I usually run my negs through my camera scanning gizmo to make a low res jpeg index set, and then go back and carefully scan the selects later as full size RAWs. I’ve noticed that NLP does NOT like jpgs on any setting, and I’m getting wacky colors. Can this be improved?
Make your contact sheet B&W. Easy to do and convert - and helps to see the subject.
I definitely want to see an accurate representation of the image, as I revisit and re-edit frequently. I just went through a few new rolls shooting in raw, and then exporting to the same folder as jpegs after conversion, then deleted the raws. It actually went pretty quickly, so I guess this isn’t a big deal.
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There are a couple of issues with trying to convert JPEGS…
- With JPEG, your camera has already made a lot of destructive changes to the image based on the assumption that it is just a regular positive image. This makes it impossible to get out the true tones and colors of the negative. Whereas with RAW, I’m able to use a custom raw profile that is ideal for working with negatives.
- JPEG is limited to 8-bit depth. Again, this is fine for most positive images, but it isn’t enough bit depth to make smooth conversions. This is because we usually need to stretch the information from the negative to make the final image, and with just 8-bits, we will see start to see noticeable gaps (posterization).