Color Negative Conversion

Terry Smythe wrote in
news::

I’m using my digital camera to copy 35mm negatives. Is there a way in Photoshop 7 to convert these negative images into positive images?
My scanner does not have an illuminated lid, so no way I can use it to scan these 35 mm negatives.

Regards,

Terry Smythe

No but you can do it with a normal scanner, although the results arent very great

http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/scanning/fluorof lash.html

There are others but I gave up messing when a friend said the magic words, ‘you can borrow mine’ hee hee

Like everything you realy need the right equipment, a slide scanner

—
f=Ma well, nearly…

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:27:59 GMT, Kingdom
wrote:

No but you can do it with a normal scanner, although the results arent very great

http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/scanning/fluorof lash.html

Thanks for the tip. However, copying color slides with my digital camera, using a light box, is an outstanding way to do it. But that’s not what I’m trying to puzzle out at this time.

My objective is to copy 35mm "negatives", those with the orange cast to them which, when polarized, create a dark greenish cast. The orange, needed for color printing processes, is a huge interference.

I can’t believe I’m the first one to ask this question and felt for sure that Photoshop would have a quick way of converting negative color images into positive color images. Its built-in help makes no mention of this possibility.

Regards,

Terry

If I’m understanding your question correctly can’t you just do CTRL+I or Image\Adjustments\Invert

"Terry Smythe" wrote in message

I’m using my digital camera to copy 35mm negatives. Is there a way in Photoshop 7 to convert these negative images into positive images?
My scanner does not have an illuminated lid, so no way I can use it to scan these 35 mm negatives.

Regards,

Terry Smythe

"Terry Smythe" wrote in message

I’m using my digital camera to copy 35mm negatives. Is there a way in Photoshop 7 to convert these negative images into positive images?
My scanner does not have an illuminated lid, so no way I can use it to scan these 35 mm negatives.

Yes, first use a light source with plenty of blue light, such as diffuse skylight. Flash will do. Use of tungsten light tends to result in a noisy blue channel.

1) Photograph a piece of film leader with clear and completely black areas.
2) In Photoshop, open curves (what else :-). Click the white eyedropper on
a clear orange area of film, and the black eyedropper on a black area of film.
3) invert the ends of the RGB composite curve. Ad this point you should have a very good looking positive.
4) adjust the midpoints of the red, green, and blue curves to taste.

Save the curve, and record an action an action and tie it to a function key. You may be able to use this curve, or an adjusted version of it, on all of your images for that film type.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:47:30 GMT, Terry Smythe wrote:

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:27:59 GMT, Kingdom
wrote:

No but you can do it with a normal scanner, although the results arent very great

http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/scanning/fluorof lash.html

Thanks for the tip. However, copying color slides with my digital camera, using a light box, is an outstanding way to do it.

You’ve obviously never compared the output from the camera against a film scanner output then.

—

Hecate – The Real One

Fashion: Buying things you don’t need, with money
you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like…

"Mike Russell" wrote in message

"Terry Smythe" wrote in message

I’m using my digital camera to copy 35mm negatives. Is there a way in Photoshop 7 to convert these negative images into positive images?
My scanner does not have an illuminated lid, so no way I can use it to scan these 35 mm negatives.

Yes, first use a light source with plenty of blue light, such as diffuse skylight. Flash will do. Use of tungsten light tends to result in a noisy blue channel.

1) Photograph a piece of film leader with clear and completely black areas.
2) In Photoshop, open curves (what else :-). Click the white eyedropper on a clear orange area of film, and the black eyedropper on a black area of film.
3) invert the ends of the RGB composite curve. Ad this point you should have a very good looking positive.
4) adjust the midpoints of the red, green, and blue curves to taste.
Save the curve, and record an action an action and tie it to a function key. You may be able to use this curve, or an adjusted version of it, on all of your images for that film type.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Hi there.

You have had some good suggestions about how to do the conversion.

However if you have a lot of negs to scan, you would really be better buying a Film Scanner or a "Photo" flatbed. They would do the conversion automatically for you, and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Roy G

Many thanks for all these suggestions, appreciated. I ended up borrowing a HP 3570c flatbed scanner from a neighbor and tried that. It has an illuminated lid, and it does provide for scanning color negatives, and it does work.

However, it needs a minimum of 1200 dpi to come up with an image large enough to work with. That 1200 dpi setting has the scanner working its heart out for nearly 10 minutes on a single image.

Conversely, I can acquire a decent image off a 35mm color negative through my digital camera, against a light box, in about 30 secs in the total time its takes to take the pic and transfer it into my computer. My objective is simply nicely cropped and adjusted postcard pics of family events, nothing really special, but something I can’t do through my friendly neighborhood film processor.

I would have hoped that digital graphic editors like PhotoShop and PaintShop Pro would by now have a simple internal method in software to make this kind of conversion. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case.

What puzzles me is that the software drivers for flatbed scanners know what needs to be done with color negatives, but traditional software such as PhotoShop and PSP seem to be not know the same things. What’s wrong with this picture?

Regards,

Terry

Two Sheds wrote:

If I’m understanding your question correctly can’t you just do CTRL+I or Image\Adjustments\Invert

Except that a color negative has an orange mask. That has to be removed before you can invert the colors, because if you don’t you’ll get a very strange ‘color positive’.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Terry Smythe" wrote in message

Many thanks for all these suggestions, appreciated. I ended up borrowing a HP 3570c flatbed scanner from a neighbor and tried that. It has an illuminated lid, and it does provide for scanning color negatives, and it does work.

However, it needs a minimum of 1200 dpi to come up with an image large enough to work with. That 1200 dpi setting has the scanner working its heart out for nearly 10 minutes on a single image.

Conversely, I can acquire a decent image off a 35mm color negative through my digital camera, against a light box, in about 30 secs in the total time its takes to take the pic and transfer it into my computer. My objective is simply nicely cropped and adjusted postcard pics of family events, nothing really special, but something I can’t do through my friendly neighborhood film processor.

I would have hoped that digital graphic editors like PhotoShop and PaintShop Pro would by now have a simple internal method in software to make this kind of conversion. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case.

What puzzles me is that the software drivers for flatbed scanners know what needs to be done with color negatives, but traditional software such as PhotoShop and PSP seem to be not know the same things. What’s wrong with this picture?

Regards,

Terry

There is nothing wrong with Photoshop not doing this conversion.

The vast majority of people who work with Colour Negs will already have the hardware required to scan them. The "Photo" type of flatbed scanner can be bought for a low price nowadays. They are getting faster and new models have higher DPI figues.

A "Consumer" film scanner will go up to 4000 or 5400 DPI and scan in 30 or 45 secs.

They will both remove the orange mask, and probably give better images than you will get from your Digicam.

If you insist on doing it the hard way, without the correct hardware, then that is your choice. But you now know how to do it.

Roy G

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:16:33 GMT, Terry Smythe wrote:

My objective is simply nicely
cropped and adjusted postcard pics of family events, nothing really special, but something I can’t do through my friendly neighborhood film processor.

If your friendly neighbourhood processor can’t provide with image3s of a decent size on CD then you need to find someone who can.

What puzzles me is that the software drivers for flatbed scanners know what needs to be done with color negatives, but traditional software such as PhotoShop and PSP seem to be not know the same things. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong is your assumption that anyone who cares about their images and uses POSCS or PSP would transfer them into a computer with out using a film scanner.

—

Hecate – The Real One

Fashion: Buying things you don’t need, with money
you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like…

"Terry Smythe" wrote in message

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:27:59 GMT, Kingdom
wrote:

No but you can do it with a normal scanner, although the results arent

very

great

http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/scanning/fluorof lash.html

Thanks for the tip. However, copying color slides with my digital camera, using a light box, is an outstanding way to do it. ……..

EEWWW!!!