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jeffk5545
Participant
Jan 27, 2012 4:42 AM UTC
Open for Voting

P: Ability to invert negative scans to positives (color and black-and-white)

I would dearly like to see the Lightroom 4 Beta team implement an additional feature in the final release. That feature would be the ability to take a camera+macro lens image of a B&W negative -- essentially a camera-based scan of a negative -- and invert the negative image to a positive image at the beginning of the development process in such a way that the resulting sliders in the LR4 Develop Module would not operate in reverse. As I understand it, this capability exists in Photoshop, but I don't own Photoshop. I do own Photoshop Elements 9, but that program only supports an 8-bit workflow, not 16-bits per channel, and round-tripping between LR & PSE9 requires the reimportation of a TIFF file that is more than twice the size of my NEF RAW files. Since this programming wizardry already exists in Photoshop, I would think that it would be a relatively simple matter to transfer and adapt that code for LR4 -- but then, I'm not a programmer, so what do I know...

I've been digitizing 40-year-old Kodachrome slides from my Peace Corps days in Africa, using a 55mm Micro-Nikkor (macro) lens, coupled to a Nikon ES-1 Slide Copy Attachment, and even on a D300s body, I can get truly excellent results. I can't wait to continue that work using the pending 36 megapixel Nikon D800 body with an upgraded f/2.8 macro lens (mine is the old 55mm f/3.5 design). I really, REALLY want to be able to camera-scan my many B&W negatives without having to generate huge intermediate TIFF files.

You can respond to this request by emailing me, Jeff Kennedy Thanks, in advance, for taking the time to review and consider my request. I LOVE Lightroom 3, and from what I've seen, I'm going to love LR4 even more. I REALLY appreciate the effort that Adobe takes to solicit input from the photographic user community.

BTW, if the feature I request *can't* be implemented right away, could the LR support team provide detailed, interim instructions as to how to use the "backwards" sliders, and in what sequence? That would be very much appreciated. I'm sure many older LR users have considerable analog image collections that they would like to digitize, and doing so in-camera is both 1) of surprisingly high quality, 2) MUCH faster than using flatbed scanners and 3) of much higher quality and resolution than flatbed scan and MUCH cheaper than professional drum scans.

    180 replies

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    ohnoezitasploded1
    Participating Frequently
    Apr 13, 2018 9:41 PM UTC
    The point of using a DSLR versus a flatbed scanner isn't to improve the quality of the resulting scan, the point is that using a DSLR is multiple times faster than a flatbed.  We are asking for a modification to ACR/Lightroom to support this workflow because a lot of people working in mixed film/digital environments are using it.

    So a discussion of the theoretical resolution of film is off topic, there are many other threads on the internet where this subject can be hashed and rehashed and rerehashed.
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    Jack_2
    Jack_2
    Participant
    Apr 13, 2018 9:24 PM UTC
    Indeed Todd, expediting capturing film images (without compromising the information quality) is of prime importance, especially when thousands of negatives/slides must be processed.....
    Be advised that up to 4x5 a 4x6k scan is sufficient to capture the effective information in the sheet film. Technical camera's use a bigger diffusion circle (airy disc) and thus, the spatial resolution of sheet film is lower than 135 and 120 film. 
    8x10 sheets I would preferably scan with a transparency scanner such as f.i. the Epson V850 Pro Scanner. Although it is much more time consuming, I don't believe you have thousands of 8x10 sheets waiting to be digitized. Setting up a professional light table to photograph 8x10's is no sinecure..... 
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    Jack_2
    Jack_2
    Participant
    Apr 13, 2018 9:11 PM UTC
    Tim, there is no need to scan three times the same image to offset the CFA of a DSLR. This would only be effective if you had a monochrome FPA  sensor with 4x6k pixels and then take 3 exposures using 3 appropriate color filters.
    The same would be true for a monochrome linear CCD scanner.  
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    TheDigitalDog
    TheDigitalDog
    Inspiring
    Apr 13, 2018 8:56 PM UTC
    We are in agreement that 35mm PCD pro scans were higher resolution than 2kx3k for good reason.
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    Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
    Jack_2
    Jack_2
    Participant
    Apr 13, 2018 8:46 PM UTC
    Andrew, I was a Kodak PCD & PIW technician and account manager and still have all the manuals and tech. sheets at hand.
    The Pro PCD was a 4x5" scanner that could scan 135 and 120 film at 4x6k max. resolution. The 4x5" sheet film scan was done at 4096x5230 resolution, the 135 (24x36) was done at 4096x6144 resolution while the 120 (6x4.5) was done at 4096x3072 resolution.
    To scan a color negative from a Kodacolor 400, 200 or 100 film with 4x6k resolution was futile and just created a big 64BASE image that had no more usable information than the 2x3k 16BASE. This is what I called "effective resolution".
    But EKTAR and KODACHROME 25,40 and 64 35mm. slide films could definitely profit from a PRO scan at 4x6k !! 
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    Todd Shaner
    Todd Shaner
    Legend
    Apr 13, 2018 6:54 PM UTC
     *Jack Klaber said: You can use high-rez cameras or scanners, but you are not capturing pictorial information, just patterns of grain and unsharp airy-discs.......In microscopy this is called empty magnification. Here I would call it empty resolution.
    Jack, I think the primary objective being discussed here is using camera capture to expedite capturing film images (<1 sec. vs minutes). I also agree with *Andrew Rodney that the effective resolution of fine grain 35mm negative and slide emulsions is a lot higher than the numbers you stated. My results using camera film capture with a 5D MKII 21 mp camera produce images from 35mm Fujicolor Super G100 color negatives and Kodachrome 64 slides that look near identical in detail sharpness to normal camera images shot with the same lens and camera. Using an even higher megapixel camera would be beneficial especially if capturing larger format film images (645, 4x5, 8x10).

    BTW- A similar post was merged here that no longer pulls up doing a search. It might be of interest:

    https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/color-invert-for-negative-film-in-camera-raw
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    TheDigitalDog
    TheDigitalDog
    Inspiring
    Apr 13, 2018 4:07 PM UTC
    Jack, keep in mind that newer PIW's from Kodak produced larger scan sizes than 2Kx3K. I know, I used to run one. At the time, an 18MB scan (max resolution from the image pack) from the original PIW was a lot of data for desktop machines. Kodak up'd that for good reason. As someone that also ran a couple drum scanners (ScanView, Howtek), there was plenty of reasons we scanned above that so called 'effective resolution' you state. In those old days, it was common to have to output retouched images to an LVT 4x5 for repro. You didn't do that from a PhotoCD scan at the so called effective resolution you state if you wanted the best quality output the technology of those days provided. 
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    Author “Color Management for Photographers" &amp; "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
    timreeves
    Participant
    Apr 13, 2018 4:02 PM UTC
    4k x 6k is 24mp
    So to effectively scan at this resolution on a modern digi cam with a cfa we need a minimum of triple that resolution.

    Most modern digital cameras are around 24mp, so 3 to 4 shots per frame stitched with a perfect lens should get you close to kodaks figures.

    We still need an invert function, and this request is almost as old as lightroom.
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    Jack_2
    Jack_2
    Participant
    Apr 13, 2018 3:58 PM UTC
    Take into account that 35mm. color negatives of 100-200 ASA films have an effective resolution of not more than 2000x3000 pixels. Color slides of the type of Kodachrome 25 have higher numbers but not much more than approx. 4000x6000 if professional lenses have been used.These numbers were found by the Kodak people that researched the resolution necessary to digitize color negatives when they were doing the concept research for Photo CD scanners in the early nineties. 
    You can use high-rez cameras or scanners, but you are not capturing pictorial information, just patterns of grain and unsharp airy-discs.......In microscopy this is called empty magnification. Here I would call it empty resolution.
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    RoyBDigipix
    Participant
    Apr 13, 2018 2:44 PM UTC


    I'm looking at digitizing thousands of color negatives to digital files via a high-rez camera.  I would love to have an invert color option within Camera RAW.  What better way to preserve old film that with a RAW digital file! Even better with a feature to eliminate the color cast of the film.  I think many PS users would embrace it.  I could see this being a huge draw for entry level users as well, as many are trying to figure out what to do with old negatives that are deteriorating.
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