[Leica] Scanning Kodachrome

[images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)]

It's not a Vuescan solution, but Lasersoft has a KC profile that is very
accurate.

Tina

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:08 AM, Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com> 
wrote:

> My scanning of 1970s-era Kodachromes continues.  I'm using a Canon FS-4000
> with VueScan Pro.  The FS-4000 can do a two-scan pass with different
> exposures, which really helps with shadows.  I scan to 16-bit TIFF, do my
> major adjustments in Picture Window Pro, then convert to 8-bit for resizing
> and sharpening.  Yes, my monitor is calibrated. I save to sRGB once the 
> file
> is adjusted in VueScan and goes from RAW space to TIFF.
>
> I hadn't scanned film much recently, so I am relearning Kodachrome's
> scanning issues.  I don't mind the orangy-ruddy flesh tones, that's just
> part of what the film does.  But one thing that drives me crazy is that 
> even
> with VueScan's Kodachrome profile, my old 1970s slides scan a bit 
> green/cyan
> in the shadows, and a bit magenta in the mid to upper midtones.  Fixing
> either color makes the other worse.  Full sunshine pictures are usually OK,
> ,but for contrasty pictures with both sunlight and shade, simple color
> balancing using a white sample doesn't cut it.
>
> Here's an example, which I posted previously as "Purple Mountain
> Majesties."  You can find other examples in the same gallery:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/MyYouth/Franconia+Range+from+Cannon+Mountain.html
>
> This is an extreme case (early morning angled backlight, deep shadows and
> bright clouds in the same picture), but it illustrates the problem. I have 
> a
> lot of outdoor mountain photographs with a high contrast range like this.
>  My old habit of underexposing 1/3 stop for better saturation probably
> didn't  help, though in the above picture, I was cramming an awful lot of
> dynamic range onto a contrasty film.
>
> Anybody have any secret VueScan workflows or profiles that would help with
> this?  Suggestions?  Making color masks for every picture is not going to
> happen--I'd do that for a wall-hanger, but not for every good shot.
>
> --Peter
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
Tina Manley, ASMP
www.tinamanley.com