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C1 & DSLR-scanned film negatives - Coming from Aperture

Boris Sheikman
Hello C1 Forum!

I am a long time Apple Aperture user and I have been casually looking for a new image processing / editing platform. Apple said that they will be releasing Photos for OS X early this year but they recently delayed the release until April. The problem with these delays is that they give users like me too much time to think! 😂 So, now I am thinking about C1. 😉

I downloaded a free copy of DxO Optics Pro v8.0. It works very well but it lacks certain features that are important to me. I "DSLR-scan" a lot of film negatives with a macro lens. Processing these requires flipping the image, fine tuning the tilt, inverting the curve, white balance adjustment, and setting Auto Levels for the individual R, G, and B channels. That's on top of the usual dodge/burn, sharpening, etc that is required for general image processing. DxO seems to be missing some of these features. It doesn't allow fine tuning of the tilt, flipping the image, and Auto Levels among others.

Now I am trying C1 thanks to the 30 day trial offered by Phase One. The program feels very powerful and I appreciate the high quality RAW processing, the layers, lens profiles/corrections, etc. One feature that I cannot find is the Auto Levels function for the individual R, G, and B channels. So...

Question : Does C1 have an Auto Levels function?

I have two sizable Aperture libraries. One is for general photography and the other is solely for film scans. Both are "managed" and the system works well for me. I can always export originals on an individual basis and I can also view the contents of the package by right clicking. C1 seems to offer the ability to import Aperture libraries with some of the adjustments applied. I am a little confused on how C1 manages files.

Questions : Will my Aperture libraries come in as a managed library or a referenced library? Can a C1 catalog also be managed similar to Aperture?

C1 feels both familiar and strange to me. I am not afraid to swing sliders back and forth from one extreme to another to get a feel of what they do. The effects of most tools are similar to what I can achieve in Aperture but the labels are different. I started reading through the 144 page manual available as a PDF but I haven't committed it to memory yet. It will take time to become familiar but a guide for users coming from Aperture would be helpful.

Question : Is there a tutorial available on C1 for those coming from Aperture? A list of common "gotchas!" would be nice.

I see that my user name is NN635582905177052833UL. Wow! 🤓

Question : Is there a way to change this to something more reasonable?

Thank you very much for your time and help! 😊

-=- Boris
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Comments

16 comments

Date Votes
  • Boris Sheikman
    I think I can answer my last question. My profile on the main phaseone.com website was incomplete. I changed it there and I think the information has trickled through to the forum website. 😊

    -=- Boris
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  • Boris Sheikman
    I found an answer to my question regarding auto levels. 😊

    By default the auto levels function stretched the histogram of the overall luminance (RGB channel) to the edges of the shadows and highlight limits. I wanted each individual R, G, and B channels to be stretched instead. Leave the luminance alone. The auto levels function can be changed by going into the Preferences menu screen, selecting the Exposure tab, and changing the Channel Mode pull down menu from "RGB Channel" to "Red, Green, and Blue Channels". This is great! 😄

    Unfortunately, I could not find this feature in any of the documentation and I did not hear it mentioned in the 23 video tutorials posted that Phase One posted on YouTube. ☚ī¸ If it really is documented or presented somewhere then I totally missed it.

    This was a very exciting discovery for me! I am experimenting on previous DSLR-scanned Kodak Ektar negatives and I am very impressed with the quality of the rendering. C1 is extracting a bit more detail with lower noise levels compared to Aperture. I am on day 26 of my 30 day trial so I still have more to explore and play with.
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    Just posted, a new blog from Phase One. Might be of interest.
    http://blog.phaseone.com/scan-negative- ... one-pro-8/
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  • Boris Sheikman
    Hi Paul,

    Yes, I saw that! Someone must have been reading this post and decided to write the article! 😊 I follow the same steps for the most part.

    I tried to comment on the article and praise C1 for its ability to process negatives but my comments have been rejected. ☚ī¸ There are very few programs like C1 which are capable of processing negative images properly and with ease.
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  • N Belll
    Hi Paul, this is good timing indeed as I started such a project in Aperture but I'm moving all my main processing work to CO8.

    However, the link is dead, and I can't find the article in the blog pages. Is there an updated link?

    Thanks
    Nick
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  • Boris Sheikman
    Nick,

    I can't find the bog post either. Phase One may have taken it down. Processing negatives like this starts pushing your software a little bit into Photoshop territory and Phase One may not have realized that at first. One simple barrier I ran into was the 100 spot limitation in the Spot Removal tool. This tool was probably initially designed to remove blemishes on skin and sensor dust. Guess what it does very well? It can remove dust specs and holes in camera scanned negatives. 😊 Dust specs show up as white (i.e. back lighting blocked) and holes show up as black (i.e. back lighting shining right through). This issue may not come up with fresh new negatives but its only a matter of time before someone starts camera scanning old negatives. In their case I think it was only a matter of days. 😉

    Aperture was unique because it smartly had one foot in RAW processing land and it had the other foot in some Photoshop land. I could remove thousands of spots all day long. *click*click*click*click* It goes really fast and there's no performance issue on my austere iMac. I had the same positive experience in C1 ... up to 100 points. ☚ī¸

    So, guessing again, Phase One may have taken down the post so it doesn't look like they officially support this kind of processing. Sad, because the comments in the blog post were numerous and positive. It attracted a lot of good attention in my view.
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    [quote="6BQ5" wrote:
    ...
    So, guessing again, Phase One may have taken down the post so it doesn't look like they officially support this kind of processing.

    That the post seems to be removed or retracted, is obvious. The reason is still unclear and might not be related to supporting it or not.
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  • N Belll
    OK no problem I don't mind if there's a reason it's been taken down, though I can't really imagine why as it is a fairly innocuous thing to want to do.

    As an aside, when I went to the blog to try to find the article, I have to say that having 3 blogs each effectively separate didn't help! I know you're probably limited by the backend system you use, but even just a title index for all entries would be nice in locating previous articles of interest given you also only get 3 articles per page 😊

    Nick
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  • Boris Sheikman
    I can imagine that the C1 team was playing around with camera-scanned negatives in the office one night after a long day's worth of work. They quickly realized that C1 does an excellent job of processing the negative images.

    "Hey, this is pretty cool and creative... and fun! Let's make a blog post about it." 😎

    I'm going to guess the article was wildly popular with prosumers and enthusiasts. The number of C1 trials downloaded went up 10x and the team was very happy. What a great way to get more customers - especially those Aperture users still sitting on the fence. 😊

    We all know that everything has unintended consequences. ❗ī¸ Along with the increased download count came increased tech support cases asking if the software can do X, Y, Z, and has feature A, B, and C ... and will it ever do D, E, F? They probably weren't ready for the massive influx. 🤓 I'm willing to bet a dollar that there are probably 50 users out there like me waiting for the trial to expire before committing to a purchase. 😉

    Remember, no good deed goes unpunished! 😂
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  • harald_walker
    The article is still in the Google cache:
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=nl
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  • Grant Kernan
    I found the Article. It came to me directly from The Image Professor.
    http://www.anpdm.com/newsletterweb/4346 ... 5415843/wn

    I have been using CO to scan negs and slides for over 10 years starting with CO5
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  • Mispel3991
    It's really gone now ☚ī¸
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  • Grant Kernan
    Still there for me but only the first page. The link is dead
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  • Frank Gregorek
    The link is not working for me either.

    --Frank--
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    I have contacted Phase One over the blog article on handling negatives in CO8. Its disappearance seems to be unintential. Expect it to be reinstated. No ETA given.
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  • Frank Gregorek
    Thank you, Paul. I am very interested in the article and could only access the first page.

    --Frank--
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