Scanned slides blue

TC
Posted By
tony cooper
Feb 2, 2008
Views
913
Replies
33
Status
Closed
I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Is there a better sequence to follow?

2. Washed out sky. A lot of pictures with sky so pale it has no color. Many of the images were taken in Illinois, Ireland, and the UK, but I distinctly remember the sun shining occasionally in these areas. It wasn’t always gray and cloudless.

No fix discovered for this.

These are family pix…our wedding, vacations, first day of school for the kids, etc. I’m not looking for art here. Just a decent recording of the family history during those years.

There are 100s of slides, so I can’t go through a complex process on each. Tips on approach would be appreciated.

(Using PS 7.0)



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

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JM
Jim Mitchell
Feb 2, 2008
If you can post a coupel to a website I could take a llok and see if my copy of Ps CS3 can fix them withut much ado.

If that is sucessful I will give you my adress where you can sned a bunch of pictures on a CD or DVD and I can fix them and send them back.

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Is there a better sequence to follow?

2. Washed out sky. A lot of pictures with sky so pale it has no color. Many of the images were taken in Illinois, Ireland, and the UK, but I distinctly remember the sun shining occasionally in these areas. It wasn’t always gray and cloudless.

No fix discovered for this.

These are family pix…our wedding, vacations, first day of school for the kids, etc. I’m not looking for art here. Just a decent recording of the family history during those years.

There are 100s of slides, so I can’t go through a complex process on each. Tips on approach would be appreciated.

(Using PS 7.0)
TC
tony cooper
Feb 2, 2008
On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:41:30 -0600, Jim Mitchell
wrote:

If you can post a coupel to a website I could take a llok and see if my copy of Ps CS3 can fix them withut much ado.

If that is sucessful I will give you my adress where you can sned a bunch of pictures on a CD or DVD and I can fix them and send them back.

Thank you for the offer, but I would prefer to do it myself. When I do that, I learn.

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Is there a better sequence to follow?

2. Washed out sky. A lot of pictures with sky so pale it has no color. Many of the images were taken in Illinois, Ireland, and the UK, but I distinctly remember the sun shining occasionally in these areas. It wasn’t always gray and cloudless.

No fix discovered for this.

These are family pix…our wedding, vacations, first day of school for the kids, etc. I’m not looking for art here. Just a decent recording of the family history during those years.

There are 100s of slides, so I can’t go through a complex process on each. Tips on approach would be appreciated.

(Using PS 7.0)



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
T
Talker
Feb 2, 2008
On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Is there a better sequence to follow?

2. Washed out sky. A lot of pictures with sky so pale it has no color. Many of the images were taken in Illinois, Ireland, and the UK, but I distinctly remember the sun shining occasionally in these areas. It wasn’t always gray and cloudless.

No fix discovered for this.

These are family pix…our wedding, vacations, first day of school for the kids, etc. I’m not looking for art here. Just a decent recording of the family history during those years.

There are 100s of slides, so I can’t go through a complex process on each. Tips on approach would be appreciated.

(Using PS 7.0)

If you could post a sample of each problem, it would give us a chance to see what exactly is going on in the pictures. If we can correct the problems, we can relate to you what we did.
I do know that for the second problem, the sky being too pale, you can use Color Mechanic Pro (a PhotoShop plugin) to correct that. If you have the time to spend on it, you could simply add a blue sky to the original picture. I’ve done that many times with good success.

Talker
MR
Mike Russell
Feb 2, 2008
"tony cooper" wrote in message
I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

I’m sure it was ISO then too – we just didn’t know it.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Slides tend toward a bit toward blue anyway because they are color corrected for a tungsten projector lamp.

Is there a better sequence to follow?

If the color cast is strong, convert to Lab and adjust the positive end of the b curve to add more yellow.

2. Washed out sky. A lot of pictures with sky so pale it has no color. Many of the images were taken in Illinois, Ireland, and the UK, but I distinctly remember the sun shining occasionally in these areas. It wasn’t always gray and cloudless.

If it’s like Pennsylvania, where I grew up, the sky are often bright and cloudy all day, leading to dead skys.

No fix discovered for this.

You can give a hint of blue to an otherwise featureless sky easily in Lab mode, because unlike RGB it is possible to give color to a completely blown feature of the image. Another way is to create a curves adjustment layer, and copy the red or blue channel to the layer mask. Use levels or curves on the layer mask to isolate the sky, and then darken away. Still another way – if you are an editor, is to just plonk a sky from another image into the picture, again using red or blue as your mask for the sky.

These are family pix…our wedding, vacations, first day of school for the kids, etc. I’m not looking for art here. Just a decent recording of the family history during those years.

In that case, I’d stick with a natural sky, even if it’s boring, and concentrate on good skin tones with no blue shadows.

There are 100s of slides, so I can’t go through a complex process on each. Tips on approach would be appreciated.

Set up two or three default curves as actions, and attach them to function keys. As you sort through the images, hit the function key appropriate for that image. I imagine you might have one to get the basic blue out, and then others to apply depending on the particular subject matter, need to darken the sky etc. Spend extra time on masking, etc, only for the really important images. Once you are set up, this should be very fast.

It goes without saying, probably, that you should keep your original scans in a safe place. You may want to re-do some of the images from scratch as you learn more about how to fix them.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
RB
Rudy Benner
Feb 2, 2008
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
"tony cooper" wrote in message
I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

I’m sure it was ISO then too – we just didn’t know it.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Slides tend toward a bit toward blue anyway because they are color corrected for a tungsten projector lamp.

Is there a better sequence to follow?

If the color cast is strong, convert to Lab and adjust the positive end of the b curve to add more yellow.

2. Washed out sky. A lot of pictures with sky so pale it has no color. Many of the images were taken in Illinois, Ireland, and the UK, but I distinctly remember the sun shining occasionally in these areas. It wasn’t always gray and cloudless.

If it’s like Pennsylvania, where I grew up, the sky are often bright and cloudy all day, leading to dead skys.

No fix discovered for this.

You can give a hint of blue to an otherwise featureless sky easily in Lab mode, because unlike RGB it is possible to give color to a completely blown feature of the image. Another way is to create a curves adjustment layer, and copy the red or blue channel to the layer mask. Use levels or curves on the layer mask to isolate the sky, and then darken away. Still another way – if you are an editor, is to just plonk a sky from another image into the picture, again using red or blue as your mask for the sky.
These are family pix…our wedding, vacations, first day of school for the kids, etc. I’m not looking for art here. Just a decent recording of the family history during those years.

In that case, I’d stick with a natural sky, even if it’s boring, and concentrate on good skin tones with no blue shadows.

There are 100s of slides, so I can’t go through a complex process on each. Tips on approach would be appreciated.

Set up two or three default curves as actions, and attach them to function keys. As you sort through the images, hit the function key appropriate for that image. I imagine you might have one to get the basic blue out, and then others to apply depending on the particular subject matter, need to darken the sky etc. Spend extra time on masking, etc, only for the really important images. Once you are set up, this should be very fast.
It goes without saying, probably, that you should keep your original scans in a safe place. You may want to re-do some of the images from scratch as you learn more about how to fix them.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

Indeed, you are the Curvemeister.

r.
TC
tony cooper
Feb 2, 2008
On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:46:07 GMT, "Mike Russell" wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
I’m in the process of scanning 100s of slides of family pictures taken between 1964 and 1979. Most were taken on a Konica 35mm rangefinder camera. I’m using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (dedicated slide/film scanner).

Most of the images either scan in with decent color or can be tweaked with Curves to have decent color. "Decent" because some of the slides have faded, some of the pictures were not taken in the best of lighting, and the Konica didn’t have any setting to change other than f/stop and/or speed. Most were taken with ASA (not ISO in those days) 200 Daylight film if I remember correctly.

I’m sure it was ISO then too – we just didn’t know it.

When there are problems, they are in two areas:

1. A blue cast in the entire picture. The blue you get when the white balance in a modern camera is set for sunlight and you shoot under incandescent. The "cold" blue. I’ve been fixing this – somewhat – by adjusting Curves in the Blue channel, but that’s hit-or-miss.

Slides tend toward a bit toward blue anyway because they are color corrected for a tungsten projector lamp.
That answers a question unasked. When I view the slides using my Kodak Carousel I don’t notice the blue cast. When I scan them into PS, I do. I thought the blue cast was being added in the scanning process.

Thanks for the other suggestions.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/flowerman.j pg is straight from the scanner (except I scan in .psd and this has been changed to a .jpg). With just a slight tweak in Curves Blue Channel I can make the colors much better with the granite looking gray instead of blue-gray. The tweak makes the green mat on the stand a bit garish, but that could be the actual color.

This must be the blue cast that the color correction puts in. This one is easy to work with. Some are more difficult because the tweak changes things that shouldn’t be changed. I can’t take the time to mask and re-tweak with so many slides.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

Both of these are slides from a 1969 vacation…the first in London and the second in Ireland.

The only thing I don’t understand – but it doesn’t really make a difference – is why these two pictures (and many like them) came out with a blue cast (stronger in the milk bottles) but most of the pictures require no adjustments at all. In some I might tick Levels a bit to brighten them up, but straight from the scanner would be OK.

I’m not putting up any images where I’m in the picture. The guy in those pictures taken in the late 60s and early 70s doesn’t look like me. He had a 29 inch waist. The current version has a 38 inch waist.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
J
Joel
Feb 2, 2008
tony cooper wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:41:30 -0600, Jim Mitchell
wrote:

If you can post a coupel to a website I could take a llok and see if my copy of Ps CS3 can fix them withut much ado.

If that is sucessful I will give you my adress where you can sned a bunch of pictures on a CD or DVD and I can fix them and send them back.

Thank you for the offer, but I would prefer to do it myself. When I do that, I learn.

The (topper) poster asked you to post the SAMPLE so he can see the problem to give you some advice (or instruction) how to solve the casting problem, not offering doing the fixing for you.
J
Joel
Feb 2, 2008
tony cooper wrote:

<snip>
Thanks for the other suggestions.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/flowerman.j pg is straight from the scanner (except I scan in .psd and this has been changed to a .jpg). With just a slight tweak in Curves Blue Channel I can make the colors much better with the granite looking gray instead of blue-gray. The tweak makes the green mat on the stand a bit garish, but that could be the actual color.

This must be the blue cast that the color correction puts in. This one is easy to work with. Some are more difficult because the tweak changes things that shouldn’t be changed. I can’t take the time to mask and re-tweak with so many slides.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

I would start with "Color Selective", and of course also try "Curve", "Hue/Sat", "Color Balance" to see which works better, and even "Auto Level/Color" sometime do the trick too (except I never use Auto myself).

I believe it’s possible to use Layer and Blending, also Photoshop has a feature to balance the color from 2 separated images, but it’s sad that I only followed the instruction ONCE over a year ago to remember all small detail to share.
TC
tony cooper
Feb 2, 2008
On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:54:17 -0600, Joel wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:41:30 -0600, Jim Mitchell
wrote:

If you can post a coupel to a website I could take a llok and see if my copy of Ps CS3 can fix them withut much ado.

If that is sucessful I will give you my adress where you can sned a bunch of pictures on a CD or DVD and I can fix them and send them back.

Thank you for the offer, but I would prefer to do it myself. When I do that, I learn.

The (topper) poster asked you to post the SAMPLE so he can see the problem to give you some advice (or instruction) how to solve the casting problem, not offering doing the fixing for you.

First, a sample doesn’t cover all the images. As you can see from the two samples I did post, the blue cast comes out very different in different photographs.

Second, he did offer. Read his second paragraph, which is what I responded to. It was a nice offer, but – for reasons of my own – not one I will accept.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
TC
tony cooper
Feb 2, 2008
On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:12:43 -0600, Joel wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

<snip>
Thanks for the other suggestions.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/flowerman.j pg is straight from the scanner (except I scan in .psd and this has been changed to a .jpg). With just a slight tweak in Curves Blue Channel I can make the colors much better with the granite looking gray instead of blue-gray. The tweak makes the green mat on the stand a bit garish, but that could be the actual color.

This must be the blue cast that the color correction puts in. This one is easy to work with. Some are more difficult because the tweak changes things that shouldn’t be changed. I can’t take the time to mask and re-tweak with so many slides.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

I would start with "Color Selective",

I’ve never had success with "Selective Color". With the Irish milk bottles, adjusting either Blue or Cyan doesn’t seem to do much.

and of course also try "Curve",
"Hue/Sat", "Color Balance" to see which works better, and even "Auto Level/Color" sometime do the trick too (except I never use Auto myself).

I like Curves. I usually dink around with the actual curve, but "Auto" in Curves sometimes works. I seldom use "Auto" in anything.

I believe it’s possible to use Layer and Blending, also Photoshop has a feature to balance the color from 2 separated images,

I don’t know what this is. Is it in PS 7.0? That’s what I have.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
G
granny
Feb 2, 2008
"tony cooper" wrote in message
I believe it’s possible to use Layer and Blending, also Photoshop has a
feature to balance the color from 2 separated images,

I don’t know what this is. Is it in PS 7.0? That’s what I have.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

Tony I use PS7 also and we don’t have it…
I do have a question though… Why aren’t you using just two clicks to fix your pictures… Auto Levels and Auto Color.. a sample (with your pics) and these two clicks is here:
http://img187.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=78595_AutoLevelsA utoColor_122_233lo.jpg
"Granny"
Old N Slow N Prefer Quick N Easy
TC
tony cooper
Feb 2, 2008
On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 13:07:04 -0600, "granny"
wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
I believe it’s possible to use Layer and Blending, also Photoshop has a
feature to balance the color from 2 separated images,

I don’t know what this is. Is it in PS 7.0? That’s what I have.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

Tony I use PS7 also and we don’t have it…
I do have a question though… Why aren’t you using just two clicks to fix your pictures… Auto Levels and Auto Color.. a sample (with your pics) and these two clicks is here:
http://img187.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=78595_AutoLevelsA utoColor_122_233lo.jpg

Habit. The "auto" clicks often do the job quite admirably (as your modifications have), but they too often don’t, so I’m just in the habit of avoiding them.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
T
Talker
Feb 2, 2008
On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

Kodak’s ROC filter:
http://asf.com/products/plugins/rocpro/pluginROCPRO/that‘s

a plugin for PhotoShop might be what you’re looking for. Here’s what it did for your pictures. I just used the default settings in my older version of it.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1B6uGSuW54FwBlw8eQ inVoCSOYVBIP

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=196Mg1DytWzCGCdWgY IOeGoAup86Hu

Talker
TC
tony cooper
Feb 3, 2008
On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:01:46 -0500, Talker wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

Kodak’s ROC filter:
http://asf.com/products/plugins/rocpro/pluginROCPRO

a plugin for PhotoShop might be what you’re looking for. Here’s what it did for your pictures. I just used the default settings in my older version of it.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1B6uGSuW54FwBlw8eQ inVoCSOYVBIP
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=196Mg1DytWzCGCdWgY IOeGoAup86Hu
That’s cool. Expensive, but nice.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
J
Joel
Feb 3, 2008
tony cooper wrote:

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:54:17 -0600, Joel wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:41:30 -0600, Jim Mitchell
wrote:

If you can post a coupel to a website I could take a llok and see if my copy of Ps CS3 can fix them withut much ado.

If that is sucessful I will give you my adress where you can sned a bunch of pictures on a CD or DVD and I can fix them and send them back.

Thank you for the offer, but I would prefer to do it myself. When I do that, I learn.

The (topper) poster asked you to post the SAMPLE so he can see the problem to give you some advice (or instruction) how to solve the casting problem, not offering doing the fixing for you.

First, a sample doesn’t cover all the images. As you can see from the two samples I did post, the blue cast comes out very different in different photographs.

Second, he did offer. Read his second paragraph, which is what I responded to. It was a nice offer, but – for reasons of my own – not one I will accept.

I see and you are right, because I kill-file topper so I didn’t see the original, and I usually browse through the message very quick to catch all small detail.
J
Joel
Feb 3, 2008
tony cooper wrote:

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:12:43 -0600, Joel wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

<snip>
Thanks for the other suggestions.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/flowerman.j pg is straight from the scanner (except I scan in .psd and this has been changed to a .jpg). With just a slight tweak in Curves Blue Channel I can make the colors much better with the granite looking gray instead of blue-gray. The tweak makes the green mat on the stand a bit garish, but that could be the actual color.

This must be the blue cast that the color correction puts in. This one is easy to work with. Some are more difficult because the tweak changes things that shouldn’t be changed. I can’t take the time to mask and re-tweak with so many slides.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

I would start with "Color Selective",

I’ve never had success with "Selective Color". With the Irish milk bottles, adjusting either Blue or Cyan doesn’t seem to do much.

"Color Selective " is a very powerful tool which allows you to adjust any individual color to just about anything you want. Example you have Green-casting then you just adjust the green channel to reduce the green-casting then go from there (or using other tool to finish the job).

Other tools usually have sub-commands but "Selective Color" usually have 4-5+ times more.

and of course also try "Curve",
"Hue/Sat", "Color Balance" to see which works better, and even "Auto Level/Color" sometime do the trick too (except I never use Auto myself).

I like Curves. I usually dink around with the actual curve, but "Auto" in Curves sometimes works. I seldom use "Auto" in anything.

"Curve", "Hue/Sat", "Color Balance", "Level" (you can change color in
Level command too) etc. are basic tools most people use quite often, and I only use "Selective Color" for specific need or others can’t do good job.

I believe it’s possible to use Layer and Blending, also Photoshop has a feature to balance the color from 2 separated images,

I don’t know what this is. Is it in PS 7.0? That’s what I have.

I believe it’s only available on CS2, but I am not so sure. I don’t even remember all small detail except having 2 photos in 2 separated layers, then select an option and it gives another color. I only remember to try once and it turned out super.

But because I rarely do reparing to remember all dirty tricks I read and tried.
G
granny
Feb 3, 2008
"tony cooper" wrote in message
On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:01:46 -0500, Talker wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

Kodak’s ROC filter:
http://asf.com/products/plugins/rocpro/pluginROCPRO

a plugin for PhotoShop might be what you’re looking for. Here’s what it did for your pictures. I just used the default settings in my older version of it.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1B6uGSuW54FwBlw8eQ inVoCSOYVBIP
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=196Mg1DytWzCGCdWgY IOeGoAup86Hu
That’s cool. Expensive, but nice.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

How about a free action to get the blue out.. I used the underwater correction action By James Connell on these:
http://img142.imagevenue.com/view.php?image=77652_Underwater _122_1050lo.jpg

OR
Underwater action with Auto color (Looks GOOD)
http://img7.imagevenue.com/view.php?image=77664_underwaterAc tion_plus_AutoColor_122_609lo.jpg

the action can be found at:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extens ionDetail&extid=1042430# (sign up.. it is free)

OR if you still like the hard way

How to quickly remove a color cast
(without introducing a new one)

(Copied from http://www.johanfoto.com/Site/Pages/Colorcast.html )

A color cast caused by artificial light can be difficult to remove, because simply using the grey eyedropper in ‘Levels’ or ‘Curves’ will often create a new cast in places that were not lit by the artificial light source. Scenes with mixed lighting, such as fluorescent and day light, can also be tricky. The following alternative method often works better than the grey eyedropper, and is just as easy.

Step 1:
Select the eyedropper tool and click on a place in the image that should be neutral. This is to sample the color of the color cast.

Step 2:
Make a new layer and fill this layer with the color you’ve just sampled (Edit – Fill – Foreground Color).
Then use ‘Image – Adjustments – Invert’ to invert this color.

Step 3:
Go to the Layers pallette, and change the layer mode from ‘Normal’ to ‘Color’. Next, change the opacity of this layer to anything that makes the original photo come through without a color cast. Usually this will be around 35%, but it can also be as low as 25% before you are satisfied with the colors.

"Granny"
Old N Slow N Prefer Quick N Easy
MR
Mike Russell
Feb 3, 2008
"tony cooper" wrote in message
….
This must be the blue cast that the color correction puts in. This one is easy to work with. Some are more difficult because the tweak changes things that shouldn’t be changed. I can’t take the time to mask and re-tweak with so many slides.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

Both of these are slides from a 1969 vacation…the first in London and the second in Ireland.

Hi Tony,

Here’s my humble attempt at correcting your two images, using curves only with no masks:
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/flowerman-corr. jpg http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/irelandmilk-cor r.jpg

The only thing I don’t understand – but it doesn’t really make a difference – is why these two pictures (and many like them) came out with a blue cast (stronger in the milk bottles) but most of the pictures require no adjustments at all. In some I might tick Levels a bit to brighten them up, but straight from the scanner would be OK.

The blue cast is very severe, and I would suspect that your scanner settings are off, or that there is some other problem, such as the automatic color correction of the scanner software.

I’m always on the lookout for interesting images for students to try their hand at in the curve class. If you would be willing to allow me to use them, please contact me offline at mike at curvemeister.com. —
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
TC
tony cooper
Feb 3, 2008
On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 09:01:26 GMT, "Mike Russell" wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message

This must be the blue cast that the color correction puts in. This one is easy to work with. Some are more difficult because the tweak changes things that shouldn’t be changed. I can’t take the time to mask and re-tweak with so many slides.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

Both of these are slides from a 1969 vacation…the first in London and the second in Ireland.

Hi Tony,

Here’s my humble attempt at correcting your two images, using curves only with no masks:
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/flowerman-corr. jpg http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/irelandmilk-cor r.jpg
The only thing I don’t understand – but it doesn’t really make a difference – is why these two pictures (and many like them) came out with a blue cast (stronger in the milk bottles) but most of the pictures require no adjustments at all. In some I might tick Levels a bit to brighten them up, but straight from the scanner would be OK.

The blue cast is very severe, and I would suspect that your scanner settings are off, or that there is some other problem, such as the automatic color correction of the scanner software.

A one-time glitch in the milk bottle image being that severe blue, and out of 400 or more slides copied so far. The blue cast in the London flower seller is something seen in more than half of the slides.

I use a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite F-2900 dedicated slide/film scanner. Corrections can be made during scanning from the preview, but I don’t use that feature. I import into PS 7.0 and do the corrections there.

The flower man slide is dead-on, but the milk bottle image is wrong. The frame is aged white paint, and almost cream colored. I can get the frame right, but I can’t get the milk bottles as white as you have without masking and isolating them. It must be the green you’ve brought out.

Even though this is a 1969 slide, I have a better memory of the correct image than you might think. I had it made into a 5 x 7 and mounted. It was accidently destroyed a few years ago when a hurricane caused a leak in our roof. So, my memory of the colors only has to go back a few years.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
MR
Mike Russell
Feb 3, 2008
"tony cooper" wrote in message

….
The flower man slide is dead-on, but the milk bottle image is wrong. The frame is aged white paint, and almost cream colored. I can get the frame right, but I can’t get the milk bottles as white as you have without masking and isolating them. It must be the green you’ve brought out.

I got the milk right anyway 🙂 One of the things that interested me about this image, and why I want to use it in my class, is that if the color cast is removed by setting the milk to a neutral color, you get one color for the frames in Lab and a completely different one in RGB. I went with bright green, given the Irish origin of the image.

Here’s a pointer to the RGB version, similar to the Digital ROC image, but with a more saturated cream color to the frame:
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/irelandmilk-rgb -1.jpg ….

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
RB
Rudy Benner
Feb 3, 2008
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
"tony cooper" wrote in message


The flower man slide is dead-on, but the milk bottle image is wrong. The frame is aged white paint, and almost cream colored. I can get the frame right, but I can’t get the milk bottles as white as you have without masking and isolating them. It must be the green you’ve brought out.

I got the milk right anyway 🙂 One of the things that interested me about this image, and why I want to use it in my class, is that if the color cast is removed by setting the milk to a neutral color, you get one color for the frames in Lab and a completely different one in RGB. I went with bright green, given the Irish origin of the image.

Here’s a pointer to the RGB version, similar to the Digital ROC image, but with a more saturated cream color to the frame:
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/irelandmilk-rgb -1.jpg

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

Do I see a layer of cream on top of the milk? I can remember that milk was delivered this way when I was a child, un-homogenized.
Dinosaurs still walked the earth then.
TC
tony cooper
Feb 3, 2008
On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:25:00 GMT, "Mike Russell" wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message


The flower man slide is dead-on, but the milk bottle image is wrong. The frame is aged white paint, and almost cream colored. I can get the frame right, but I can’t get the milk bottles as white as you have without masking and isolating them. It must be the green you’ve brought out.

I got the milk right anyway 🙂 One of the things that interested me about this image, and why I want to use it in my class, is that if the color cast is removed by setting the milk to a neutral color, you get one color for the frames in Lab and a completely different one in RGB. I went with bright green, given the Irish origin of the image.

Here’s a pointer to the RGB version, similar to the Digital ROC image, but with a more saturated cream color to the frame:
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/blue-slides/irelandmilk-rgb -1.jpg

There you go. Old white paint with a tinge of mildew. The mildew is probably right for the window. It would be interesting to know the effect on age on paint in some older buildings like this. Milk and lime were once paint ingredients. The typical Irish cottage is plastered and whitewashed, not painted, but the wood trim would have been painted. I don’t know what "whitewash" is composed of.

That picture, by the way was not set up. The cottage was still a residence, and the milk was for the residents.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
J
Joel
Feb 3, 2008
"granny" wrote:

OR
Underwater action with Auto color (Looks GOOD)
http://img7.imagevenue.com/view.php?image=77664_underwaterAc tion_plus_AutoColor_122_609lo.jpg

This seems to be the easiest way to go (the fine-tuning later), and we can learn the deatil technique from the action to.

the action can be found at:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extens ionDetail&extid=1042430# (sign up.. it is free)

OR if you still like the hard way

How to quickly remove a color cast
(without introducing a new one)

(Copied from http://www.johanfoto.com/Site/Pages/Colorcast.html )
A color cast caused by artificial light can be difficult to remove, because simply using the grey eyedropper in ‘Levels’ or ‘Curves’ will often create a new cast in places that were not lit by the artificial light source. Scenes with mixed lighting, such as fluorescent and day light, can also be tricky. The following alternative method often works better than the grey eyedropper, and is just as easy.

Step 1:
Select the eyedropper tool and click on a place in the image that should be neutral. This is to sample the color of the color cast.
Step 2:
Make a new layer and fill this layer with the color you’ve just sampled (Edit – Fill – Foreground Color).
Then use ‘Image – Adjustments – Invert’ to invert this color.
Step 3:
Go to the Layers pallette, and change the layer mode from ‘Normal’ to ‘Color’. Next, change the opacity of this layer to anything that makes the original photo come through without a color cast. Usually this will be around 35%, but it can also be as low as 25% before you are satisfied with the colors.

Hmmm… may be this was the one I tried before .. but I only remember few steps to confirm if this is the right one.

I was testing on a poor image with messed up skin-tone, and I was able to recover the skin-tone much quicker and better than I may be able to do manually.

BTW, thanks for the detailed information. I save this message and hopefully I will have the chance to try it some day.
SK
Sundance Kid
Feb 5, 2008
tony cooper wrote:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

Hi Tony,

I’m wondering if you’ve tried using the eyedropper tools in a levels or curves adjustment layer. I find that it works quite well on overall color casts. Here’s my three click attempt at correcting your image:

http://home.comcast.net/~nikonshooter/irelandmilk-rgb-2.jpg


Lee

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.
MR
Mike Russell
Feb 5, 2008
"Sundance Kid" wrote in message
tony cooper wrote:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

Hi Tony,

I’m wondering if you’ve tried using the eyedropper tools in a levels or curves adjustment layer. I find that it works quite well on overall color casts. Here’s my three click attempt at correcting your image:
http://home.comcast.net/~nikonshooter/irelandmilk-rgb-2.jpg

Very nice job, Lee! It’s as good or better than mine.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
TC
tony cooper
Feb 5, 2008
On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 10:00:04 +0000 (UTC), Sundance Kid
wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/irelandmilk .jpg is also straight from the scanner. This one I can correct in two steps: a tweak in Curves RGB setting the white point and then a tweak in the Blue Channel to change the window frame and walls. The result is pretty close to what I actually remember of the colors.

Hi Tony,

I’m wondering if you’ve tried using the eyedropper tools in a levels or curves adjustment layer. I find that it works quite well on overall color casts. Here’s my three click attempt at correcting your image:
http://home.comcast.net/~nikonshooter/irelandmilk-rgb-2.jpg

Yes, I do. One of the reasons that I posted this topic is that, with hundreds of slides that I’ve corrected to some amount, no one sequence of corrective actions seems to work on all. I keep thinking that there’s one "magic" set of steps that will work for all.

I usually try Curves first, and use the eyedropper for white then black. I often forget gray because the gray point doesn’t seem to do anything on most slides.

Sometimes, though, using the eyedropper on white first "blows out" the image or the black point over-corrects and I have to go to some other tool.

While I normally work with PS 7.0, I also have Elements 5.0. In the "Quick" mode, Elements has a color temperature slider that can "warm up" an image. There have been some slides that I’ve corrected with this tool in one step that I haven’t been able to correct in PS 7.0 in half a dozen steps.

The slides I’m working with are from the 60s through the 70s and vary widely – quite widely – in how they scan. Some need no adjustment and some need extensive adjustment. I have no idea why there’s such a great difference. I used the same camera (rangefinder Konica T3) and the same type of film (Kodak ASA 200) on all. Most of the processing was to Kodak slides, but some are non-Kodak.

It’s been an interesting project.

Your correction is excellent, by the way. I ended up with a very similar result.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida
SK
Sundance Kid
Feb 5, 2008
tony cooper wrote:

I usually try Curves first, and use the eyedropper for white then black. I often forget gray because the gray point doesn’t seem to do anything on most slides.

Try clicking around the image until you find something that works. I find that the gray eyedropper is the most important of the three. Even using it alone can get you 90% there:

http://home.comcast.net/~nikonshooter/irelandmilk-rgb-3.jpg

Sometimes, though, using the eyedropper on white first "blows out" the image or the black point over-corrects and I have to go to some other tool.

Don’t forget, you’re not committed to the results of your first click with each eyedropper – it usually takes a few clicks to get it "just right".

Your correction is excellent, by the way. I ended up with a very similar result.

Thanks. Try keeping that image open and dragging that adjustment layer into similarly discolored images – it may save you some work…

Good luck!


Lee

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.
SK
Sundance Kid
Feb 5, 2008
Mike Russell wrote:

Hi Tony,

I’m wondering if you’ve tried using the eyedropper tools in a levels or curves adjustment layer. I find that it works quite well on overall color casts. Here’s my three click attempt at correcting your image:

http://home.comcast.net/~nikonshooter/irelandmilk-rgb-2.jpg

Very nice job, Lee! It’s as good or better than mine.

Thanks, Mike. So many ways to work in Photoshop – and always so much more to learn.
You seem to know a lot about LAB mode. I rarely work there, but I’ve tried the LAB sharpening method. One of these days I’ll get around to reading Dan Margulis’ book…


Lee

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.
MR
Mike Russell
Feb 5, 2008
"Sundance Kid" wrote in message
….
Thanks, Mike. So many ways to work in Photoshop – and always so much more to learn.

Each little piece helps.

You seem to know a lot about LAB mode. I rarely work there, but I’ve tried the LAB sharpening method. One of these days I’ll get around to reading Dan Margulis’ book…

Alas, with such books I’ve found that just buying it doesn’t mean I know what’s in it 🙂

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com
R
Ragnar
Feb 5, 2008
Sundance Kid wrote:
<snip>
You seem to know a lot about LAB mode. I rarely work there, but I’ve One of these days I’ll get around to
reading Dan Margulis’ book…

If you want to read a couple of Dan’s chapters before putting your hand in your pocket try
http://www.ledet.com/margulis/articles.html
http://www.ledet.com/margulis/Sharpen.pdf

R.
SK
Sundance Kid
Feb 6, 2008
Ragnar wrote:

Sundance Kid wrote:
<snip>
You seem to know a lot about LAB mode. I rarely work there, but I’ve One of these days I’ll get around to
reading Dan Margulis’ book…

If you want to read a couple of Dan’s chapters before putting your hand in your pocket try
http://www.ledet.com/margulis/articles.html
http://www.ledet.com/margulis/Sharpen.pdf

R.

Thanks, I will definitely read these!


Lee

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.
K
KatWoman
Feb 6, 2008
"granny" wrote in message
"tony cooper" wrote in message
On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:01:46 -0500, Talker wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:07:23 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

Kodak’s ROC filter:
http://asf.com/products/plugins/rocpro/pluginROCPRO

a plugin for PhotoShop might be what you’re looking for. Here’s what it did for your pictures. I just used the default settings in my older version of it.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1B6uGSuW54FwBlw8eQ inVoCSOYVBIP
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=196Mg1DytWzCGCdWgY IOeGoAup86Hu
That’s cool. Expensive, but nice.



Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

How about a free action to get the blue out.. I used the underwater correction action By James Connell on these:
http://img142.imagevenue.com/view.php?image=77652_Underwater _122_1050lo.jpg
OR
Underwater action with Auto color (Looks GOOD)
http://img7.imagevenue.com/view.php?image=77664_underwaterAc tion_plus_AutoColor_122_609lo.jpg
the action can be found at:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extens ionDetail&extid=1042430# (sign up.. it is free)

OR if you still like the hard way

How to quickly remove a color cast
(without introducing a new one)

(Copied from http://www.johanfoto.com/Site/Pages/Colorcast.html )
A color cast caused by artificial light can be difficult to remove, because simply using the grey eyedropper in ‘Levels’ or ‘Curves’ will often create a new cast in places that were not lit by the artificial light source. Scenes with mixed lighting, such as fluorescent and day light, can also be tricky. The following alternative method often works better than the grey eyedropper, and is just as easy.

Step 1:
Select the eyedropper tool and click on a place in the image that should be neutral. This is to sample the color of the color cast.
Step 2:
Make a new layer and fill this layer with the color you’ve just sampled (Edit – Fill – Foreground Color).
Then use ‘Image – Adjustments – Invert’ to invert this color.
Step 3:
Go to the Layers pallette, and change the layer mode from ‘Normal’ to ‘Color’. Next, change the opacity of this layer to anything that makes the original photo come through without a color cast. Usually this will be around 35%, but it can also be as low as 25% before you are satisfied with the colors.

"Granny"
Old N Slow N Prefer Quick N Easy

great solutions granny (as usual)
G
granny
Feb 7, 2008
"KatWoman"
great solutions granny (as usual)

Thanks Kat!

"Granny"
Old N Slow N Prefer Quick N Easy

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