How to digital scan a color negative film with a DSLR

photo by FA

• May 15, 2018 10:45

Hi all,

I am fairly successful on converting my TX400 films into digital with a Nikon DSLR and Macro lens. Its as simple as converting the RGB curve and adding some contrast etc.

However I am not quite sure if the same method works for Portra400 films.

Could you please enlighten me or show the right paths?

PS I use CO11 for RAW processing.

Cheers,

Fatih

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  cdc

  • May 17, 2018 01:57

  Color film conversion is definitely more involved, but doable. To invert a negative in Capture One you can use either the curves or levels tool. Move the black point all the way to white and the white point to black. The draw back of doing this is that many of the other tools work in reverse and things become unintuitive, but now you'll have an inverted image.
  
  To deal with the color cast of the inverted color negative film the best way I've found is to use the R,G, & B channels of the levels tool and drag the end points to the same relative positions of the histogram. In the capture one preferences you can set auto levels to adjust the R, G, & B channels, as opposed to the RGB channel, and this will make that process quicker/automated when you use the auto levels feature. From there you can fine tune the levels adjustments and use the white balance and the other color tools.
  
  You may find it to be a smoother workflow if you import an already inverted TIFF as opposed to doing the inversion directly on the NEF file in Capture One, of course then you will loose the benefit of working directly on the RAW file.

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