OK here’s what’s happening. I am using Mac G4, OS 9.2.2, PS7, a Sony Flat screen Trinitron Multiscan G420 monitor, and we just bought a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED in order to scan and archive our negatives. The Coolscan installed fine, (except of course for the PS plugin, but that’s the next question). Ok, so we started scanning B&W 35mm negs, scanned in mono greyscale, in both 8 and 16 bit in various combinations of passes, from 1-16 @ 4,000, the highest, for archival purposes. (learning the program and possibilities) OK..no problem. When the finished scan appeared in the Nikon scan window, it was fine: smooth- not grainy. When I saved it to the hardrive and then opened it again in the scan program, it was horrible. It looked like someone ground sand into the image. It was so grainy and had lost at least 25% resolution. But, when I opened it in Photoshop, it was fine. And it was the same with all of them. OK..called Nikon and we could not find the problem. However, when I opened the images in PS, I would get a message that the working space was differrent from the embedded profile, and do I want to leave it? convert? or discard?. But they still were good no matter which way I did it. OK, so I am thinking it must have something to do with calibration, because the scanning program and scanner checked out fine. The Nikon program asked me to chose Apple RGB for the calibration format. I don’t know which format PS is in , but I am thinking Adobe 1998??? And my monitor, was in CPD G420S. So, I am thinking it could it be the monitor calibration which make the images look so bad? SO, what should I do?? Which way would you suggest I calibrate?? In the Nikon, I have Apple RGB and Adobe RGB 1998 (amongst others). ON the monitor, I have Nikon Adobe RGB 4.0.0 3000, Nikon Adobe Wide 4.0.0 3000, Nikon Apple RGB 4.0.0 3000 (I think it’s actually 4.0.2). So.. I am wondering which of these I should use to calibrate the whole system together? And should I do this? I would like to get non-grainey images and also the best color transfer from one app. to the other. When we troubleshot with Nikon, we used Nikon Adobe 1998, to give the scanner the widest possibility of color choices. at least that’s what the guy said the manual said ) HELP?!! Please. I know nothing about calibration!!
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You need to do a lot of reading, because right now you’re confusing the monitor profile with your working space, the embedded profile you want in the file and the printer/paper/ink profile. They’re four different things. You may even be confused about scanner calibration, that’s a fifth element.
I choose "Custom" for my Monitor profile and navigate to my ColorSync/Profiles/ and then select my personal calibrated monitor profile.
I use "Adobe RGB (1998)" as my scanner’s RGB space and Convert to Adobe RGB 1998" in Photoshop. (I actually think that they are identical but that Nikon stuck their name on their version to overcome a legal hurdle of some kind.)
I don’t bother with the Photoshop plug-in but work directly in NikonScan. That way you can be batch-scanning in the background whilst working on different files in photoshop in the foreground.
thanks..but i can’t figure out half of what this guy is saying. I am not interested, at this point in printing, even tho it will be an option. I just want to get my scanner, monitor and photoshop color space the same.
thanks Anne… that is what i was thinking but wanted to get some prof input. but what do you do with the monitor calibration??? because, that is where the grainy images apprea. should i synch it up with the scanner and PS7??
BUT WHAT IS MY "PERSONAL CALIBRATED MONITOR PROFILE"??? Is it what ever I choose?? Is it using the closest thing to Adobe 1998? Is it what??? It is the "choice" I don’t understand. Or maybe i am not understanding yours and Anne’s words.
Photoshop only uses your custom calibrated monitor profile (your MonitorRGB) to PROOF your file’s color Ñ this custom profile is only good for your monitor.
Your Adobe RGB document (your WorkingRGB) is the file’s SourceSpace.
Acutally, no device can accurately render (on screen or on paper) the Adobe RGB profile, ColorSpace Ñ a ColorManagementSystem (CMS) needs to FIRST Convert the AdobeRGB into the Target MonitorRGB or printer ColorSpace.
In other words, the high-gamut AdobeRGB is only usable in color-managed applications Ñ workflows Ñ that Convert it to Target ColorSpaces like MonitorRGB and specific Printer/Paper/Ink ICC profiles, ColorSpaces.
Visualizing the process, I like to separate the monitor from the AdobeRGB like I separate the printed print from the AdobeRGB Ñ both the monitor and the print are merely PROOFs of the AdobeRGB…SourceSpace to TargetSpace.
Again, neither the monitor or the printer can PROOF AdobeRGB unless it is Converted into the correct PROOFING space by the enabled ColorManagement System.
+++++
I know our NoColorAdjustment link can be overwhelming, but if you take it one step at a time you should be able to slug through it over a short time as you learn the theory.
My Nikon 4000 software has a Preference setting to scan in AdobeRGB, as well as a setting to make the CoolScan software preview through the custom monitor profile.
If you have set PS WorkingRGB to AdobeRGB, when the pixels hit PS, they are accurate.
Your monitor profile is the one you create and save using a calibrator like Apple’s built-in calibrator, or a third party eyeball calibrator like SuperCal (shareware), or, even better, a hardware calibrator puck like the ColorVision Spyder. In other words you calibrate the monitor and save the resulting profile as a Monitor Profile file.
You have to do the calibration yourself.
Then use that Monitor Profile. I repeat: This is the only place you want to use your monitor profile and nowhere else.
You must be using Safari. There is a character you are using which is consistently showing up as a capital N-tilde (Ñ) in your post # 7. View your post in a different browser and you’ll see what I mean,
If you have a properly calibrated monitor and your slides don’t look right, it means you have to rethink your scanning workflow. Something is wrong.
Download the Test Image from G Ballard’s site and see how it looks on your monitor. If it looks bad, then your monitor profile is still bad. If the Test Image looks good but your slide scans don’t, then your scans are bad.
Scanning is tricky too, like making photographs. Maybe you’re doing something wrong when you scan.
You may have a scanner bulb dimming or about to go out.
Dark scans either indicate the Nikon SW isn’t reading the tag in the file or not using your monitor profile in a CM workflow.
You really haven’t given us enough info to help you, anyway. But, from the way you’ve indicated your understanding of where the monitor profile is or what it is, telling us what we need to know may be difficult for you.
yes..it’s set to millions… the thing is, is that I am not clear on how slides are supposed to look. will do all that you say to test this. this is a brand new 4 day old scanner…so i shouldn’t have a bulb problem yet. thanks…will check it.
Check the density readouts in your scanner software. 50% luminance or 128 RGB shouldn’t look like 75-80% luminance. Look at the slides with a magnifying glass under a light source and spot what should be these density’s.
If the preview doesn’t match the readouts, the SW isn’t using your monitor to display the data. It must be using some RAW machine based profile or setting somewhere.
It’s at 128 also at 50%. I tried to adj. the monitor, and the scanner settings and it got bad… the colors wouldn’t shift nicely into Photoshop and also on the desktop, so i put them back to how they were. To convert to the working space broke the colors. Leaving in the profile was OK. So, I am leaving in the profile when i put them into PS. I guess I am scared that they will mess up too much or never adj correctly, especially with my lack of knowledge about a lot of this. (I had put the scanner into Nikon Adobe 4.0 and the desktop into Adobe 1998, and it came out terrible. Dark and lack of vivid colors) When I scan film, it comes out pretty good, albeit a bit flat… but that can be adj in PS. The slides are the more difficult. I am reading all the info suggested to me, so it will be a few days until I can report my success!!!! again. Thanks
Ramon, which test of g.ballard’s??? There are 3 of them : DOWNLOADall PDI TargetFolder.zip (13MB) for PC. DOWNLOAD all PDI TargetFolder.sit (13MB) for Mac. DOWNLOAD PDI Target(AdobeRGB)ONLY.zip (5MB) for PC. DOWNLOAD PDI Target(AdobeRGB)ONLY.sit (5MB) for Mac. DOWNLOAD *iPhotoTESTfolder.sit (6MB) for Mac. DOWNLOAD *iPhotoTESTfolder.zip (6MB) for PC. + the simple one using an RGB file to check if it totally desaturates or not, which mine does. And there is the one with the 4 children on how it would look on different formats..mac, pc… I did the simple and am doenloading the ADOBE RGB test. the first one will take 2 hours to download…this one took 45 minutes. Whih one?? I don’t have high speed…in fact, i wasn’t using my computer to go on the web…but now it is hooked up to dial up. What to do!!
This download gets you the (tagged, embedded) AdobeRGB test file.
I recall the original PDI file is also on Apple OS Install CDs in one of the extra folders (though I have altered the file for my tutorials).
If the tagged PDI_AdobeRGB test file desaturates (looks bad) in Photoshop, then Photoshop colormanagement is broke.
If you are talking about the "simple test" here <http://www.gballard.net/psd/srgbforwww.html> then the fact that the untagged AdobeRGB file desaturates washes out on that page is to be expected (if you read my notes there).
Before you follow these instructions, it is essential that you follow gballard’s instructions for getting a properly calibrated monitor.
In OSX, I normally scan directly in NikonScan rather than through the NikonScan Photoshop plug-in.
My custom defaults are set as follows: 4000 ppi at 100%; Color Management ON and set to match my Photoshop settings (RGB = Adobe RGB 1998 and Monitor = Custom Profile); Preferences (Advanced): Sample point 1×1; Black = 0.0 White = 0.05 RGB gamma set at 1.21 and the output levels at 242 and 12;
Analog Gain: Try 0.0 first. If the shadows are too dark (the L Histogram is too far to the left) try increasing AG in steps of +0.33; if the Highlights lack detail, decrease AG to center the L Histogram in its window. Once you have set a suitable AG value, click "Redraw".
Scanner Extras/Multi-sample Scanning = 4x Unsharp Mask: OFF Color Balance: OFF (Use the Curves instead.) ICE on Normal; GEM at 1 (lowest setting); ROC at 0.
Then, for each image preview, I usually do the following: 1. Make any changes to my default settings that may be necessary. 2. Move the LCH Editor’s Lightness bottom sliders to fit the Histogram. 3. Move the LCH Editor’s Lightness side sliders to provide good output values. This might be 4 for the lower one (black point clip) and 244 for the upper one (Highlight clip). 4. Adjust Chroma gamma if necessary (1.11 is often good).
5. Go to the Curves Panel: Move the R, G and B sliders to fit their histograms or use the White and Black eyedroppers. [I do the former.] In the Composite RGB Curve: Set your output clips as needed, and adjust the shape of the curve to adjust contrast selectively. [I don’t use the gamma (middle) slider for this.]
6. Adjust the gamma/shape of the individual color curves to correct color if necessary.
This gives me nice open shadows in the 50s and 60s (look in the Info Palette to check this) and a scan that needs very little, if any, further correction in Photoshop.
7. Having made the above adjustments for each image separately, I then set the sample rate at 4x (more than this just increases the time with no tangible improvement).
8. If this image is typical of others in your collection, Save your Curve Settings with an appropriate name so that you can use those Curves again in the future.
9. To save a lot of time in the future: In the main Tools palette/Settings drop-down menu: Choose "Save Settings" and name them. You will then be able to quickly set all palettes next time that you use Nikon Scan. Save settings for different types of film. Then choose the one that you use most often and "Save User Settings.
10. Select all the frames to be scanned and press the Scan button.
11. Go back to Photoshop to work on existing scans and/or turn on the Espresso machine.
Once I have the scans, I do any further work at 16-bits in Photoshop such as spotting (although ICE leaves very few spots):
Area contrast or color changes (using Curves and Hue/Sat., making a history snapshot, undoing then repeating the same steps for a different area. I then use the history brush to paint in the changes in just my chosen place — usually without bothering to make a Selection.)
If you are using Photoshop 7.0.1: While you are still in 16-bit, go into Lab mode and run USM on just the L channel; make snapshot; undo; and paint-in the sharpening at varying percentages in the L channel. Then return to RGB and, only at that point, change to 8-bit mode.
With Photoshop CS, which permits Layers in 16-bit files, you can do this in a duplicated Luminosity layer.
I received 3 pix….2 PDI target jpg, and 1 PDI_Target_Adobe RGB_jpg, with the desaturation square in the middle. All 3 PS7 told me were not the same as the working space and did i want to change them, i left them with their embedded profiles.
(Please don’t ask me how I got 3.)
OK.. so the 2 jpg’s ..one was more saturated than the other. and the Test Adobe was basically in the middle. OK… so I took the adobe RGB and saved it in 3 ways:
1) disgard profile and use my working space, which, by the way says it is: sRGB ICE6 1966-2.1 2) convert profile to working space 3) use embedded profile.
My working space, #1 was the most washed out. Still good color, but less vibrant and the baby on the left skin tones were less than the embedded profile one, the colors looked to be a bit more flat. The bottom wedge bar, however, was very clear and #18 and full black were very obviously different. No colors. The desaturation square in the middle was also OK, but looked flatter than the other 2. (However, the whole pix was was definitely better than the target (washed out) jpg from the test!)
The leave in embedded profile #3, was, of course the most vibrant and good skin tones and colors. The wedges were all distinct, except for 18 and black, in small size.(only where they meet). When i enlarged the area, to 25% I easily saw the difference. The desaturation area had no colors and was good, sharper than the workspace one, of course..it is the TEST.
The conversion #2, wasn’t that bad. More vibrant than the working space one, but looked like it picked up an little little tinge of red, almost undistingushable, but it actually looked better than the working space one. The wedges were good and at 25% could easily see the difference between the black and 18. desaturation area was a bit more vibrant than the workplace one.
SO, by this it appears that??? I need to re-calibrate ?? or it’s OK.? As Ramon said, I am getting the "workspace" mixed up with the monitor calibration and I think I still am. What do you have to say about the workspace calibration I mentioned above? What do you have to say about anything??!! Thanks…Thanks…Thanks…….
Gee… gballard, Am i wasting my time and yours?? Was I just supposed to notice the difference in the RGB TEST pix and the other one??? Was all the above unnecessary???
Yes, you are still confusing a lot of things, to the point that I, for one, have trouble making heads or tails out of your latest post.
1) disgard profile and use my working space, which, by the way says it is: sRGB ICE6 1966-2.1
Why are you not using Adobe RGB as your working space? Are your images intended for the web only and they’re never going to be printed?
What do you have to say about the workspace calibration I mentioned above?
That makes no sense; you do not "calibrate" a working space.
Try to take it one step at a time.
Chandi, first of all you need to accurately calibrate (either with a hardware calibrator puck or with one of the software eyeball calibrators like Apple’s built-in one or SuperCal) your monitor and save the resulting profile with a distinctive name you can recognize instantly, such as "Chandis CalMonProfile 6july04". Set that as your Monitor profile. Until you have completed this step, any further workflow is meaningless.
Then, in Color Settings, set your Working Space to Adobe RGB (1998). (Indulge me for now and forget about sRGB). Now when you open GBallard’s "PDI_Target_Adobe RGB_jpg" test file, Photoshop will open it immediately without giving you any alert message because it will be exactly the same as your working space.
The baby in the lower right corner should look like it has a light tan with a slight yellowish/orange hue compared to the other caucasion baby which should show a noticeable pinkish hue. The black baby shouldn’t have a red/magenta cast but look yellowish brown.
The red in the Gretag color chart should resemble Adobe’s logo red, give or take some saturation. It should not show any noticeable blue/cyan which would dull it. It shouldn’t be an intense orange, but a hot red.
If you check the CMYK readouts with PS Color Settings set to US Prepress defaults, you will see that the tan baby will have more yellow than the pink baby and the Gretag red will have 6,97,97,0 CMYK. The black baby has 25,52,62,5 in the lightest area on the chest, a predominate yellow mix. This is somewhat in line with the visual description submitted.
If your monitor is set too dark or too light, it will affect perceived saturation.
You shouldn’t be converting this file or doing anything to it when checking the accuracy of your monitor profile. It should be viewed in the AdobeRGB space.
Your best accurate output will be with an inkjet, because I’ve seen this file reproduced in two different chapters within the same Katrin Eiseman book on color management with noticeable magenta hue and saturation shifts between them. It was also noticeably different from my RGB preview on my monitor as well.
Of course the paper was somewhat matte coated and it wasn’t printed in the US, so US Prepress Default numbers wouldn’t apply. The printed image was reduced to about 2 inches tall which also affects the color as well.
look at the note I wrote on each jpeg, what space it is, if it is tagged or untagged
all the tagged/embedded jpegs will look the same in photoshop because photoshop sees the tag and Converts it into your monitor profile
all the untagged (except one, depending on your WorkingRGB) will look bad because photoshop is confused (it Assumes untagged files are its WorkingRGB and is hosing the color, except for the one, in this case, photoshop made the corect Assumption)
Gee… I feel REALLY DUMB! Thanks again, Ramon, Tim and GBallard. I really appreciate you guys walking me thru this. I don’t know why my brain isn’t functioning right…maybe because I just arrived from 6 months in India and I am NOT HERE, yet. jeesh…….. OK..I will throw everything out and start over with all of your instructions, again. I really really appreciate all this help.
Ramon, this seems to be where I get stuck, how do I know whether Apple’s built in puck hasn’t already calibrated the monitor??, the RGB with the tests on it opened Photoshop immediately. How do I find it? Where else can I go to get this calibration?? Isn’t this what gballards tests are all about??? R U saying that even with gballards test it will not be enough?
As for using Adobe 1998, I did put it on and it made everything much darker and muddy, the colors were horrible…so I put it back to what it was before. (I do know that sRGB is used for internet and that it is more a PC format (that’s what I have been told).) Maybe I missed something there too…
Ok.. so, i will test the monitor with gballards test again, check out the color matches…and reply back. FYI, both the test RGB and one of the jpgs looked the same and vibrant. The other looked washed out.
Ramon, this seems to be where I get stuck, how do I know whether Apple’s built in puck hasn’t already calibrated the monitor??
First of all, there’s no such thing as an "Apple’s built in puck". A puck is a hardware device, it looks like a hockey puck, sometimes with spider legs (no, not pulled from real spiders, they just look like that :)) and you buy it from a third party in order to get an accurately calibrated monitor. You stick it to the center of the front of your screen during calibration; it measures what is shown in your screen
What Apple has built into the system is a software eyeball calibrator for you to use. It does not calibrate on its own. It has not calibrated your monitor behind your back. It has no life of its own.
You access that calibrator through System Preferences > Displays > Color tab > Calibrate.
To start the process, first set your Monitor Profile to a canned one, like Apple RGB, then go to Calibrate (as I said > Displays > Color tab > Calibrate). You’ll be guided through the various steps. Don’t skip any of the instructions there.
When you are done, save your profile with a name and date you can recognize.
Monitors change over time. I calibrate my two side-by-side monitors at least weekly, sometimes daily. Also, monitor profile files sometimes get corrupted. It’s therefore imperative for you to grasp this process and master it completely before attempting to do anything else.
R U saying that even with gballards test it will not be enough?
G Ballard will be the first one to tell you that looking at a test image is not nearly enough. As a matter of fact, he has some great instructions on his site that tell you how to calibrate.
Calibrate your monitor properly first, anything else is an absolute waste of time.
As for using Adobe 1998, I did put it on and it made everything much darker and muddy, the colors were horrible…so I put it back to what it was before.
It looks bad because your monitor is not calibrated properly.
You must set your working space to Adobe RGB. But first of all, calibrate your monitor. Stop wasting your time, Chandi, please.
Open it in PictureViewer ONLY making sure it spans the full width of your screen. Pick a target gamma during calibration that allows you to see most of the 21 step gray patches.
Depending on the state of your monitor, you may not be able to see a difference between 0 level black and 13 level gray in the grayramp with a 2.2 target gamma. You may have to go with 1.8.
Don’t worry about it at this point. The PDI file’s shadow detail falls within range and most printing devices can’t show a distinction below 13, anyway.
Pick a white point that doesn’t dim your monitor but still retains general neutrality. You don’t have to be perfect here, because your eyes will adjust after a while. It’s best to choose the native WP at this point. It’s usually the brightest.
If you don’t want to hassle with this, like Ramon said, it’s best to buy a hardware puck based calibration package.
If you look at the history of Chandi’s posts, all that info you point out just adds confusion. Chandi is at the most elementary level at this point and must do a lot of studying.
But my last post is the easy way to calibrate. That’s what he’s trying to do, right?
The CM sites referenced, though very informative, are a lot to take in and cull through just to get him started.
Buying more software and hardware and trying to figure that out seems even more complex.
I was trying to get him to know how dark or light to set his monitor, because that plays the most part in establishing saturation and density with his scanner. IMO.
Chandi is at a stage where he/she (?) does not even quite understand the term calibration. (S)He might think that just by opening the gray ramp the monitor will be automatically (automagically) calibrated.
the easy way to calibrate. That’s what he’s trying to do, right?
Actually, Tim, we are the ones trying to tell him/her that’s what needs to be done first. I’m not sure (s)he believes us, because (s)he keeps trying to jump ahead –into an abyss.
I can remember how hard it was for me to first grasp color management and calibration. The most mysterious was the interplay with the graphics card, the monitor and how different PS sees things. Basicaly my question, which went unanswered for years till I came to these forums, was what was everything suppose to look like.
Hopefully Chandi will make it through all this and be scanning away and more productive.
OK….First off, I am a SHE. And I thought you all had figured it out by now.
Secondly, I appreciate all of this disgussion and i am quite sure you both are right. I am very basic, and i also appreciate how to check things. When I know how!
I went out and bought 3 books….. Adobe 7 Studio Techniques, Photoshop 7 Artistry ( suggested by Ann) and Photoshop Color Correction ( I couldn’t get Real World Adobe Photoshop, also suggested by Ann, but this book was suggested by the guys who did that book) I was touched and happy that half of these people, as well as what Tim said, couldn’t make heads nor tails out of color management, at first, either. I am starting to read these books and will have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!
I realized that I didn’t want to start using PS CS and OS 10 in the midst of learning this…so i am staying in OS9 and PS7, even tho I have 10 and am getting CS (for my laptop).
OK.. I have printed out all that all of you have said. Ramon and Tim, I will follow your directions on calibration and checking. Obviously, this is why gballards test still comes up telling me that it cannot open the file until I make a decision on how i want it opened. Duh…maybe this has nothing to do with it, but I will first follow the instructions and then get back to you.
I appreciate all the imput and for the continuing PATIENCE!!!!!!!!
Try using "Photoshop Artistry" by starting at the beginning of the book and using the images on the included CD to follow along, on your own computer, with the author’s every word.
You will learn a lot VERY quickly if you do that.
Good luck. And do come back here if you get stuck.
From your very first post I assumed Chandi was a female name. Tim’s later references to "he" made me hedge and write (s)he in my last post. Glad to see I was right. 🙂
Yes, Color Management can be bewildering at first indeed.
Before you get into color management, you need to calibrate your monitor and get an accurate monitor profile first. Then you can see what your images really look like and figure out how to correct them. That’s right, once your monitor is accurately calibrated, you want to correct the images, not the monitor profile.
I will follow your directions on calibration and checking. Obviously, this is why gballards test still comes up telling me that it cannot open the file until I make a decision on how i want it opened.
No, that is not correct. Photoshop asks what you want to do with the image in two instances: (a) if the image does not have an embedded profile (i. e. the file is "not tagged"); or, (b), if the embedded profile in the file is different from your working space. This will not change regardless of whether your monitor profile is accurately calibrated or not. As I said, do not confuse the profile embedded in the file with your monitor profile.
It will always be normal for Photoshop to ask you what you want to do with the file upon opening it in either of the above described situations (a or b).
That message has nothing to do with calibration.
Think of your monitor profile kind of as your reading glasses. If the prescription in your reading glasses (monitor profile) is wrong, no matter what you’re looking at or how you look at it will look bad.
The tag or profile embedded in the image file itself, is like a set of instructions on how the colors were described in the file. Think of that as an instruction saying something like "this document is in Hindi", "this document is in Punjabi", or "this document is in Urdu".
Now think of your working space as the English language. Unless Photoshop finds a file tagged in English already, it will necessarily ask you to decide what method of translation you want, whether Hindi, Punjabi or Urdu. If the file is not tagged (i. e. if it does not have an embedded profile) then you take a guess and decide on one, let Photoshop make its best guess, or leave it as it is (maybe it’s in Tamil!).
Once the file has been converted or opened, then your reading glasses (monitor profile) let you see it as it really is.
This is, of course, an oversimplification, but it might help you understand the concept.
You wouldn’t want to set your work space to the Mandarin language, would you? Just because Mandarin (sRGB) is spoken by more people than any other language in the world, you wouldn’t want your documents in a Chinese language (sRGB), unless your documents were going to be published exclusively in China (the Web only).
Hang in there, Chandi. But do calibrate your monitor first, before you do anything else. Even before you read the book(s), otherwise you won’t be looking at accurate examples of what said book says.
Please excuse my referring you in the wrong gender.
Good luck with your endeavors and report back on your progress. I’m sure you’ll do just fine. And soon you’ll probably be offering advice, here and teach us a thing or two. 😉
OK..Ramon, I am at my computer with your instructions and gballards and Tims, in front of me. I am very literal when it comes to this… OK And i am a bit frozed, because what you write isn’t exactly how i am finding it. To start with, your, to access my calibrator, is in OS10 and i have OS9.2.2. However, i know to go to Apple>Control Panel> Monitors> Color and that is where I can calibrate. You said to set my monitor to a canned one, like Apple RGB. Well, when i went down the list, here is what i found. 4/Ctd. TRUMATCH/RIT/Profile80, Apple 12", 13", 16", 21" RGB Standard, 16", 21" RGB Page-White, Generic RGB Profile, Mac Color Display Standard. So, i am wondering, since I have a 19", if I should use Generic RGB.? and none of the "’s
However, I came upon this: (When I go under ColorSync under the Apple, and open it, it has this information:: PROFILES AND CMM’S
Profiles for standars devices:
Input: Generic RGB Profile Display: Apple 12 RGB Standard Output; Generic CMYK Proofer: Generic RGB )
And this, when I go under GAMMA:
ADOBE GAMMA This control panel will allow you to calibrate your monitor and create an ICC profile for it.
Which version would you like to use? Step By Step (Assistant) Control Panel
This ICC Profile will be compatible with ColorSync on Macintosh and ICM 2.0 on Windows.
So, now… shall I just stick with the first ColorSync and set it to Generic RGB??? and go from there??? or to 12" RGB Standard, which is what it seems to be using?? or 16" or 21"? Or is this something else??
Any canned generic RGB profile. You just have to make sure it’s not one you made, but a fresh one, one that comes with your OS CD installation CD (and was installed there). If there’s one that corresponds to your monitor, use that one (For instance, if you happen to have an Apple 21", use Apple 21", etc. If nothing comes close, use the Generic sRGB one.
For the time being, skip Adobe Gamma. It was included in the Photoshop 7 installation CD by mistake. As Chris Cox said, someone forgot to delete it before burning the install CDs at the factory.
Use the "Calibrate" function you see in Apple>Control Panel> Monitors> Color.
Follow the instructions.
Come back if you get stuck again, but take it one step at a time. Don’t wait until you have two, three or nine questions. 🙂
If you’re referring to the Colorsync Control Panel under the Apple Menu, you shouldn’t be messing with it during calibration. It’s not important at this stage.
Tim beat me to it. What on Earth were you doing in Color Sync to begin with? Hadn’t we agreed you were going to take it one step at a time? 🙂 Stay in Apple Menu > Control Panels > Monitors > Color > Calibrate.
OK.. I have an option of setting my white point @D50-yellow, D65 Cooler, 9300-default of monitors and TV, none also my gamma at 2.2 which is darker or 1.8 which is lighter. ????
When you get to the sliders, each one will affect the entire screen and can play hell on your eyes.
It helps to create a tube with your hands or I use a paper towel tube to isolate each R, G, B slider target from the rest of the screen when adjusting, much like looking thru a telescope. Close the other eye.
You can always tweak for preferred neutrality with small moves viewing the entire screen without the tube.
O. K. I just calibrated my monitor! HA! I followed the instructions in the calibration…which first said to put my color at max and the contrast at max. I had to adj the gamma, as it said the apple should blend in as much as possible, and it was a bit showing…. I chose 9300 as the brightness and 1.8 as the gamma. If there are any problems with this, please tell me.
Leave it in native for now. No white point adjust. You can always go back and pick another if the image doesn’t look right in PS. You have to let your eyes adjust to the current white point a about 5 minutes.
In PS leave the PDI image open after calibration is complete. Surf the web, maybe read help menu on your screen. This will get your eyes use to the new setting.
D-65 doesn’t. 9300 does. Ramon told me to put it at that. What should i do?? Also, since the monitor instructions told me to max out on contrast and color depth, I put the monitor at 100% contrast and 11000 color depth, instead of the 9300 it was at, is this going to affect the brightnes more???? I will definitely put it back to a lower color depth, as this hurts my eyes, and it was for calibration only.
Tim, why shouldn’t I put the contrast back to 85% and the color depth to 9300??? this is too glary at both settings and I couldn’t work under these conditions. The calibration didn’t change the maxed out settings… it just made it darker or lighter.
Now, i have both settings… one with D-65 and one with 9300. Now, which should i use??
This is awesome, in putting the contrast and color depth back to as before, not only are there obvious differences in the two settings, but easier on my eyes. D-65 looks really more yellow. 9300 looks nice and bright. still waiting .
I followed the instructions in the calibration…which first said to put my color at max and the contrast at max.
That is ABSOLUTELY not true!
The first instruction is to set your CONTRAST control to MAX. Where do you get this "color at max" from??
Second, you are told to adjust the brightness conttrol so that you can barely see the oval in the middle.
The next (third) step is to adjust the sliders under the three squares (red, green, blue) so that you can no longer see the apple in the center of each of them (or as close to that as you can get).
Then you click on the NEXT arrow and there pick gamma 1.8.
I have no idea where you are seeing anything about Color Depth.
Chandi, you seem unwilling to follow instructions by nature. I’m just about to give up on you. Hadn’t we agreed it would be one question at a time?
You just go off in all sort of irrelevant tangents.
This is awesome, in putting the contrast and color depth back to as before, not only are there obvious differences in the two settings, but easier on my eyes. D-65 looks really more yellow. 9300 looks nice and bright.
You have totally messed up the calibration then, Chandi.
Your confusing white point 9300 with color depth which should be set to millions of colors in another part of the Monitor Control Panel outside of the calibrator. You set in the first dialog box when first opening MCP.
You should set contrast and brightness before getting to the slider section.
Use what’s comfortable to you when it comes to contrast. A bit close to a sheet of white paper. The brightness is set with the football shaped target in the black box at the beginning of the calibration. That’s also when to set Contrast. Then on to the sliders.
D9300 is fine for white point. You can always change it later.
You’re officially in charge now. 🙂 I’m an abject failure as a teacher; I know it, because I know what it takes to be an educator. I’ve been married to one and known her for close to half a century.
Fresh out of graduate school I was being offered prestigious posts, and I turned them down because (a) I hate living in the academic environment, and (b) I’m away of my massive shortcomings as a teacher or coach.
I give up, Chandi, because I haven’t been able to get you to follow simple instructions; but you’re in excellent hands. G Ballard, Ann and Tim have a lot more to offer than I do.
I find when moving the sliders with the screen changing weird colors, it affects my ability to see the Apple shaped target sliders effectively. My sense of neutrality is affected as well. Green and blue are very hard to see after staring at the the Red target for a while.
Ramon, don’t get angry with me, please… and i do want help. here is what it says under Adjusting your Monitor for accurate color: Before you calibrate your monitor, use Monitors control panel or the control on your Monitor to make these adjustments: * Set the brightness to a comfortable level…. Then set the contrast to it’s highest setting. * SELECT THE HIGHEST AVAILABLE COLOR DEPTH. * Set the height, width, resolution and position of the screen image.
After you’ve made these adjustments to your display, click the calibrate button and follow the imstructions that appear on the screen.
So, on my monitor, I can adjust contrast, brightness,color + the rest of aligning the screen.
So I did. Yes, the brightness control. I did.
"The next (third) step is to adjust the sliders under the three squares (red, green, blue) so that you can no longer see the apple in the center of each of them (or as close to that as you can get)." Not on mine, there is no separate color adj. That must be why they told me to max out on the depth.
Really, Ramon, I respect what you say! I followed what they said to do. It made it so bright and glarey that i couldn’t look at the screen.
if i am not to adjust the color depth, as you say… then what? where should i leave it??
Ramon, I am sorry you are frustrated with me!!!! You are good at giving information. Totally!! I am just having a difficult time focusing on this. It is not how i would like it to be, but it is how it is.
I am using a Sony Flat screen Trinitron Multiscan G420 monitor.
I don’t know what to say about the "color depth "thing. this is what it tells me to do and when I finish calibrating, it is totally beyond my being able to look at the monitor.
Where would the "color depth" setting be then?
Please hang-in there with me!!!!
Maybe the color isn’t the right thing to move. but it is the only thing that says "color" in my monitor settings.
Tim, the monitor is set to "millions"… however, it is not set to the highest resolution, which is 1920×1081. It is set to 1290×980.
Ramon, It’s not from the books.. It’s directly from my MAC help on screen in the "monitors Control Panel" under, "Adjust Your Monitor for Accurate Color" and it says ..Before you calibrate do these things first. Before I push the button that says "Calibrate" and sends me on my way thru the calibration laybrinth.
As soon as you open the Monitors Control Panel, you’ll see a window on its left-hand side that says:
Color Depth: (and it gives you a choice of 256, Thousands or Millions). Just make sure you have Millions highlighted. That’s all you ever need to do or know about Color Depth.
Now, close that bloody Help thing and forget about it. Forever.
Then click on Calibrate and just follow the instructions that appear in each successive window of the calibrator. END OF STORY.
OK.. So, I have recalibrated my computer, after Ramon disappeared "off the face of the earth". Please come back, Ramon. I put the "color depth" back to where it was. Adjusted the contrast to highest, and clicked the"calibrate" button. this time, however, i also clicked" Expert" Calibration… and got the color sliders, as well as the rest. I followed what it said about the white point. i made 2 different calibrations, now. One with the white point at D-65 and one "native" I have NOT touched anything else nor changed anything.
OK?!
It said something to the effect, in the Summary at the end, that the "native" gamma was 2.47 and that the target gamma was 1.80. I don’t know what this means.
Native gamma is what the monitor is in when all three RGB sliders are lined up-creating a neutral state. Target gamma is what you set to correct for a however dark the native gamma makes your monitor.
The grayramp should have been open to show you how dark the native gamma makes your monitor going by the shadow region numbers I suggested previously. The 1.8 shows the correction or lightening of it.
Color depth means only: 256, Thousands or Millions. Period. One of those three; there are no other possibilities. And you were told to make sure Millions are highlighted.
Nothing else in your computer or monitor, anywhere, is called "Color Depth".
So, I put the "color depth" back to where it was does not give me any confidence.
Sorry, you are right. The "color depth" is in the millions What i meant was that I put the "color" which i had turned all the way up to max in my monitor, back to where it was before i started all of this.
Thank you for that message in the 40"s which i just saw, describint the calibration, profiles and languages!!! I do speak hindi somewhat!!! (joking with you!!!!) I understood much clearer from that!!!!!
How’s the grayramp look? Neutral? How many levels of the 21 steps can you see?
Check out your PDI file in PS. For now set your Color Settings in PS to US Prepress defaults before you open the file. That way you don’t get any mismatch messages to confuse you.
No Ramon, it’s not too late. I changed back the "colors" that I had put to 11000, back to 9300, where i found them BEFORE recalibrating. I mistook the "colors" in my monitor adjustments, for the color depth. That is what you were so "hot" about. So, I put that back to where it was when I started this calibration thing. Then, I re-calibrated.I t was the wrong thing to touch anyway.. The color depth, is at "millions"
NOTHING HAS BEEN CHANGED SINCE THE LAST CALIBRATION!!!!
I changed back the "colors" that I had put to 11000, back to 9300, where i found them BEFORE recalibrating.
Chandi,
I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
I am assuming it is OK.
Don’t assume anything. Now that you have a calibrated monitor, open the test files and see if they look ok, WITHOUT changing any settings or controls. Set your Work space to Adobe RGB and open the test file that is tagged Adobe RGB. There are enough objects in that PDI file that you can get a good feel for the accuracy of your monitor profile.
It’s not important, Ramon..what i did was just to put a setting back to it’s original place. Then i recalibrated. Ok.. so now, where do I access my work space?
That’s where G Ballard’s site has no competition. (Although his server appears to be down at the moment.)
Go to Photoshop’s Edit Menu > Color Settings. Make sure the Advanced Mode is checked; RGB set to Adobe RGB (1998); CMYK set to SWOP.
Skip the rest of the many other settings for now. You can set them later on, when you are able to view G Ballard’s site. He even has screen shots of everything.
Click on OK. Now your working space is Adobe RGB.
Open the test file which is tagged as Adobe RGB, and view the objects therein, WITHOUT CHANGING ANY CONTROLS OR SETTINGS.
As for the Grayramp. I don’t know how to get it opened in PictureViewer. It immediately opens in IE. From that, it spreads across the screen. can see all 17, (btw) strips on the top, from 100% to 20%. All 5 steps in the grey-white on the bottom right: 5%-1% And 5 fof the 6 steps: 96%-99% clearly with 99-100% almost indiscernable, in the bottom left. To my eye, it has a bit of a greenish cast.
Now, if the gray ramp has the slightest pinkish, magenta or green cast (any cast; it should be pure neutral grays), then the PID test file will also look bad. That means you did not calibrate accurately. You’ll have to calibrate from scratch all over again, but again start from a fresh canned profile, not the bad one you created.
Only a color managed application (Photoshop) can use your Monitor Profile, your Working Space, the file’s embedded profile and, ultimately, the paper/ink/printer profile you’ll send the image to the printer with. What other applications show you is irrelevant.
As for CMYK, I have 2 options in SWOP: US web Coated (SWOP)v2 Colormatch 3.01-(SWOP)ink Sheetfed, Coated
Which shall it be?
also…at the top, above "advanced" and the selections below, there is another setting, which says "Settings". Here, Tim told me to put "US PrePress Defaults". Shall I also do this??? There are other options here, also.. like "Custom" and ColorSync Workflow, ….
OK.. That’s done. Ramon, I did ignore the other settings. I was just working on the RGB and CMYK, (telling you what the options were under SWOP, which you asked me to use) and I didn’t know if I was still supposed to use Tim’s suggestion.. that’s why i asked you.
As for the greyramp: This is what Tim said…
"http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/workflow/21stepNew.jpg Open it in PictureViewer ONLY making sure it spans the full width of your screen. Pick a target gamma during calibration that allows you to see most of the 21 step gray patches."
So, Ramon,
I think I understand this. was supposed to open this in Picture Viewer only DURING Calibration, because PS was NOT supposed to be open. But NOW, I should open it in Photoshop, because Calibration is finished (unless there are problems). OK
I can’t speak for Tim. I would have NEVER suggested Picture Viewer (for anything). Perhaps he thought it would make it easier for you to concentrate on viewing the grays. If you remember, after he suggested the gray ramp, I specifically told him that would only confuse you further. It did. I was right. 🙂
OK Ramon, I opened the target photo in Photoshop, and it looks beautiful. I don’t see any green cast in it. the desaturated area is desaturated and grey. The casts on the faces are good. There is a slight difference between that one (tagged)and the untagged jpg. the tagged one has a touch more red in it… or maybe richer than the other..which is a bit more lighter (and yellower). I’m not saying that it is red and yellow, but that the tagged one is righer in color.
let me ask you something. If I open the "Info"pallett, and run the cursor over the greys and all the RGB’sa are the same, would that be a fair check on the clarity of the greys? All the numbers check out.
As for the Greyramp, I did open it in Photoshop, and i can see all 21 steps, all the whites and the 95-100% blacks are almost indistinguishable. Still, to me, a few of the Greys (from 80% to 70%)look to have a bit of a greenishg cast, but maybe because I AM TIRED! But since you told me not to care about it yet, i won’t. Thanks I am going to sleep. I will check back tomorrow. And will start on the book!
If I open the "Info"pallett, and run the cursor over the greys and all the RGB’sa are the same, would that be a fair check on the clarity of the greys?
No. The values read by the eyedropper (or by Apple’s Digital Color Meter) are being read from the values of the colors in the file itself, not from what your monitor is displaying. To read the colors off the screen as displayed you would need a colorimeter, and that’s precisely what a hardware calibration puck. Software eyeball calibrators are much better than nothing at all, but you get better results with a hardware puck.
Still, to me, a few of the Grays (from 80% to 70%)look to have a bit of a greenish cast
What do the grays in the color PDI test file look? If you look around, you’ll see that the PDF file itself contains a gray card and a color card.
Grays should be totally neutral, without a greenish cast, if you have an accurately calibrated monitor profile. It might take you a little practice to achieve that. Practice makes perfect.
You’re correct about PictureViewer. I meant it to be used only during calibration. Sorry, I didn’t make that clear.
That grayscale file has a 2.2 gray gamma tag and PictureViewer won’t adjust the preview like PS or any other CM app would during calibration. As you can see PS is now reading this tag and adjusting correctly. You now see all 21 neutral steps.
I guess I confused the issue by suggesting its use. But from your own deduction of my intent, you’re catching on to the concept of all this. For some it took a while.
I have to add this, though, because you’ve created a 1.8 gamma profile as your system profile, your web images in IE may preview lighter than usual. It may not. If it does, you can fix this two ways.
1). In IE Preferences under the Edit menu select Web Content in the left scroll panel and on the right side of the dialog box put a check in the box by clicking-Use ColorSync (TM).
2). Or you could recalibrate and create a new profile with a 2.2 target gamma. Whichever is easiest.
If you find 1.8 is too bright or uncomfortable for web or desktop use, it’s quite alright to work in a 2.2 system environment. Most everyone does, now. I assumed you would’ve chosen 2.2. My grayramp shadow parameters caused you to choose 1.8.
The grayramp shadow level parameters don’t have to be strictly followed. I submitted it as a simple gauge so we all could be visualy on the same page. Ramon was right, I can see how I’ve complicated the process by being too picky with this grayramp image.
The green you see in the 70-80 shadow area is probably caused by the limitations of the Apple calibrator. It might be you’ve adjusted the monitor brightness/contrast buttons after calibration or right after the slider adjust section during calibration.
SuperCal, a shareware eyeball calibrator, gives better controls for getting rid of this. Again, a hardware puck package would make all this easier and more automated once you’ve figured out how to use it.
Firstly, Ann, I checked in color managemant, and everything you said above was already checked. As for the Gamma 2.2 I have a question below… but first I want to respond to Ramon and Tim.
Ramon and Tim, The gballard test jpg has NO COLOR in the desaturated area..NOR in the grey. Only on the greyramp…but maybe they were very saturated in the greyramp.
However, funny, but in opening some of my photos, they all had a greenish cast, and were more saturated and darker. In this , I am wondering if I should go to Gamma2.2?
But, even before I change the gamma setting to 2.2, I want to check with all of you on what is happening to my already scanned and previously (wrongly, from the previous settings)profile embedded photos,
As you now know, my monitor and working space was set up for graphic artists on a web-based environment. That is what my computer said and it was the sRGB 1996 something or other setting for my working space. OK..now it is changed to Adobe 1998.
During the time of my last settings, I have scanned hundreds of photos with that tag in them. Last night, i opened some of the photos. The new working space asked me to change, leave or discard, so I changed. Should I do that??? So, I changed some…. in the new working space and new calibration. I really want to know what I should be expecting!!!
What I got was highly pixelated images. Photos of 25mb were totally pixelated and almost unrecognizable at 100% (which, from scanning postcard sized photos, is not even my full monitor space)!! Others, scanned from 8×10’s, still held their integrity, but I could disern pixels in them already at 50%.
Is there something I need to do???
Before, they were beautiful!!! No matter what size I used, they were beautiful… smooth, crisp, clear… integrated… no pixelation, until I went way over the 100% (at least on the smaller ones) I had many printed out. And i could zoom in to the max and they rarely pixelated!!! certainly NOT LIKE THIS!!!
Plese tell me more, before i freak-out, because some of these photos are not available anymore, I cannot re-scan hundreds of photos…and my book with the photos in it were also done in that environment, and i cannot spend MONTHS cleaning up new scans. It is totally impossible.
What am i seeing here? How can i fix it? Can I fix it?
Also, before i forget, I noticed that in the Color Management settings, I have a Grey: Dot Gain 20% , and a Spot: Dot gain 20%. Would you please tell me if that is what might be affecting the photos? What is that?
There are 2 more Advanced Settings which are not checked and i will not touch them.
BTW: Ramon and Tim, I have NOT touched my calibration nor changed any of the settings!
Changing to Gamma 2.2 would indeed make your images look darker. (Just remember to recalibrate and SAVE a new monitor profile with the new Gamma taken into account.) However, the greenish cast is a different issue.
I’m just going to say this one last time: If (a big if, of course) you are thoroughly satisfied that you have achieved an accurate calibration, do not, I repeat DO NOT mess with your computer settings to make any image look better. If the monitor is accurately calibrated, correct the images in Photoshop; if they don’t look right, the scan was bad or the file got distorted through incorrect manipulation by you.
Your "pixelated" image issue is a different issue that needs some troubleshooting, but it has nothing to do with profiles or calibration. A lot more info is needed.
We can help, but please limit yourself to one single question at a time, Chandi. You are getting overwhelmed by trying to tackle 50 issues at once. Take them one step a time.
The Gray settings are in fine, they were automatically set when you chose "U.S. Prepress defaults". Don’t worry about them. They are for dealing with grayscale (black and white) images only. Forget that for now.
By the way, when I wrote "Changing to Gamma 2.2 would indeed make your images look darker", i meant exactly that. With Gamma 2.2 will make the images look darker to you as displayed by the monitor with your calibration. It will NOT alter the images themselves in any way, shape or form.
The same applies to monitor calibration and the resulting monitor profile you save. This does not alter or affect the images in any way, only the way they look to you on your particular screen
OK great.. So let’s talk about this, now, and I will save the other questions for later.
IF the photos will LOOK different to me, because of the changed settings, then how will I know how they look? How can I adjust them ? How will I know how light or dark they will come out, if what i am seeing is different from what there was before? this doesn’t make sense to me.
If the monitor is accurately calibrated, and if all your settings are correct (as they appear to be, it’s difficult to tell without being at your computer) the photos are EXACTLY the way they appear to you and that is how they are going to be printed (with the caveat that you still have to look at them in Soft Preview through the specific profile for the paper/ink/printer combination).
If they look really off, it means something went awfully wrong when you scanned them. I know that’s bad news to you. You can perform a great degree of individual adjustments using Curves and such, but that’s beyond your reach for now, to be bluntly honest.
If you can post a link to one of your images, we may be able to tell a lot more, but if they’re 25MB each, that’s going to be a problem to upload and download.
Since you keep referring to your book and how the images will look in print, the sRGB working space was inappropriate from the beginning. And since you’re not that concerned with the web, the Gamma 2.2 suggested by Tim and Ann is inconsequential.
Ramon, I will try and see how i can post a link. Maybe i can put the mb’s less, and you can still see what is going on. I’ll let you know.
Listen, if I scanned the photos into the computer and they were worked on and embedded with a different profile, won’t they be different in this new profile and settings? Won’t they undergo changes shifting from one setting to another?? Especially since they were set up for the web environment (as you said sRGB is like Mandarin), and now they are set for a bigger view (like English..all over the place).
Therefore, what was scanned is going to change to the new environment, take on the expanded colors, the different brightness, etc. I will see this change and have to re-adj, etc…
That is my understanding.
About the pixelated ones.. If there was something wrong with my scanner, then i would have gotten corrupted files way before this. And I would have re-scanned it.
I have opened these files many times, for many reasons, and there was never a problem. They were saved in .tif, also… so they couldn’t degenerate on their own. (I don’t save in .jpg)
The thing is, so far, all of the files are showing pixelation. That would be impossible for EVERYTHING to be bad, at least of what i have opened.
I didn’t know you had scanned 100’s of photo’s before calibrating and profiling your monitor. Big mistake! You may have a lot of work ahead of you. Not sure. We can’t see how off your uncalibrated state was during the scan and edits.
You’ve basicaly done the equivalent of a photographer shooting an image without knowing the exposure or film stock used. The amount of edits will be determined how far off your uncalibrated state was from your newly calibrated state during scan/edit. It may not be as bad as it sounds. I don’t know because I can’t see what you’re working with.
The AdobeRGB tag in your scanned images is only good if your NikonScan editing environment (monitor profile and brightness/contrast button settings) was known and accurately described to Nikon’s color preview settings at the time you were trying to make the 100’s of images look good during the scan/editing phase.
Your uncalibrated state (Monitor profile/display button settings-MAY HAVE BEEN IN sRGB with 2.2 gamma?-don’t assume-KNOW). It may not have been that far off from your newly calibrated state. You might be able to assign a profile to the images that make it look the way you want in PS under Image/Mode/Assign Profile. Pick any profile that that gets you close to what you want requiring the least amount of edits.
Or leave everything as is in the calibrated state, keep the AdobeRGB tag in the file when opening in PS and edit. Leave it up to a lesson learned about color management and calibration. At least the edits will be tagged, honored and previewed accurately from here on out in other color managed apps.
If it was me, I’ld rescan everything in the calibrated state with NikonScan’s color settings/color management set properly. You may not have to do as much color/density editing depending on the condition of the items being scanned.
No one knows how off your monitor was when you scanned/edited the images and now that your in a calibrated/accurately described state, a rescan may not require as much editing. You have to be the judge of that.
Are you sure? Look at them at 50 or 25% and see if they still look "pixelated". If they do, it is probably because you have over-manipulated 8-bit scans and you will have no choice but to rescan those images
Re your Color profiles:
Open your files UNCHANGED and in their ORIGINAL color space using the embedded profile (do NOT allow Photoshop to "Convert" the file while opening it).
Make sure that your View menu/Proof Setup is set to your CMYK setup (Working CMYK) and NOT to a monitor space and leave View menu/Proof Colors UNchecked.
Now go to Image menu/Mode/Assign Profile. With the Preview box checked, cycle through the available Profiles in the pop-up menu until you find one that makes your image look the best on your now calibrated monitor. Click "OK".
Then go to Image menu/Mode/Convert to Profile. Check the preview box.
Source Space will show the profile which you have just Assigned. Leave it alone. Destination Space: should be changed to "Working RGB — Adobe RGB (1998)". Engine: Adobe ACE Intent: Relative Colorimetric. Check both "Use Black Point Compensation" and "Use Dither". Click "OK".
Save and Close your file.
Re-open it.
Now you can use Adjustment Layer Curves etc. to adjust your image to look the best that it can on your calibrated monitor. (Do NOT make any adjustments to your monitor settings!)
Whether or not your existing scans can be rescued will depend a lot on how much they may already have been damaged by your earlier manipulations — particularly as you only scanned at an 8-bit depth to begin with.
Chandi should be fine if she just sets her Nikon to use the same Gamma that she has chosen to use for her monitor. However, you do have to turn Nikon’s color management off to change the Gamma Setting.
My choice would be to leave my basic settings alone (with color management ON) and just choose the Mono Neg" and Grayscale setting and adjust the Black curve as required.
She does need to make sure that she loads her newly calibrated monitor profile into the Nikon Color Management palette.
OK, Ann and Tim, Let me digest all this info you both have given me. Just got home…
One thing, I obviously didn’t make clear, the hundreds of scans are NOT from negs, but from already printed images…. some of which are very old and NOT available any more, scanned on my Epson Perfection, flatbed scanner, which also wasn’t separately calibrated, but I used the defaults. ( And they were true to the color in the photos), So… If they stayed integrated and didn’t fall apart in the last settings, why would they now???
With the Nikon neg scanner I am starting a brand new hugh project..fresh…. and that was the beginning of this thread, the grainy images on the desktop.
Tim, The Gamma from the previous setting, the sRGB, was 2.2. I now have it at 1.8.
Where I am heartbroken is that all the photos, B&W, scanned from the very old photos and not exactly great copies, and fixed a lot, now look like "melted butter" with these settings. And these photos are the ones for my book. I haven’t even had the time yet, to open the .tiff handwriting scans which are also part of the book. The joke is, the book needs the current settings for printing, doesn’t it?!!
ANN… thank you for the info on using the original settings, I was wondering if that was possible….because I was devastated, and I wasn’t going to tell any of you, after all your help, but I was thinking that I would sneak back and put the settings back…. but, unfortunately, when i set the color management to US Pre-press defaults, i didn’t notice what it was before. So, it wouldn’t really work, anyway, would it.
OK… let me re-read and digest all this and see how well i can follow your instructions, reset for this….and I will see what the results are and get back to you.
I have "put down" the Nikon scanner for now, until i read thru these books and unserstand more of what you are asking me to do with the scanner settings. I need to understand what i am doing. But I need to know quickly. I still have your setting info for the scanner, Ann.
As for the pixelation in my photos, I honestly don’t know what to say!! I scanned these PHOTOS (not negs) at very high resolutions, and they were so purely clean, in that they held their picture. They just didn’t break down…at maybe 1000%. Now, they are coming apart. The good luck with some of these is that I have the negs …. the bad luck is that, for others, I don’t !!!
The monitor calibration does not affect the images at all, only the way they are displayed. I keep coming back to the reading glasses analogy: putting on a pair of reading glasses will not affect the text you are reading or the printed photographs you are looking at. If the prescription (optical correction) is accurate, then you will be looking at the text and at the prints as they really are.
The same goes for the calibration; your images are not being altered at all just because you have an accurately calibrated monitor. Neither the monitor profile nor your working space settings have anything to do with the "pixelation" you see in your images now. There’s something else going on there. We have to troubleshoot that; but it’s a separate issue from color management.
Now, tell us how you saved the images after you scanned them on your Epson flatbed scanner. What file format did you save them in? How large were they (in terms of how many pixels wide and how many pixels high)? What was the resolution you scanned at (in ppi, pixels per inch)? Were they 16-bit TIFFs or 8-bit JPEGs?
How big were the file sizes (in terms of KB or MB) of the original scans?
What do you mean by "falling apart"?
Do you have the originals? (One never works on originals, only on copies.)
How do those images you think are "pixelated" look in other applications like Preview, or Graphic converter? How big are the file sizes (in KB or MB) ?
What exactly is your understanding of "pixelation"?
Have you made sure you are still set to Millions of Colors?
OK.. great! I am understanding you more…and why my scanned photos should look so bad, less. I think!
Ok… so then we are talking about Working Space?!
Something I am still not understanding….Are you saying that this is the way they always were, but I didn’t see them this way because of the previous settings?? That the settings didn’t show them correctly?? You are saying that I am seeing what I am seeing! Before they looked like that…now they look like this! They look different.
One thing, Ramon, my monitor, except for the brightness, was actually calibrated pretty right on. I didn’t have to change anything else, except give it a name. Really, very little changing the red-green-blue (not at all.)
The sRGB was at gamma 2.2.
After calibrating the monitor and changing the Working Space to US Pre-press defaults is when the changes to the images happened. When i opened them. They were darker, more saturated, some greener, and obvious pixelation.
Ann said not to convert them…. I did. That might be the problem. But, I don’t know.
I will re-read what Ann has written and see if i can follow this, in my after work dyslectic state…maybe i am… I have already written 4 words with the letters inverted…. but then, I do get speedy when i get home and on the computer!!
No, Chandi, your Work Space would not have "pixelated" your image either. It might have altered the colors a bit if you did an improper conversion, but it would not have damaged the images in the way you describe.
You seem to have, by coincidence, other problems that are causing what you see.
I told you to check them; then Assign the Profile which produces the most pleasing-to-the-eye result; and THEN convert them to your current working space (which should be Adobe RGB 1998).
ASSIGN and CONVERT are different and separate steps.
Let me take a wild guess here, Chandi, all in good humor and good will, of course.
Do you have a bubbly, happy personality and do your friends have trouble getting a word edge wise in the conversation when you’re together? Do you find yourself finishing other people’s sentences? 🙂
If so, it means that you need to listen (or read) more intently.
It seems you have skimmed over most of what Ann, Tim and I have written here over the life of this now very, very long thread. Your questions have been answered over and over, but you seem to not be focussing on the replies. (See Ann’s post # 131, for instance.)
As I said, take it one step at a time, one question at a time, and don’t put words into anyone’s mouth. I’m sure Ann and Tim will both agree on the fact that we mean just what we say. Don’t speculate ("Are you saying that…?") just read the messages more slowly and carefully.
<How large were they (in terms of how many pixels wide and how many pixels high)? > I don’t know. They were all different, depending on what size the first print was. 3×5, 4×6, 8×10.
<What was the resolution you scanned at (in ppi, pixels per inch)?> I scanned from that in 400-800 resolution, each different, depending on what my use would be.
<Were they 16-bit TIFFs or 8-bit JPEGs? > Mostly 8-bit Tiff’s. A few 16-bit Tiffs.
<How big were the file sizes (in terms of KB or MB) of the original scans? > MOst at 11-50MB’s.
<What do you mean by "falling apart"? > What i mean is that the pixels are what is composing the photo, not the face or the skin tones. You know, there is no face there any more… only a bunch of pixels. I see the separate co;ors. the squared pixel shape.
<Do you have the originals? (One never works on originals, only on copies.) > I have mostly the first or second prints from the photo lab. And for many, the negs.
<How do those images you think are "pixelated" look in other applications like Preview, or Graphic converter? > I have never used Graphic Converter and what do you mean by Preview?
<What exactly is your understanding of "pixelation"? > Pixelation, to me, is when the pixels show and the picture is not looking like a face or whatever anymore.
<Have you made sure you are still set to Millions of Colors?> Yes..always millions of colors.
neither is the photo I just opened leaving the embedded profile that is already there, intact. It was scanned on my scanner and is 31.4mb, RGB. This one is staying fine.
I am wondering.
I made sure not to open photos scanned on other people’s computers, which they have done for me, while I am in India and i have downloaded them from the CD’s.
All scanned images and all digital photographs are made of pixels. If you zoom in enough, you’ll see nothing but pixels. That’s why I’m still not sure what you mean.
Pixels make up faces, skins, skies, etc. Now, if you’re viewing your image at 100% and they look like a mosaic of large squares, then you do in fact have pixelation. I have no idea how you introduced that there, but I can assure you it had nothing to do with calibrating your monitor or setting a correct working space. Maybe you’re looking at some thumbnails somewhere. I have no way of knowing without further details.
<Do you have the originals? (One never works on originals, only on copies.)
I have mostly the first or second prints from the photo lab. And for
many, the negs.
No; I was referring to the original files of the scans. Whenever one scans something or records a digital photograph, one immediately makes a copy to work on and never touches the original scanned file.
what do you mean by Preview?
Never mind, sorry, it doesn’t apply to you. It’s a utility Apple provides with OS X.
<< I have mostly the first or second prints from the photo lab. >>
THAT could be the problem!
What sort of lab. made those prints?
My guess is that these prints were made by Ritz/Wolf (or similar) and what you have are not analogue prints (made directly from the negative through an optical enlarger) but rather prints made from a digital scan.
You must NOT rescan that kind of print. Make new scans directly from your original FILM.
And scan at 100% of size at the optical resolution of your scanner.
Then look at the results at 100, 50 or 25% size in Photoshop.
Sometimes i have a very bubbly personality…and sometimes I can cut your head OFF! , and be as ascerbic as you can be. That is what Chandi Devi is… She is DURGA! In her rathful form!!!! The name was given to me by my Spiritual Master.
NO, I do not finish other people’s sentences.
Yes… this is a Deja VU with you.
And, I said i needed to re-read Ann, before answering anyone’s messages… but you wrote so i picked up on what you were saying, not to be ignoring you, or anything. But I wasn’t ready to quote her or you or Tim or anyone. I need to understand and apply what she and all of you are saying.
yes, i have a problem "paying attention"… because I spend too much time writing letters and not applying myself. deal with other things and people during the day and i have other things to do when i get home. I put all that down and try and focus on this, because this has become very important, I have a deadline, and i know, basically NOTHING!!!!
I just came from India after sitting some very intense meditation, and I have a hard time dealing with the world, again, as it is in America.
Chandi, you may indeed have an intermittent, hardware-related problem.
I just focused on this passage in your original post:
The Coolscan installed fine, (except of course for the PS plugin, but that’s the next question). Ok, so we started scanning B&W 35mm negs, scanned in mono greyscale, in both 8 and 16 bit in various combinations of passes, from 1-16 @ 4,000, the highest, for archival purposes. (learning the program and possibilities) OK..no problem. When the finished scan appeared in the Nikon scan window, it was fine: smooth- not grainy. When I saved it to the hardrive and then opened it again in the scan program, it was horrible. It looked like someone ground sand into the image. It was so grainy and had lost at least 25% resolution. But, when I opened it in Photoshop, it was fine. And it was the same with all of them. [Emphasis mine]
The photos that I have been referring to were done on an optical enlarger. However, they were done in Labs that used the same kinds of machines as Wolf, etc… most of these were developed in india. I lived there 7 years and took thousands of photos…always using 2 labs.
However, i have had a bunch more done on the digital printer…in the last 2 years. Thanks for telling me that.
I really don’t like how they come out. Not enough light in them.
I am positive that the reason for your "grainy" and "pixelated" images is that scans were made from digitally-generated prints or from prints that were too small.
The Ritz/Wolf labs are using a digital process to generate the images that are processed on their machines.
I have seen this before and there is NOTHING you can do to repair the files except to rescan from the original film; or from true optically-printed photographic prints which are larger than your planned size of reproduction.
If the images are too dark you can correct that by using curves but you can do nothing to remove the dark speckles which the Ritz-method puts in your images.
I think I did not describe pixelation correctly to you, in which way i am seeing it.
I opened the same photo, the one which pixelated before, in jpg, tiff saved jpg, and tiff..the original.
At 50% the first and third started pixelating…. what I mean is that the colors became dots….. on the faces, etc…. and it was just a maze of color dots. (34.1 mb ,tiff.) It was like a sea of colors on the image.
the second one, pixelated. That is different. It became blocks of pixels! This was a small jpg.
What I meant was that they used machines, like all the photo labs do….(the one -three hour photo labs)… but India, did not go digital until last year, at least not in the Labs. And my friend’s lab was still hand washing as late as 2001.( They never used machines, except an enlarger) ( and they were one of the biggest and best in S. India.).
I guarantee you these are not digital prints. They were all taken between 1992-1997.
Are the "pixellated" images: Only from scans created in the Nikon scanner and saved directly to the computer connected to the scanner and re-opened on that same computer? Only from CDs sent to you by others? Only in scans made on the Epson scanner? All of the above?
There’s no way a Mac 9.2 screen shot is going to be 25MB. No way!
Do you know what a screen shot is? You press Command Shift 3 and it creates a PICT image on your Desktop of everything you see on screen. It will be called Picture1 automatically.
They are very small files, 50KB or more, but less than 1MB.
Send it to me by email. Click on my name and reassemble my email address from there.
Open the image in Photoshop. Press ‘Command Shift 3’ simultaneously. Close (quit) Photoshop.
Hit Command F. (Sherlock comes up) search for the name ‘Picture’. It’ll show you where your screen shot, magically created and named Picture 1, or Picture 2, or 3, whatever (you may have created some already).
You just sent me a screen shot of your Sherlock window with the Finder showing in the background!
What we need is a screen shot of your Photoshop image open in a Photoshop window, of course.
Go back .–> Step 1 open your pixelated picture in Photoshop; Step two while looking at that image in Photoshop press Command Shift 3; Step 4 close the image, quit Photoshop. Now go look for that Picture, presumably by now labeled Picture 11. 12 or whatever; email it to me.
If you look closely at that screenshot, it was made last year. In the CNN news shown there, Bush had just fallen off his scooter and Saddam Hussein was sending threatening letters.
Chandi, you ought to go take some basic Macintosh computer classes, really.
The two last two screenshots I received from you, finally, do show (part) of the image we needed to see.
There is absolutely no "pixelation" of any kind in either of those two images. What we see is grain and noise, which are caused by the film’s or print’s inherent grain, as well as by the scanner.
I have made JPEGs of both of them so I could post them for everyone else to see, including you. This way you’ll be looking at them in your web browser when you click on the corresponding links.
This last one (13) shows the top of the Photoshop window indicating you are viewing the image at 100%. That’s appropriate. I’m just pointing it out for the benefit of those who see # 11 first, which is essentially a crop of the second one.
There are different ways of reducing the graininess and/or noise in an image, albeit at the cost of losing some sharpness.
Just to give you an idea, make a copy of this particular image (DON’T WORK ON THE ORIGINAL!), and apply a 1 pixel Gaussian Blur in Photoshop (Filter Menu > Blur > Gaussian Blur).
On the other hand, remember that the images will be printed at a smaller size than what viewing them at 100% shows, so that the graininess and noise will not be as noticeable then.
I agree: there is no "pixellation" but there is considerable film-grain and scanning artifacts.
My guess is that this was fast film (above 100 ASA); may have been over developed; may have been scanned from a print; and seems to have been scanned at greater-than-optical resolution or rezzed-up after the fact. (Zoom-in on the man’s mouth and you will see the interpolated pixels.)
The real answer, if you can possibly can do so, is to re-scan these images from the original film.
If you are stuck with these scans, consider purchasing "Grain Surgery" which might help to make them more presentable.
Frankly, Chandi, there is no way that you are currently qualified to put this book together.
This may sound harsh, but you will need extensive training in the use of Photoshop, Scanning Techniques, Photo-retouching, InDesign and Pre-press before you will be able to handle this project.
Either get an extension on the deadline (I think you may need at least two years to master this material) or engage a professional to do the work for you.
I wholeheartedly agree with Ann’s last post in its entirety.
Please consider the last three paragraphs in Ann’s post to be the best, most helpful and sincere advice anyone can give you.
We’re not trying to be mean spirited, quite the contrary. You’re just not ready to handle the Mac, the scanner or Photoshop with the degree of ease your task and your deadline demand.
The screenshot problem was making me laugh, because when I first got my mac in 1998 I couldn’t get it to work. After 2 hours on the phone with Apple support and reinstalling my OS 8.5 as per their support help with no fix, they switched me to another tech support person who knew exactly what I was doing wrong. I was using the numbers on the right of the keyboard instead of the numbers above the letter keys.
There is an extention for OS 7.6 – 9.x www.warker.com/deskshots. <http://warker.com/deskshots.html> This will re-direct screenshot files to the desktop for easier access, while in OS 9.x.
Below is the URL for Grain Surgery, which Ann already suggested to you.
For many (not all) noisy images that cannot be re-scanned or digital images that cannot be re-shot, I find what Grain Surgery does to be almost black magic.
It is not inexpensive, but if you have images it can fix, the price is worth it. There’s a full functioning demo you can download from the site to see if it suits your purposes; the demo version just superimposes a fine multicolored grid over the finished image.
There is also a less expensive filter available from Kodak/Applied Science Fiction with a demo version too. Its called "Digital GEM Airbrush Pro plug-in":
In order to illustrate what happens when you remove grain at the expense of sharpness, I ran your picture through both the Grain Surgery and the GEM Airbrush Pro filters I described above.
First of all, I ran the image through Kodak/ASF’s ROC filter at the default settings rather than make a guess at the original tonal values of your image. You know the original, so you can tell me how far off the default settings are. However, the colors are not part of this test at all.
I do have a license for Kodak/ASF’s ROC filter, so that part of the process did not embed a watermark.
Then I made a second copy of the color corrected image and ran each of the two copies through the demo versions of both Grain Surgery and GEM Airbrush Pro filters. Because they are demos, a watermark was embedded in each picture, respectively a text watermark by GEM Airbrush Pro and a multicolored grid by Grain Surgery.
Bear in mind that these manipulated images were obtained at the default values, and if one had more time and a proper knowledge of the originals, better results would be obtained.
You clicked on the link during the four seconds I took to fix it. 🙂 Try the GEM Airbrush Pro corrected image; it’s not as good as the one you just saw (Grain Surgery ).
[EDITED to correct last sentence. Now it’s correct:]
Try the GEM Airbrush Pro corrected image; it’s not as good as the one you just saw (Grain Surgery ).
The thing that is especially remarkable, is that not only has the grain been smoothed out but also the artifacts (in the area of the man’s mouth) have also been blended back into the surrounding pixels.
Yes, Ann. Like I said before, on some images Grain Surgery does seem to perform in the realm of black magic. I’m just about to cough up the cost of a license.
I am back, my boyfriend thought I was eaten up by my computer this last week!!!
I have read all that you have said, and I fully agree with Ann, as to my needing to learn a lot more before attempting a book, especially a "color" book.
Ann is right… I scanned, in this case, a 3×5, taken at either ASA 100 or 200 ( I don’t have the negs on hand to check) @300dpi on my epson perfection flatbed scanner.
Also, I saw all the postings, and I am sorry, not being so long on computers, I used "pixellation" for "grainyness" (Barry will enjoy this!!! more of the comedy!!) However, the issue was that before changing my working space and monitor settings (which i understand doesn’t change anything, in this respect, but the working space does)… before the change, I DID NOT GET THIS GRAINYNESS!!!! This is what has stunned me. And not only on this one ….. but other photos too.
So, I don’t know what more to say about this.
I saw your adjustments, Ramon…. and it was a nice job, considering it was a screen shot, but it wasn’t anything like it’s original vividness…maybe working with the original it would look better.
You are all right, more is involved here than I have knowledge of…and you all have totally opened my mind to what i have to learn and what is included in manipulating any film image that has been digitized and digital image. (I have always let others manipulate my photos..I would rather be out there 24/7 taking photos than fixing them.) Now, I am finding this aspect fascinating.
So, from this, I have had to make a few decisions about this whole thing.
Firstly, what is important right now, is that I use this scanner to scan my negs. I bought this scanner, with my friend’s money and agreement that we do our projects concurrently. I scan all my negs of my teacher…and then I carry the scanner to India when I come back in September, so they can scan all the rest. (or sent it if I don’t come at that time) Our agreement is Sept. So, my deadline is Sept.
I am fully aware that my scans will NOT be adjusted…and I told them this.
They, on the other hand, have a Photoshop WHIZ on their payroll, and I am sure he will be involved in the scanning and adjusting of their part of the project…and also, adjusting mine when they will be using them.
So, I, heartbreakingly, will have to put down my already scanned images (photos) and all that i will have to do with them, and go back to scanning my negs. This is just too much to concentrate on for right now. I will also be reading and going thru the PS books i have bought and all the information all of you have so graciously given and all the links you have also directed me to.
Ann has given me very detailed information on how to set-up my scanner in order to get reasonably looking scans, at least how she does it. Also to adj. my scanner to recognize my color changed settings.
I think we are agreed that my monitor is calibrated, to the best that it can be now, without getting totally professional about it.
Also, that the working space is calibrated to Adobe 1998 US pre-press defaults. My gamma is 1.8
I am using "Standard " viewing on my monitor (which i have never mentioned before, but it appears to work like gamma. High is brighter viewing, standard is medium and professional is darker).
I have NOT TOUCHED my settings since WE calibrated it.
I will be starting FRESH.
OK!
I will throw out the previously scanned B&W, which is what started this thread… the grainyness of the image after saved to the hardrive and opened on the desktop (which, by the way, still comes up grainy, even in the new settings)
OK before i start to adj. my scanner settings, I would like to make a few points.
Ann, I have not yet found anywhere that i can use 14-bit to scan in. I have looked… I will keep looking, but so far, all it presents to me is 8 and 16. If you can tell me exactly where to look to change this, i would appreciate it. I have the 5000ED.
Secondly, In reading these books, all of them talk about different "working" spaces for different output needs. The negs that i will be scanning were all taken between 1990 and 1997. The slides, from 1950’s to 1997. The archived images will be used for press-publications, photo books and also on the web as images.
Is this the best setting I should use for my working space in order to have the images the most available for these different output possibilities?? Or does it matter, since the important thing is to have them , and then let them and myself, manipulate them later for it’s different needs??
As for my book. It is a B&W book…with B&W images, and I will forget about finishing it here and take the original CD’s (before the settings change) back to it to India with me, where i can get help with NO DEADLINE on my side. (I am ssssssssssssooooooooo glad i backed -up all this stuff!)
All of you have really opened up my eyes, and I thank you, tremendously!
By the Way, just to understand a few things you both said about the grainyness of the photos in your reply’s Ann, What are the "artifacts" around the man’s mouth???
And Ramon, is there always problems with grainyness??? I usually have it when i am scanning at really high res., but nothing like i saw in these photos after changing settings.
Barry, I almost NEVER use the numbers on the keypad… if that’s what you mean.
the issue was that before changing my working space and monitor settings (which i understand doesn’t change anything, in this respect, but the working space does)… before the change, I DID NOT GET THIS GRAINYNESS!!!!
Remember the reading glasses analogy?
There is just absolutely no way that calibrating your monitor and setting a proper working space can introduce grain into your images. That is just an utter impossibility.
===
As for grainy scans, the inherent grain on the film will be more apparent if you scan at very high resolutions, like 4,000 ppi, because at that point you’re scanning the film grain without gaining any more image information, With a lot of negatives, about 2,400 ppi is the limit of the image information, anything beyond that will just get you more of the film’s grain particles.
You say, 2400 ppi…. I was told by a man who scans negs and does this and production for a living and who has a $15,000 scanner, that 4,000 is the place where the info really stops.
Then , there must have been some shift inside my computer for this to happen, because i have looked at these images many times, cleaned them up , and did a little color adj, and they have NEVER looked as they do now. NEVER!
Then , there must have been some shift inside my computer for this to happen,
Files can get corrupted, in which case you can’t open them. There is nothing I know of that will introduce the type of grain, artifacts and color casts we see in the screen shot. NOTHING.
OK… Ramon, I will re-pick this up if I get problems with the scans. What a drag!!
For now, I have re-read some of the info about setting up the scanner correctly, and i have this question of ANN….or you, too.. I am reposting from Tim and Ann…. .
Tim Lookingbill – 11:07am Jul 8, 2004 Pacific (#124 of 215)
Ann, What do think about the grayscale scans she mentions in her original post? "…B&W 35mm negs, scanned in mono greyscale…" I’m concerned about what NikonScan goes by…PS’s 20% dot gain or 1.8/2.2 gamma or Colorsync Control Panel’s Generic Grayscale whatever that’s based on. Post Reply | Bookmark
Ann Shelbourne – 11:48am Jul 8, 2004 Pacific (#125 of 215) Edited: 08-Jul-2004 at 11:48am PST
Chandi should be fine if she just sets her Nikon to use the same Gamma that she has chosen to use for her monitor. However, you do have to turn Nikon’s color management off to change the Gamma Setting. My choice would be to leave my basic settings alone (with color management ON) and just choose the Mono Neg" and Grayscale setting and adjust the Black curve as required.
Do you then mean to NOT change the greyscale to match the monitor??
She does need to make sure that she loads her newly calibrated monitor profile into the Nikon Color Management palette.
Chandi – I know both of the teachers that were in the pict11 that you sent to Ramon. I have traveled to India twice. I realize that the woman is from California. Good luck!
Nor about the other files coming up with lots of grain and darker and greenish.
Soft and out of contrast.
Chandi,
You just don’t know the first thing about scanning, or color management, or Photoshop, or the Mac, or
I’m bluntly pointing this out to you because you just have us going in circles. Most of the time we have to guess what you mean, and even more often you don’t seem to understand or read carefully what we tell you. There’s no way I can tell what you have been doing from day one, and your attempts at explaining it have added more confusion than elucidation.
I’m very sorry, but at this point I can’t imagine what more I could possibly say to you that would help you. I have contributed what I could. Good luck with your project.
Just a thought on what might have caused the grain in the photos. Did the scanner software have any sharpening feature turned on during the scan? You may have to turn it off and rescan to see if that’s the problem.
I’m not sure, just throwing it out there. I’m not familiar with your brand of scanner software.
You know, Ramon is right. I really don’t know that much about the machines I am using. I used the scanner as was….. and i didn’t adj anything, as it scanned sharply and accurately as for the colors in the photos I was using. Epson Perfection flatbed w/ neg scanner attachment (which i am not using)
the problem occured AFTER it was saved, and re-opened. the photos now. the neg scan, immediately (on the desktop only!)
the photos have been with me for some time, and even tho i know what Ramon is saying is technically true, i still can’t figure out what other things could cause it.
Maybe from having sRGB as my workspace to Adobe 1998, there was a shift. that is the only thing i can think of, not knowing mostly anything else. If i was using mandarine and i am now using english, surely there will be some difference. this is the only way I can see it…. hopefully, as i learn more, the answer will become clearer.
Epson Perfection flatbed w/ neg scanner attachment (which i am not using) the problem occurred AFTER it was saved, and re-opened.
IMPOSSIBLE; simply impossible.
As I said before, file damage can be drastic when it happens, but it DOES NOT, CANNOT introduce what are clearly, unmistakably, undebatably grain and scanning artifacts. It just does not happen. It can’t happen, Chandi.
When a file gets corrupted, you just can’t open it at all. If it gets damaged, you will at best see a few isolated parts of the image, usually totally distorted.
What is very possible is that you were looking at something else, a different image the first time. Just like when you kept sending me the wrong files.
<< I have not yet found anywhere that i can use 14-bit to scan in. I have looked… I will keep looking, but so far, all it presents to me is 8 and 16. >>
You set the pixel-depth in the Scanner Extras Palette. (I have the 4000 which offers 14-bit depth — choose either that or 16-bit if the 5000 offers it.)
Otherwise set up the scanner EXACTLY as I explained earlier. Print out my instructions AND each page from the NikonScan Help menu and study them.
Turn your scanner’s sharpening OFF and scan at the optical resolution of the scanner which is 4,000 ppi.
The artifacts in your image have probably been been caused either by unskilled editing after you rescanned the print or by automatic dust-and-scratches removal by Ritz Labs when they scanned your negs. prior to printing them. (Zoom right in and look at the area around the man’s mouth.)
HI Ok….it is possible, Ramon, but i opened all 3 of the same images. One in Jpg, one in JPG saved to .tiff and one in .tiff. the first one pixelated when i tried to blow it up. the other 2 showed grain at 50%. I sent you the .tiff, for the benefit of the doubt, so that we wouldn’t argue about a JPG saved in .tiff. The .tiff NEVER pixelated before. I will take the time to go over the couple hundred photos in my computer… open and close them and open them again. I will look and see how many and which ones have changed. I KNOW these photos! I hear you….I still can’t believe that i am that blind, and i don’t wear glasses, to not see graininess, especially such obvious graininess after scanning and while working on the files. I would have immediately re-scanned them. I will check, again and see what is happening to the others.
As for the Nikon B&W neg scans: The first scans that i did with the neg scanner, which opened beautifully in the Nikon scan window, opened HORRIBLY after saving it and then re-opening it on the desktop, (again within the Nikon scanner window,) and opened Beautifully in Photoshop… was the beginning of this thread. They still open as horribly as they did.
I am now going to change the scanner info as Ann suggested. I will re-scan the same photos and see if it happens again.
If you want me to take a snapshot of the beautiful scanned image in PS and the one saved via the desktop, I will. But I would like to re-read Ann on the scanner info and adj. and try again.
Ann, Definitely, the printing at the Indian Labs left a lot to be desired.
These were only proofs, as far as i was concerned, but still, they didn’t show this graininess before, after scanning, saving and opening in PS.
The flim available in the smaller cities and villages of india are seconds. I have constantly been told that the quality of the film is second quality to that bought in the stores of America, not to mention buying Professional film. (Which is not so easily available, outside of, say Delhi, Bombay and Madras). And, the developing and printing of film in India, has a yellow cast, implimenting the various shades of brown of the skin. So, I didn’t expect to get perfect photos from these. They do use, Fuji, Kodak and Konica chemicals….however, one lab, where i was staying, they used chemicles from Russia…..not very stable, as the negs are somewhat faded and color shifted…. and this is precisely the reason we are archiving the negs.
This extra paraphenalia is interesting and i will look at that.
Never got anything like that. Unless you are referring to the screen shot you made of your image titled "Papaji/Gangaji.tif"
Chandi, the image of which you sent a screen shot almost fit on your monitor when you were viewing at 100%. That means that it is a relatively low resolution scan. Additionally, the Photoshop window indicates you were indeed viewing at 100% and it did not have an embedded profile, that’s what RGB# means; look at the top of the window where it says " @ 100% (RGB#)", so you can’t even blame it on any conversion, as you had performed none. But even if you had, that would not have introduced unmistakable grain and scanning artifacts.
What could have had a terrible effect is if you had saved it as a 256-color image (like in Compuserve GIF format, for instance); but even then the degradation would show up differently.
By the way, since you say you plan to get Photoshop CS, that means you’ll be upgrading to OS X (Photoshop CS does not run in Mac OS 9.x), so you have to remember that you will have to rename a lot of your files. In OS X, non-UNIX characters are not allowed, so you’ll have to use only numbers and the letters of the English alphabet (no slashes, dashes or hyphens, etc).
I spoke with an Apple technician at the local APPLE Store about the GRAINY image and also took it and the good image to the APPLE Store. We tried it on the computer…It opened up fine there…both of them. This is what the technician said.
He thinks that it could be corruption in my Nikon software, in that the image may be staying in PREVIEW mode and not converting to full view mode. We both saw the grainy image appear on the screen preview and then get smoothed out and look fine. Both in Photoshop and in Screen Preview mode.
Also, he thought maybe, I just didn’t wait long enough for it to smooth out, but I left it on the screen for a long time and it never did. So it couldn’t be that.
So.. I will now start scanning again and see what happens.
I have a few questions for you, from the info you gave me before.
"In NikonScans Preferences: I choose "Custom" for my Monitor profile and navigate to my ColorSync/Profiles/ and then select my personal calibrated monitor profile. I use "Adobe RGB (1998)" as my scanner’s RGB space and Convert to Adobe RGB 1998" in Photoshop. (I actually think that they are identical but that Nikon stuck their name on their version to overcome a legal hurdle of some kind.)"
YOU mean Nikon RGB, I assume.?
"My custom defaults are set as follows: 4000 ppi at 100%; Color Management ON and set to match my Photoshop settings (RGB = Adobe RGB 1998 and Monitor = Custom Profile); Preferences (Advanced): Sample point 1×1; Black = 0.0 White = 0.05 RGB gamma set at 1.21 and the output levels at 242 and 12;
IN my Nikon setings, I cannot set my Gamma differently to what it is (1.8) unless i turn the Color Management OFF. Shall I leave it as is?
MY Black and White was set to 0.50 each. I have changed them.
<< YOU mean Nikon RGB, I assume.? >> When you try to open a scanned tiff, Photoshop will show its profile as being Nikon RGB even though NikonScan called it Adobe RGB. They are identical to all intents and purpose so you just convert to Adobe RGB in Photoshop.
<< IN my Nikon setings, I cannot set my Gamma differently to what it is (1. unless i turn the Color Management OFF. Shall I leave it as is? >>
Yes. (I did say that later in the thread.) Leave Color Management ON and it will automatically use the gamma that you chose when calibrating your monitor.
You should now be good to go .
And don’t pay too much attention to that Apple Store guy — he is talking through his <hat?>!
The reason that your previous scans were "grainy" was either due to your scanner settings or it was due to the kind of film that you used; and whether you over-exposed it; or whether it was over-developed in a general purpose (non-finegrain) developer. Possibly all of the above!
If Nikons GEM can’t reduce the grain sufficiently for your purpose, do consider buying Grain Surgery. Or try the Trial version on a COPY of one of your scans.
I’m assuming sense you’re scanning off the Nikon, you’re scanning 35mm negs or slides?
If so, try looking at them through a magnifying glass with a light source underneath like a daylight window or a light table if you have one. See if grain is actually in the image.
From the look of your image we downloaded here that kind of grain would be easily seen this way.
One of the (many) problems we’ve had in trying to help Chandi is that the thread keeps bouncing around as Chandi tries to address multiple issues at once. Chandi has images generated from prints as well as film.
She said the image in the screen shot she sent me (and which you are now referencing) was a scan of a print, made on a flatbed scanner, possibly an Epson.
You’re not alone. 🙂 I’m always confused by what Chandi is talking about as she keeps bouncing from one issue to another and using very idiosyncratic terminology.
OK!! OK!!! I do bounce!!! And I am not a "techie"!
yes, the screen shot was of a scanned print, not a neg.
I have put down the scanned prints and am ONLY talking about the scanned NEGS. I am working with the Nikon scanner. I am still getting blasted-out grainy images AFTER saving the scanned neg image to the desktop and re-opening it.
Also, I am getting grain when I get to 50% of the scanned image directly from the scanner or in Photoshop, where they open fine. So I will try a few more combinations in the scanner settings, in Digital Gem, and see what happens.
Yes, you’re right. Ido not have the correct terminology to express myself correctly, and that leaves you with guessing. I am sorry!
I have been on this computer for 3 days, with Nikon on the other end of the phone, trying to figure out why the scanned negs come up beautiful immediately after scanning, but when I SAVE in .tiff to the desktop, and then RE-OPEN THEM IN THE SAME NIKON SOFTWARE , they open GRAINY. Real grainy. Like someone rubbed sand into them. when I open the same file in PS7, they are FINE!
When i went to the Apple Store, the guy there said that maybe it was opening in preview on the desktop and not coming out of that mode.
NO ONE KNOWS!!! Nikon doesn’t know what the trouble is. I certainly don’t know.
To top it off, I was printing some of the NIkon Scan information, (from the Nikon Scan HELP menu) which I had missed, in order to study it, and my printer crashed on it. By crashed, I mean , that when i went to "print" it said that I needed more memory in the Nikon scan "HELP" bar. That window wouldn’t close. when I finally got it closed, a "BOMB" came up and told me that there was a Type 10 Error and to start up my computer. I did, but every time I tried to print that page, it "BOMB ed" it. So, I tried to print from MS Word, and got the same problem. Then i tried to print from PS7, and IT said that I needed more memory (I have more than enough!!!), and BOMB ed it also. I then downloaded n update for the printer driver, tried to install it, and installed the wrong part first….so I tried to install the first part, but it couldn’t find the application to install it into. Then, I went to the extensions, and "threw-out" the new ,at least I thought it was new (same date as the day ) and not needed first, extension and and tried to install it again, but kept getting the answer that it could not find the application to install into. SHEESH!!!! So, I un-installed and then re-installed the Epson software,left my computer OFF for some time. And tried tonight to print again. Now, PS7 says I don’t even have enough memory to open my photos… which it finally opened. but It comes up with an ERROR 2. MS WORD, comes up with an ERROR 3. And Nikon Scan, keeps telling me that i need more memory in "HELP" and comes up with an ERROR 10. They all BOMB!
I completely am so confused at what to do next.
What does this have to do with the scanning???? It appears that this new problem is interfering with the MEMORY information of the computer, especailly when i am getting this memory problem with opening the PIX in PS7.
I have given memory to EVERYTHING that I could find and the HELP in Apple. PS has a lot of memory, so does MS WORD, and I have over 3 gigs left on my hardrive. the scratch disc is clean.
I am going to continue scanning and hope to open these in PS7.
What in the world, is going on?
have NEVER had this problem. In fact, I, knock on wood, have rarely had any real problems with this computer or OS.
So, I’m a bit frazzled now. Sorry for the un-correct explinations! I will try to be more complete and accurate!
The smiley face is because this is getting humorous. I even have the suspicion you’re pulling our collective leg.
There is no way the Apple boards folks are directing you (or anyone else) to your grave. They didn’t mention any "TOMB"; they suggested you use TomeViewer, something I would have known would lead you to more confusion.
As is your practice, you’re addressing a whole bunch of issues at once.
From your posts here, and your exchange with Don Archibald, a very knowledgeable and helpful person, I can tell your computer is now a mess.
At this point, I would suggest backing up everything in your computer, erasing your disk and writing it to zeroes, then install the OS from scratch from original Apple install disk, install the applications from the original sources too, and add your documents back to your hard drive. Don’t copy the old system or old applications installations back from the backups.
Better yet, get a MUCH larger hard drive. You only have 3 GB and that is just not going to be enough for scratch disks space for Photoshop.
You can stop looking for "Scratch Disk", you won’t find it on your hard drive "to empty it". It’s kind of what Photoshop uses as its own virtual memory.
The spool folder, on the other hand, is where the temp files for the documents you are printing are temporarily stored while you are printing. That would be inside your System Folder, if it exists., Why are you looking for it.
As I’ve told you many times, I don’t know what you are looking at or what you are seeing. What Chris says it’s a pretty good guess, but given that your desciption of your many issues is a moving target that bounces all over the place, I don’t have a clear picture. (No pun intended.) 🙂
Did you see the screen shots Chandi emailed me and I uploaded to my FTP space?
One of them showed a very grainy image and her Photoshop window indicated she was viewing it at 100%. Those were clearly scanning artifacts and film grain combined.
I will not persue the grainy issue here anymore, because if what you say is true, the Nikon has some adjustments to make. They can’t figure out why that happens.
Ramon, Listen, I appreciate all your info and insight.Totally! But i really I think you are subtly patronizing me. really….. I understand that you know volumes about this stuff, and I know maybe a flyer. but, please! I am glad you can laugh about this!!
It is FUNNY!!!! TOMB!!! it is TOME. and I don’t have a clue what to look for!!!
What Chris said sounds right, especially when he says that Nikin software is "buggy". Nikon can’t even figure it out…and they had me re-install and do all kinds of tests…and it still appears Grainy after saving and re-opening on the desktop.
And as for all the issues with the apps from the printer crash, …. they are all here!!!! How can i separate them, when they are all happening one after the other. I did this, and then this happened,and now this is happeneing. And before, none of this was happening.
I have a 20 gig hard drive. 3 gigs are left. I also have an 80 gig external hardrive. I have already transferred all my Nikon Scan work and tests to there.
And no, I am not pulling anyone’s leg. Believe me. I do not sit here wasting hours writing these messages to pull people’s legs… I have TONS of more things i can spend my time on. These things are holding up my being able to deal with my computer and work.
I don’t want to "clean install" !!! But I may have to… or not use the printer.
I will call Epson first…and see what they can do to remedy this. If they can’t, I may have no other option.
Anytime your hard drive –any hard drive– gets to be 85% full, trouble is just about to knock on your door. Your hard drive is totally inadequate as it is at this point.
You need to transfer at least another 10GB to your other drive so that you will have at least 13GB for scratch disk for Photoshop. I have a dedicated 50GB partition just for Photoshop to use as its primary scratch disk, and it’s on an otherwise unused, separate internal 150GB drive.
I honestly don’t know what to make of your posts now, Chandi. Honestly.
With all the troubles you’ve described, I would not consider any other course of action than backing up, getting a new larger drive and re-installing from scratch.
Opening the file!!! So I close the file and re-open it!
"On the desktop" means that I saved it to the desktop.
I click on the flie icon on the desktop, where i SAVED it to, and it opens in the Nikon scan program, again. I saved it in a .tiff and it saves to the Nikon Scan program.
I saved it in a .tiff and it saves to the Nikon Scan program.
Files are not saved to an application. You save it in a given format (TIFF, for instance), and the application creator code (which can be easily changed by someone who knows what he or she is doing) calls up that application when you double click on its icon.
You should not be viewing your scanned files in any other application other than Photoshop. The screen shot you emailed me showed you were indeed using Photoshop to view the file. That contradicts what you just typed now:
I click on the flie icon on the desktop, where i SAVED it to, and it opens in the Nikon scan program, again.
Saving files to the desktop is a messy way of working, but that should not be damaging files.
Your crashes point to a seriously messed up system. If it wasn’t messed up before, the crashes will do it.
Ok Ramon, I am getting a little…not even a little, PISSED at the way you talk to me. And I am really angry that you went to Adobe Forums and basically tried to sabotage, by saying what you did, Don’s helping me with this issue. That is not your business to do that. Frankly speaking! If you are so confused by me and don’t want to help me, then don’t! That is your choice. But I don’t appreciate you going to other people and saying that I am pulling their leg. I don’t even understand what you mean by that….nor where it comes from!!!
What a waste of time!
Secondly, what I DO appreciate about you, is that you DO make me think about and clarify what I mean. And i have learned a lot from that!!! And that is tremendously helpful!!! It is invaluable! All the people who have responded have done this.
So, what i meant was that after the image finishes scanning and it opens in the Nikon Scan window, I save it in .tiff and it sits on the desktop. And then I click on it’s icon and it opens in Nikon Scan program window, (just like it was when I saved it) with all the tools active, etc… .
That is in deference to opening it in PS and viewing it there.
That is what i mean.
The screenshot I mailed you was from the scanned IMAGES from the FLATBED scanner, not from the NEG scanner. And YES, I definitely only open them in Photoshop!!!
Whether I should or should not open the images again in nikon scan, Nikon said that it should NOT open grainy!
I am giving up on that. And will just open it in PS, if I still can.
Epson responded to my email about this printer problem and told me to download a different driver. I will try that and hope i still have a computer to work on.
I left you a longer response on the Apple discussion boards.
Here’s the last paragraph from that post:
I’ll stay out of your way, for sure, but before I leave you, I’d like to urge you to listen to Don Archibald here. He’s one of the most helpful and knowledgeable people I’ve ever known. On the Adobe forums, you have none other than Chris Cox trying to help you, among many others. If you don’t know who Chris Cox is, just read the splash screen in Photoshop and click on his name in any of his posts over there. If Don Archibald and Chris Cox can’t help you, nobody can.
Yeah, I call up Don (we live in the same small town in Texas) when my memory fails me on simple little things like how to save custom sets in Extensions Manager for troubleshooting.
He has the patience of a saint and a mind that could store the Library of Congress. He knows about every Apple TechDoc, tip and secret there is for OS 9.
<< RE-OPEN THEM IN THE SAME NIKON SOFTWARE , they open GRAINY. Real grainy. Like someone rubbed sand into them. When I open the same file in PS7, they are FINE! >>
WHY are you re-opening them in NikonScan where you are only seeing a low-resolution preview image?
When you open them from inside Photoshop they apparently are fine so just do that. Save a copy, in .psd format, and work on that as needed in Photoshop.
As for the dreadful mess that you seem to have made of your entire installation, I would suggest that you follow the very wise advice which you have already been given to burn copies of all of your files onto CDs then do a clean-installation of Mac OS and all of your applications.
Since I don’t have a Nikon scanner (wish I did), I need to ask you this question: Is there an option in the Nikon software to save both the scan AND the preview, maybe even the preview all by itself?
This may well be what she is viewing, at times even from inside Photoshop, since the images I posted showed the Photoshop window at 100%.
If you scan a single frame, the resulting tiff will appear in a NikonScan window after the scanning is complete. You just Save it, with an appropriate name, to a convenient location on your HD. Then you open it from INSIDE Photoshop when you want to work on it.
The Scanner preview is still available for a while after you have scanned, until you eject the film or quit out of NikonScan. This is useful, and saves time, if you decide to make changes to your settings and then rescan.
If you Batch-Scan, all of your scans are saved as tiffs directly to the chosen location on your HD with names in a series which you can choose.
That is quite simple, Ann. Just open it in PS and forget about Nikon scan window. Ramon had basically said the same thing, >why are you opening it in that and that i should be opening it only in PS.
It seems that I got distracted by that, since I didn’t know if there was a problem with the Nikon software, since the images opened so badly. (btw, Nikon seems to not know, themselves why it is opening badly in the window!)or if maybe it was from not enough memory, also.( as Ramon had pointed out in his 85% memory previous posting)
(By the way…. Nikon has Nikon View Software to View and work on the photos after scanning.)
But, this sounds much simpler and clearer to do. It has sunk in.
Jeesh, a clean install.. what a drag..but it may be my last option!
Ramon, I read your posting… all of it. I also replied to you on the Adobe website! I did not mean to hurt your feelings. But, I do feel somewhat Trashed by how you speak about me… and it doesn’t feel good. You know a tremendous amount and I know a little.I have learned a lot from you… and I don’t understand some of what you say, yet…. I do get distracted because i am doing other things, and have other obligations… I would like to have time to just do this…. but i make the time at night and try to learn everything at once. Also, people tell me a lot of things, a piece here and a piece there…and i have to make sense out of it…and so when i write about 8-bit, 16-bit, it is what i heard. .. So, give me a break, huh!!!! I would like it if you just correct me, and we move on!
Anyway, Thank You! … if i don’t hear from you again…and if i do hear from you again.
Once you have done your clean-install, use Extension Manager if you want to disable Extensions in the future — do NOT trash anything unless you really know what you are doing. You can get to EM from your Control Panels.
Chandi – Consider OS X and Photoshop CS if you do re-format your HD.
Ramon, Ann & Tim you have all done a admirable job of helping out Chandi. Sure it gets frustrating but you will have helped Chandi and many silent others to understand with your enduring patience. Well done.
I have solved the problem of the Nikon Scan Help and my printer.
I have read many of the chapters in PS7 Artistry. Now, I am starting to do the negative scanning. I am not clear on some things.
Ann, you gave me info on your set-up to scan.
1). I have read that i should NOT use "Unsharp Mask" in the scanner, but wait until I go into PS. Is this correct?
2). In using Digital Gem to fix "grainy" images, which i am getting when scanning 400dpi negs, I am not clear which number to put it on. I put it on 1 and it automatically switched to 3. Which do you use and how smooth does it make the image without blurring it too much??
3). Should I color correct in the scanner menu (color controls)?? Or just wait until I go into PS, even when it is a definite color cast?
4). When using Digital Dee, should I????
5). When saving, I read that mostly the image is to be saved in PS and worked on and then converted to .tiff when needed?
1. Correct: do NOT use "Unsharp Mask" in the scanner, but wait until you are in PS and make it the last step.
2. << Using Digital Gem to fix "grainy" images, which i am getting when scanning 400dpi negs, I am not clear which number to put it on. >>
Did you mean 400 ISO/ASA film negatives? Assuming that you are scanning 400 ASA negs at 4000 ppi at 100% magnification, they could be very grainyparticularly if the quality of the film processing (development) was not too skilled. In that case, setting a higher value for GEM might be required. I normally shoot 100ASA film so GEM=1 works for me. It’s just a case of experimenting to see which works best for you.
3. I ALWAYS do basic color correction in the scanner menu’s color controls (although there are others who do not). You can do this by setting white and black points or by using the sliders in the individual R, G, and B channels as I described before. I also use the the L and C panels in the LCH palette: the L to adjust contrast and the C to adjust chroma (a setting in this one of 1.11 will often give you slightly "brighter" more saturated colors).
4. << When using Digital Dee, should I???? >> Play with DEE (a brightness management function) and see if you find it helpful. However, I think that you will find it better to do this in the Curves and LCH palettes. (I haven’t tried it as that option is only available to users of the 5000 and 9000 scanners and is not available on the 4000 which I have.)
I do make use of Digital ICE. What this does, is to "iron out" a lot of imperfections in the surface of the film and the emulsion including scratches and abrasions. It can save a lot of retouching time if used judiciously. I set mine = Normal.
5). << When saving, I read that mostly the image is to be saved in PS and worked on and then converted to .tiff when needed? >>
It is actually the other way round: when you save a Nikon scan it is saved as a Tiff. It will open as a Tiff in Photoshopat which point you can Save As a .psd. I prefer to keep my Master files as layered RGB PSDs from which I can make any number of conversions to whatever is needed for any particular purpose (such as RGB JPEGS for the web or CMYK files for Press-output).
Once you all of your settings as you want them in NikonScan, save them as a named Setting (in the main scanner console’s "Settings" drop-down menu) as this will save you a lot of time in your next scanning session.
Thank you again. I have re-read your previous instructions, also, and I would like to ask a clarification on this.
I ALWAYS do basic color correction in the scanner menu’s color controls (although there are others who do not). You can do this by setting white and black points or by using the sliders in the individual R, G, and B channels as I described before. < OK….. On your previous instructions, you said:Color balance: OFF. Use the Curves instead. (Which I cannot yet use, as I just am not that fine tuned). What is the difference between Color Controls and Color Balance??? For me the color controls under R,G and B are easier. Is this different from Color Balance??
I have a question about that. If I use the color controls in the scanner, how much will it take away some adj possibilities from Photoshop?? Can you understand this question???
Secondly, after looking at and adjusting my PREVIEW, and then scanning it, the scanned image is NOT the same as the preview. It is much lighter and not as saturated colors. Could this be from the grain? the size? (still taliking about the 400 ASA film scans) Or is this normal?? Remember, I set the scanner color to match my Adobe1998 and also the workplace.
Also, I am still getting a green cast to the whites and to some faces after scanning. Do you think I need to re-calibrate my monitor?? I remember, this has happened before.
You say, >In that case, setting a higher value for GEM might be required.< How does it go??? from 1, the least adjustment to 4, the most??? How much DAMAGE does this do to the image, in smoothing it out to the point where the colors blend and change??? What do you say for number 3? Can using 3 qnd 4 be "too much"? My image looked much better, but the color had shifted a bit in the yellows and reds (sun and sunset)
<< If I use the color controls in the scanner, how much will it take away some adj possibilities from Photoshop?? >>
If you scan at 16-bits, and you don’t mangle the file in Nikon Scan (!), you should have plenty of data for further correcting in Photoshop. I just prefer to start in Photoshop with a scan which needs very little further color-correction.
Provided that you calibrated your monitor correctly, and entered the Profile which you created for it in NikonScans preferences, the image which you see in Nikon’s Preview window (even though it is a 72 ppi interpolation) should match your final scan when opened in Photoshop very closely. On my System it does.
The Curves will give you far greater control than the Brightness and Color Balance sliders ever can and the use of Curves is a skill which you will really need to master. "Photoshop 7 Artistry" can help you a lot in this area.
The green cast could be because of the way that your film was developed but you should be able to adjust this using Curves. The advantage with using Curves is that you can make the adjustment in just the part that needs it. In your case, it sounds as if the highlights are too green but the shadows are OK? The same would apply to the excessive reds in your evening shotsalthough in this case you may also be suffering from excessive blue in the shadows.
Only you can judge the level of GEM which works best for you: "3" may well be best with your fast film. Update the Preview with the higher GEM settings and adjust the Curve settings again after doing that.
What I can’t understand, is if you get such a lousy 72 ppi preview in NikonScan how can you trust any prescan editing?
It seems the speediest thing to do is set your neutrals and densities by the numbers at 16 bit and scan it. Open it up in PS under a color managed environment and edit there.
I don’t have your scanner, so take my advice accordingly. Only Ann and you, Chandi, know for sure what’s best.
I can make my Agfa flatbed scanner give me more detailed previews at the expense of RAM allocation and slower performance. I thought the NikonScan might have the same preview options.
For me, Nikon’s scanning software knocks the socks off SilverFast, VueScan or any of the programs that comes packaged with other scanners (although UMAX’s MagicScan was also in the Nikon league). BUT, you do need to learn how to use it.
As for the Preview, it is a color-managed full-screen size/72ppi image and I find it perfectly adequate on a LaCie 22 blue III monitor.
Actually, I find the live histograms in Nikon’s Curves palette itself superior to the Curves in Photoshop.
The "speediest" thing might be to "set your neutrals and densities by the numbers at 16 bit and scan it" — but you can do FAR better than that.
All I know is that my scans need very little, if any, overall color-correction work in Photoshop: all that is generally needed is any work on localized areas of the image, healing and sharpening.
Thank you again, OK…. Great! So this is interesting.
Firstly, let me explain, that I have been reading the PS7 Artistry and the Color Correction book for all this time (when I have the time) and now i am just starting to scan and learn adjustment.
I am working on a Sony Trinitron 19′ Flat Screen CRT, and it is a beautiful bright screen.
As for the scanning in NikonScan, I have set my scanning software to what Ann suggested and it is color managed to the monitor and PS7. When i get my previews, (and i do make them larger, to be able to see them better), I am adjusting as far as i know to do (and am learing more, of course), but when the finished scan shows up in NikonView, at least with this one and the boy’s face, it is not as dense in color, it is lighter and a bit different looking. I thought it is because it is bigger and more pixels, as i am scanning, as Ann mentioned @4000 @100%, for sure. And one is at 400ASA and the boys face is at 200ASA. And yes, it is possible that the film, itself or the developing of the film, has a bit of a green cast, although, the printed photo does not have it.
I can’t say the shadows are fine, because I really don’t understand what is the difference between using the shadows set at 0, as Ann suggested or 5, as the Nikon software default is. I have read about the different ways the black is displayed and also about relative and absolute, but I KNOW this is going to sound DUMB, but isn’t a black shadow a black shadow?? Yes, I do get murky blacks in the shadow, at times… so this might be where i would want to set the shadows to a higher number. Is this correct?? The black is "too black"??
As for just scanning and then adj in PS, from what I read, it said that if the highlights and shadows are not initially adj, as well as, and I am paraphrasing, smoothing out the histogram so it can give the largest possibilities for adj, then when i get it into PS, I may not be able to adj as I would want, because there might not be enough info there to work with.
It is clear that I have to learn the whole system of color corrections just to scan.
And, Yes, I, am scanning at 16bit. Even tho my friends, in India, said that scanning at 16 bit is only from Lab work, and 8-bit would be enough. However, these are for Archival purposes and we really don’t know HOW they will be used in the future, so i am going to scan at 16-bit for the Master and they can do what they want with their copy!
Yes, chew the file into a rag: "mangle" as in "putting it through the wringer"!
Regarding the appearance of the final scanned tiff when it appears in NikonView (which I don’t believe to be color-managed): just ignore its appearance, Save As (to a name and folder), and open it in Photoshop.
In Photoshop, you will have find that you have a nice solid 16-bit Histogram which means that you have plenty of data for doing further manipulations. When you have finished, save your file as a 16-bit Layered master file for your archives and burn an 8-bit flattened 300 ppi Tiff version of it onto a CD for your friends in India.
Concerning the darkness of your shadows: you can set the output-levels in the curves palette to suit yourself.
For example you might decide to clip the extreme highlights and shadows and would do that by moving the OUTPUT sliders on the left-hand edge of the RGB Curves palette: Move the bottom slider upwards so that it reads: 9 and the top slider downwards so that it reads: 240.
Regarding color casts: Very often the whole range of tones will not show the same color cast. For example, you might find that you have green highlights but your shadows, instead of being neutral are decidedly magenta.
Open the Green Curve. Think of the the top left corner of the graph as the "Home Color Corner" (green in this case). And think of the the bottom right corner of the graph as the "Complementary Color corner" (magenta in this case).
If you move the top right end of the Curve (yes, I know that it looks like a straight line at the moment!) downwards towards the "Complementary Color Corner", you will reduce the green in the highlights.
If you move the bottom left end of the curve upwards towards the "Home Color Corner", you will reduce the magenta in the shadows.
Each of the individual R, G, and B channels work in a similar way: Moving a point in the curve towards the "Home Color Corner" increases the amount of the "Home Color"; while moving a point in the curve away from the "Home Color Corner" and towards the "Complementary Color Corner" DEcreases the amount of the "Home Color" and INcreases the amount of the Complementary Color.
If you remember that Yellow is the complementary of Blue; and Cyan is the complementary of Red; you will find it easy to use curves to correct color casts.
I have read through all your notes on setting up the scanner. However, one thing I did not find in the notes was this:
Do you automatically use Digital Gem (to smooth film grain) when you scan??
When I zoom in above about 50%, the grain starts showing. (And this is only on 100 Asa color film). So I am wondering if I should just automatically use it, in case, in the future, any of the images will be used to make poster sized prints or just bigger than about 16×20, or so.
Is this something that i should be careful with, so as not to soften the image too much?
Also, when you scan B&W on the scanner, do you scan in Greyscale? In 16 bit or 8 bit?? or in RGB, 16 bit and then convert??
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