Back in the dark ages before the glorious Negative Lab Pro, I used ColorPerfect for converting RAW camera scans of my B&W negatives in Lightroom. As part of this process, I was required to run my captured RAW DNG files through a utility called “Make Tiff”, which resulted in a massive file that was extremely dark green and had all its imaging data contained in the bottom third of the histogram. I would then run this TIFF file through ColorPerfect in Lightroom to create the positive conversion.
So here’s the thing: I’m looking to re-convert these old giant green-channel heavy TIFF scans to positives using NLP. But, back then, I did not save the out-of-camera RAW scan that NLP likes to use and, instead, saved the massive dark green TIFF files generated by the Make Tiff utility.
Is there any way I can extract the same amount of data out of these TIFF files using NLP that I used to extract via ColorPerfect? Any conversion attempts I make with NLP result in blown highlights (that were not a problem in the ColorPerfect conversion).
I had assumed I could/should prep the files using the “TIFF Scan Prep” plugin but every time I try to use that, I get a message stating “Oops! Something went wrong… as we were trying to analyzing tiff color multipliers.” It has an Error Message of “Exit Status : 256”
Has anyone else gone through this process? Any helpful hints? Something stupid I’m overlooking? Obviously, I could just go back and re-shoot the negatives, but since I already have thousands of RAW camera scans converted into this TIFF format, I’d prefer to not rescan everything if NLP is able to chew on them…
Can you share one or more of those files for us to try? The forum does not allow huge attachments, but you could use sharing services like wetransfer or any other suitable cloud service and post a link.
I could (files are around 100mb). Perhaps another option is to download the MakeTiff utility (pretty sure it’s free) from the colorperfect.com website. If memory serves, you just drag an out of camera raw onto it to convert it into a linear TIFF… but it seems that particular linear TIFF gets rejected by NLP’s TIFF Scan Prep. So should be pretty easy to ‘roll your own’. If that doesn’t cut it, I’ll toss up a file on dropbox tomorrow…
Took a few minutes to find something pedantically banal enough to serve as an example. EGOR-SAMPLE.zip
The referenced .zip contains two images: one is the TIFF file made via ColorPerfect’s Make Tiff utility. The other (downsized jpg) is a straight, unprocessed conversion of this TIFF file as made by ColorPerfect.
The thing to note is the highlight detail. For example, look at the TOP flat surface of the pedestal base. Notice, in the JPG that there is highlight detail here. Yet, when I use NLP, I have been unable to successfully render any of this highlight detail no matter how much I manipulate the conversion curves in NLP.
Since ColorPerfect is able to “see” the highlight detail in the TIFF, I know the detail must be in the file… I’m just not finding a way to extract it in NLP. Again, not a huge problem. I love NLP and it’s essential to my workflow… but it would be nice not to have to rescan old negatives if I don’t have to.
I’m assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that, since this is a linear TIFF, I should be using the TIFF Scan Prep plugin but (also as mentioned) it fails with the dialog box mentioned in the original message. I’m using an Apple Silicon (M1) MacBook Pro… just in case ‘compatibility’ is the reason why I can’t get this file to work with TIFF Scan Prep?
It would definitely be better if you had the original RAW, but given your circumstances, it should still be workable…
Yes, in this case, you need to run the Tiff Scan Prep Utility in order to get the full potential of details available here, since the original is Linear.
Here is what it looks like first running TIF Scan Prep utility (on linear), and then setting the Tone Profile to “Cinematic - LOG” and making minor adjustments to the tones.
Excellent: So my assumption that I’d be able to convert these old linear tiff files by using your TIFF Scan Prep plugin is confirmed… now I just gotta figure out how to get it working. When I launch the TIFF Scan Prep plugin, I get the expected dialog box:
But when I click “Make”, I get this:
Any ideas? Thanks.
Woo Hoo! It was indeed fixed by installing 2.4.2 – apparently the problem was anticipated and solved by Future Nate. Either that or it was fixed by Current Nate, and I was just living in the past… I do shoot film after all. Thanks, Nate. Conversions working perfectly!
