Dark red skin tones under flash conditions (Portra 400)

  1. Which version of Negative Lab Pro are you using?
    3.1.0 beta

  2. If using DSLR scanning, please include: 1) camera make/model, 2) lens make/model, 3) light source make/model
    Canon EOS R5, Sigma 70mm ART MACRO, Cinestill CS-Lite

  3. If using film scanner, please include: 1) scanner make/model, 2) software used for scanning, 3) settings used for scanning
    N/A

  4. Please add the conversion you are having difficulty with, along with a short description of what you are seeing wrong with it.

Skin tones are going weirdly dark and weirdly red - and any attempt to correct them destroys the white balance of the rest of the photograph. Here are 2 conversions, with the NLP Standard preset, with roll analysis on and off respectively.



My understanding is that portra has good skin tones, so I’m assuming this is something about my scan or my conversion?

  1. It’s not required, but it’s very helpful if you can provide a link to the original RAW or TIFF negative before conversion. If you don’t want to share this file publicly, you can also email it to me at nate@natephotographic.com

Try different settings…


I’d probably fix the skin with Lightroom’s tools on a positive copy.
WB taken from the black trousers (before converting.
Also, scanning exposure looks a bit too high. ETTR is okay, but a bit too aggressive in this case.

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The resulting image still looks a bit fried, is that just my expectations being off?

Also, the image is (afaict) about 2/3rds of a stop off being overexposed, no?


Don’t expect me to deliver a “perfect” conversion, I’m simply trying to nudge you to try to find out what NLP can or cannot do. NLP provides a starting point and if it’s not where we want it to be, we have to try, explore, learn and get more agile doing so.

Expectations: What “perfect” means, only you know, unless you describe your expectations. E.g “I’d like the jeans to be less saturated” or “The faces look like tomatoes to me, can someone help me to make them green instead?” I hope you see what I mean.

Back to the image: I’m not happy with the colour and tonality of the skin and instead of spending a lot of time trying presets and moving sliders, I’d make a positive copy and work on that in Lightroom, using e.g. local adjustments. This might look like an easy way out, giving up or whatnot, but my passion for masochism is limited.

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That’s good scientific approach ,- I mean using raw digger. As you can see from raw blue channel is relatively underexposed . Make your light source a bit more bluish - switch light source to highest color temperature or even add blue gel over light and try taking pictures again. Ideally red and blue channels should be approximately in the same exposure area with green slightly ahead. And that will make the orange mask almost disappear and your shot will look normal. Hth

Right and that the sort of image one would get from minilab. Remember minilabs ? :wink: - many indoor shots taken with flash looked exactly like that - with reddish and exaggerated faces

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