_kyr]

See also:

• negfix8
• negfix8 Linux/Mac/Win downloads

... which uses ImageMagick Q16 for processing.

[LuiG]

 

Hello @John Rostronand thanks for trying in the file I added.

I tested a lot of workflows to be able to have the most control possible for my scanned photos, at the beginning I was trying to let Silverfast to do all the inverse colouring, but I felt that the process was not giving me stable results, to explain this, every time I was scanning, silverfast gave me different automatic colours, It uses a first automatic balancing which ruins the photo for me. and it was impossible to have consistent results across the entire roll scanned, this workflow I found it as a trial and error in an almos 1yr and a half, let's say I'm happy with this and I can have the consistency I need for an entire roll... Having said that I do confess I still need to know how to use Silverfast the right way, but I never was able to turn the "first automatic" colour balance off.

Having tested Affinity two months ago, at least for my digital photos was a delight! is fast and is like having Lightroom and photoshop in one single pay-to-keep-it software, but this process with the film scanning I use it more than the digital one, so is the only process I'm stuck with Adobe until I find the solution. And if I'm paying now the Adobe subscription (which I hate subscription base softwares) still, is pointless to go and buy Affinity for now.

I will try anyway your suggestions and learn to use better silverfast.

Thanks @Callum, I'm going to take a look at the post threat as well, thanks for taking the time.

@v_kyr, I definitely going to take a look at it, thanks really.

[John Rostron]

My usage of SilverFast has mainly been to scan 35mm slides. Successive images tend not to be similar, so I have not noticed any inconsistencies in a batch. I have also scanned many negatives using SilverFast's default colour correction without any problems. I currently use a Nikon CoolScan LS50.

I do wonder if the illumination in your scanner is playing up. This could be the reason for any inconsistencies.

It may be worth your while looking at the SilverFast Forum.

John

[LuiG]

It might be the problem, my scanner is a Plustek Opticfilm 8200i which I can only scan one image at a time, the light might be readjusting every time it scans, I didn't think about that, well, I still continue if you or anyone can find a solution inside AP before Ic an buy it and ditch Lightroom once and for all LOL.

Thanks.

[kirkt]

It looks like the EXIF data in the DNG indicate, in the tag called "As Shot White XY," a cue for the effective white balance of the image.  It appears that AP is using this information behind the scenes and automatically removing the orange mask.  Try enabling the White Balance check box in the Develop module and you will see that there are automatic settings that appear.  Remove the Tint correction (zero it) and set the Temperature correction to 6500 °K and then, again, slide the Temperature slider to even higher CCTs.  The orange mask will look correct.  I used the CCT of 6500K because that is what Adobe Camera Raw sets as the "As Shot" WB when I open the image in PS.

Interestingly, when I changed the As Shot White XY values to 1.0 and 1.0 with EXIFTool, the White Balance operation in AP did not do anything.  This leads me to believe that the As Shot White XY values are being used by AP to understand white balance in the image.

Kirk

[GregV]

When I still used Adobe Photoshop, Silverfast had a plug-in that would allow me to open Photoshop and select “import image” using Silverfast. I wasn’t able to do this with Affinity Photo. When you say you are using Silverfast to scan images for use in Affinity Photo, are you using the Silverfast application to scan the images and save them as tiffs that you later open with Affinity Photo, or is does the Silverfast plug-in for Photoshop now work with Affinity Photo? If the latter is true, how do I get Affinity to recognize the Silverfast plug-in?

[LuiG]

Hi @GregV

The last part is a no. What I am doing currently is having a workflow with silverfast scanning, save the negative in DNG (not tiff because it messes with the color in RAW) and opening the dng in Lightroom (not photoshop)

What I’m trying to figure out is a similar workflow between Silverfast RAW and affinity to ditch Lightroom once and for all.

but sadly the colours I get are slightly different from the RAW DNG. That’s why I post the images from Lightroom and the colours I get and how I do it so see if someone can figure a method of convert the RAW DNG negative from Silverfast in Affinity.

Sadly I haven’t found one yet, at least one I can be confortable with the colours yet.

Still trying though. Applying many suggestions I got here from other users and my own trial and error.

[John Rostron]

My scanning workflow (on Windows) is as follows:

I set the default program to open Tiff files to be Affinity Photo. If you want to have DNG as your default output from SilverFast, then you should set Affinity Photo to be the default program to open DNG files. This is a one-off setting.

When I save my Tiffs from SilverFast, they will automatically open in Photo (because of the default association set above). 

I would guess that you should be able to do something similar using DNG files. I am on Windows, but I understand that Macs offer a similar file-association facility for default programs.

John

 

 

[v_kyr]

In the past I used a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED/8000 ED for analog negativ film & slide scanning. - Nowadays I use instead the DSLR for such scanning tasks. I recall that there were several software tools for dealing with negativ film scanning, especially also as plugins for the PS/LR world. One for LR is for example "Negative LAB Pro", though it's commercial and is actually only worthwhile if you have to digitize a lot.