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

Report · Jan 26, 2012

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.

Report · Oct 29, 2018

I don't think Adobe is ignoring you. I think you didn't make yourself clear in the first place. At least I wasn't clear at first, for sure.

Comparing your two images, I can see what the real problem is. You should not be saving in PSD. Save it in PDF and you will have a choice of JPEG compression or an uncompressed like TIFF OR the best of both, an adjusted compression in between. PDF in Adobe is flexible and you won't be using Acrobat or Reader.

There's no skin of my nose, if you are quite perturbed with Adobe's software and with Adobe, go ahead and search for something you can live with. No software is perfect as you want it to be.

However, I think you have not looked over all the choices you have in Photoshop. For one thing, you have not told me you run Elements or Photoshop, as you keep mentioning only LR which doesn't invert negatives, and we got that message clear now. But if you used Element with it, and it is cheaper than LR, and like the rest of us professionals use several of Adobe products, you might have what you want.

And if PDF doesn't do the job for ya, try another format. There are lots of uncompressed container formats. I don't suppose you got into those yet? Those will contain your image in an compressed format yet the image placed inside will be uncompressed while the container format is compressed. It does save space while you retain the full image too. Nifty huh? We use those mostly for videos but they can be used for any (large) image file, and negatives tend to use lots of space, especially when inverted. Study container formats: test on Friday.

If this doesn't do it for ya, then wallow in your anger longer, and find another photo editor, maybe. You can always save your image in another brand of software in PSD again, and try to open it in LR but don't expect it to be perfect. And I think "perfect" is what you're trying to get, so hard. Sure the shadows show but there might be a remedy if you're patient.

SL

Report · Oct 30, 2018

"I don't think Adobe is ignoring you. I think you didn't make yourself clear in the first place. At least I wasn't clear at first, for sure."

Steve it sounds like you're still not clear on why a LR/ACR raw file invert function is being requested. We are well aware color negative raw files created with a camera copier setup can be processed with good results using PS/PSE. However, this requires creating a separate RGB image file (PSD, TIFF) using ACR or LR. The resulting file has the camera profile and other settings permanently applied to the image file, which breaks the non-destructive workflow. This RGB file is significantly larger than the original raw file, which also needs to be saved for possible future editing changes.

What is being requested here is a fully non-destructive workflow for processing color negative raw files using only LR or ACR. Inverting the Tone Curve is not a viable solution since it causes the WB and Tone controls to work backwards and behave in a non-linear manner. What's required is an invert function that is applied to the raw data before any other control processing. The objective being to allow editing color and B&W negative raw image files in the same manner as normal camera images.

Report · Oct 30, 2018

Todd,

Couldn't have put it better. That's precisely why we use Lr with RAW images.

Report · Oct 30, 2018

Todd,

He didn't make it clear to me. My software gets positives like a camera image, so I have not problem with positives using my method. I don't use the camera-scan method. And those might be the problem.

I have had the greatest respect for your Champion status Todd, as I have praise your answers. I used to be a Champion but my (Windows) software engineering credentials takes the place of it now, as I left to tend to my company for a long while. This is your 3rd time to correct me. I'm not sure how your correcting me helps this guy's software problem. It was the first time, nothing would be said, as it's very interesting to me.

Steve Lehman, mcse

Report · Oct 30, 2018

Todd,

Anthony said: "... my DSLR a macro lens and a slide copying attachment, "
That's not the scan method I use, and it's not a ACR scanner.

Report · Oct 30, 2018

"I'm not sure how your correcting me helps this guy's software problem."
Steve, I was actually trying to help you. I'm glad you now understand the request being made here and why it's needed. As they say "DIfferent strokes for different Folks!" You may want to give it try sometime.

Report · Oct 30, 2018

Todd, this is your third time being mean spirited.

Report · Oct 31, 2018

I don't view Todd's comments here as mean-spirited. Rather, I find them a constructive contribution to a detailed discussion about why this feature is being requested. As he invariably does, Todd avoided any ad hominem comments and focused on the objective issues. These sorts of back-and-forth discussions about features and alternative solutions can be the most effective way to get to a truer understanding of users' needs, their workflows, and possible solutions with and without LR.

I have a legacy Nikon 5000 scanner, and while it continues to work like a champ, Im worried about what happens when it breaks, and I've wondered whether I'll get significantly better results using a DSLR instead. I've previously proposed here an alternative LR-only solution for B&W negatives (inverting the tone curve and exporting/re-importing as 16-bit TIFFs). So I'm very interested in how a raw-based workflow might work for me.

Report · Oct 31, 2018

John,

Here is an attempt to answer that question. Starting with a colour film negative DSLR 'scanned' to a NEF image, I have applied my invert and colour correction profile, shifted the colour temperature by -800K, dropped the highlights to -100 and pushed the shadows to +100 in Lr. The result is the reference image on the left in the image below. I then reset the develop settings, opened in PS, ran an action that inverts, removes the colour cast and auto sets the tone curve (this is what I used to create my ACR/Lr profile), then saved it as a TIFF (16 bit ProPhoto). Back in Lr, I set the colour balance (using the sampling tool), dropped the highlights to -100 and pushed the shadows to +100 on this TIFF, just as I had with the NEF image. The result is on the right.

Although difficult to see in the small image above, apart from a slight difference in colour balance, the most noticeable differences are in the shadows. In the full size images, the adjusted TIFF has no detail in the shadows. In the NEF image I can see folds in the man's trousers, but in the TIFF, the trousers are just black. Here is a 1:1 zoomed in view of the two images for comparison.

Pushing highlights and shadows to these limits might appear to be extreme, but it does demonstrate the difference between adjustments in RAW and other image formats.

RAW processing in Lr still wins hands down for me.

Report · Oct 31, 2018

"I have a legacy Nikon 5000 scanner, and while it continues to work like a champ, Im worried about what happens when it breaks, and I've wondered whether I'll get significantly better results using a DSLR instead."

John, from my experience using a Plustek 7600i film scanner and a Canon 5D MKII with Sigma 50mm F2.8 Macro lens the camera capture wins in every respect. This is regardless of using a full raw workflow or ACR/PS TIFF workflow. The key is to use a diffused light source, which reduces the visibility of film grain, scratches, and dust particles without affecting resolution. This makes processing the film images much easier and provides better overall image quality. Here's an example from my previous post:

https://d2r1vs3d9006ap.cloudfront.net/s3_images/1724618/32213-15bzjei.jpg?1523663673

Report · Feb 18, 2019

I'd really like an option to convert the colors from my self taken negative paper b&w pictures to positive. Now I need to use some other apps for it before using Lightroom and the quality drops dramatically. This phase is essential for that kind of photographing and I'd really appreciate the feature.

Report · Feb 18, 2019

Since I've given up on this feature ever being added, I've created a workaround of inverting my images before importing into Lightroom. If you use Photoshop, I'd recommend creating a 'droplet' to make it easy to invert a whole folder full of images at once (Google "Photoshop droplet" to learn how) . Here's my droplet for inverting b&w jpgs -- https://www.dropbox.com/sh/krxm8llrwq0k2gz/AADMfPZvrAmeKSk9oUcUVTQBa?dl=0 -- feel free to download and use it (I'm on Mac, so I don't know if this file works on Windows). Drag a folder full of images onto it and it opens each image, inverts and re-saves (overwriting the originals). (test it on duplicate images to make sure it works for you). Before you run it, save an image from Photoshop as a JPG and set the quality to the highest quality setting (or you could create a different droplet that would save as a TIFF if you don't want to risk any image degradation due to compression). This droplet would invert color images as well, but without any color correction -- for that you'd want to create your own droplet with your preferred color correction settings.
I shoot my negs in JPG as I don't believe the dynamic range of the backlit neg requires shooting RAW. More about that at my blog post here: https://shotonfilm.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/35mm-camera-scanning/

Report · Feb 18, 2019

Hi Risto,
I don't think your images should be degraded at all by inverting them outside Lightroom. If you're using something like Photoshop, I don't think it would be degraded at all, unless it's being saved as a low-quality JPG. Perhaps some other programs would degrade an image in ways I don't understand. By the way - I'm not trying to argue with you at all, just trying to help.

Report · Feb 18, 2019

The problem with inverting in Photoshop comes in when dealing with raw files. Raw is critical for dealing with color negatives—particularly older ones where the color has shifted, or they were originally exposed poorly. My go-to process for shooting transparencies is to bracket three exposures in-camera, and then combine those raw files in Lightroom. This is impossible for color negatives, of which I have BOXES full. With and easy "Invert" button, it would save those negatives.

Report · Feb 18, 2019

The problem with inverting in Photoshop comes in when dealing with raw files. Raw is critical for dealing with color negatives—particularly older ones where the color has shifted, or they were originally exposed poorly. My go-to process for shooting transparencies is to bracket three exposures in-camera, and then combine those raw files in Lightroom. This is impossible for color negatives, of which I have BOXES full. With an easy "Invert" button, it would save those negatives.

Report · Feb 18, 2019

Thanks, Kevin. I've only been doing b&w, so I'm sure the experience is very different working with color inversions.

Report · Feb 18, 2019

There are actually two issues with LR that prevent it from properly processing camera raw color negative film image files.

1) Lack of a true Invert function that inverts the raw data BEFORE any of the controls are applied.
You can use and inverted LR Tone Curve and get used to using the controls backwards.
A better option suggested by *John R. Ellis is to use Edit in PS and then invert it in PS and save back as a TIFF. When doing this it works much better if you first adjust the LR WB using a custom camera profile as outlined below. You can temporarily invert the Tone Curve (create a preset to save it) and then follow the below instructions to set the WB. When the WB is properly set make sure to return the Tone Curve to its normal 'Linear setting before using Edit in PS.

2) Insufficient WB Temperature control range, which is currently limited to 2000.
The orange mask in many color negative film emulsions is lower than this setting. Further, the Adobe camera profiles are dual-illuminant (6,500K + 2850K). Whenthe Lightroom WB Temp setting is below ~4,000 the 2,850 (Tungsten) table isused for color correction, which does not work well with most color negatives.
Fortunately The Adobe DNG Profile Editor (DPE) can be used to extend the camera profile's Temp and Tint ranges for use with color negative film camera raw files (i.e. captured using a camera). I suggest creating four versions of the Adobe Standard camera profile with Temp and Tint settings -25 +25, -50 +50, -75 +75,and -100 +100. You'll need to export one of the camera raw files to DNG file format with it set to Adobe Standard profile. Open the DNG in DPE and in the Color Matrices tab change the Temp and Tint settings and then go to File>Export and rename the profile so you can identify it by filename. Example: 5D MKII Adobe Standard WB -25 +25. Then process the remaining three settings the same way. Save them to them below folder location and when done restart LR to load the new profiles. You'll need to do this for each camera model you use to capture the color negative film images.
Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Adobe \ CameraRaw \ CameraProfiles \

Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Library / Application Support / Adobe / CameraRaw / CameraProfiles /

Use the Custom WB Camera Profile that requires a WBTemp setting no lower than 5,000 to correct the WB. You may also want to create and try custom WB camera profiles using one of the lower contrastprofiles such as Adobe neutral and the higher contrast and color saturation Adobe Color. They all are based on the same Adobe Standard profile, but with different contrast and color saturation, which may be helpful.

Report · Jun 17, 2019

I would be one more user needing a proper way to invert negative images in LR Classic (either by custom camera profile or plugin like Negative Lab Pro). It would be straightforward if Camera Profile (with negative curve in it, in LR 7.3 and later) would be applied before any other adjustments, not after.
One more drawback of current behaviour when using inverted camera profile or tone curve is that face recognition and tagging doesn't work on negative images.

Report · Jun 20, 2019

We are still waiting for a proper implementation of a Negative function in Lightroom Classic. This topic has had a lot of discussion and many users have requested it, but Abode continues to ignore it. Yet, in the last update we get a Texture adjustment and Flat Field Correction (which was previously a plugin and migrated into the core code). These are both welcome and useful new features, but a negative function has been requested for 7 years now and still nothing.

A search of this forum reveals only two requests for 'skin smoothing', which is as close as I can get to the Texture adjustment. One of these was 8 years ago with 2 Me Too's and 3 Followers, the other was 5 years ago with 1 Me Too and 2 Followers, yet we get a Texture adjustment.

So the Me Too's and Followers don't seem to count for anything. This Negative function request has 48 Me Too's and 43 Followers, and I imagine that there would be a lot more users out there who would appreciate this functionality, but haven't participated in the discussion. I also would imagine a Negative function to be far easier to implement than the Texture adjustment.

So how about it Adobe and the Lr development team? How long do we have to wait?

I have DSLR 'scanned' around a hundred 100-year-old glass plates for our local historical society using a 'Negative' profile that I created, but with all the tone controls reversed and some not working properly at all, a proper Negative function would make life so much simpler. A colour cast removal tool would also be essential for DSLR 'scanned' colour film.

Report · Jun 21, 2019

Anthony, anyone at Adobe trying to read (top-down) through the numerous conflicting and redundant comments in the replies here will more than likely ignore the request. It's unfortunate and I plead guilty to getting into the fray myself!

Towards correcting this I have just sent an email directly to Adobe staff providing specific details why an LR/ACR raw data invert function is needed and the benefits. Hopefully it will make it up the Adobe totem pole and we will at least get a reply here. Stay tuned!

Report · Aug 14, 2019

Options de développement de négatifs

Report · Aug 14, 2019

So very disappointed that another update (Lr Classic 8.4) comes along with no sign of any implementation of a negative/invert setting that will allow users to process DSLR scanned negatives with ALL controls functioning normally.

Report · Aug 14, 2019

To get a Negative to a Positive in PSE, click Filters> Adjustment> Invert.

Report · Aug 15, 2019

They do not take photographers feedback very seriously, you know 😕

Report · Jan 01, 2020

Please, please support working with negatives! All the workarounds for working with negatives (inverted curves, LUT profiles, plugins like NegativeLabPro) break some essential functions of Lightroom Classic, for example, face detection doesn't work on such images.