Please do, would be great to get more insights on how to best utilize the all-digital workflow since it’s quite a different beast even if the controls are the same.
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I had a go at the beta, while I am using a v700 scanner, and followed the normal way I do things when I analyze the slide positive, I get this:
What has happened? it didn’t reverse it at all..
On NLP‘s first tab, you‘ll find an option to tell NLP that you are scanning a positive or a negative. If colours are reverset, select „negative“ and you should be good to go.
Unconvert the image before you reconvert it.
Nate, for clarification, when now using NLP for scanned slides (importing them as VueScan RAW files) are you supposed to use the ‘Negative Lab v2.1’ profile with the positives before processing with NLP? I couldn’t find anything about this in the guide.
Questions about positive analysis workflow. Pre-Analysis Questions:
White Balance is as shot. Leave as is and adjust after analysis, is this the best practice?
Profile in Lightroom is Adobe Color, Leave as is, the analysis updates the profile, is this the best practice?
After Analysis Questions:
Profile in Lightroom changes to Negative Lab v2.3 after analysis. I don’t see this in the list of available profiles, all other have an extension like Natural, Frontier, etc. Is this profile only for the positive analysis?
Is it recommended to select a LUT (profile) or leave as None?
HSL pull down in edit tab is set to None after a positive analysis. Is this correct? I’m inclined to select and use one of he 4 profiles offered. The Lightroom profile changes when HSL pull down is changed. Is there a recommended practice for HSL?
I have experienced some unexpected settings under the Advanced Tab when doing positive analysis. Things seemed to be working well, then I noticed that the engine setting was v1.0-2.1 after an analysis. Advanced tab is greyed out until after an analysis is performed.
I’m not sure when exactly the engine settings changed, as a novice I try to just use the latest version. I did reset a positive analysis then went straight into re-analyzing the same slides. It was sometime after this reset that I noticed the change to the advanced tab. I noticed several rolls that I had recently analyzed had the engine setting to v1.0-v2.1, so I changed one slide to v3.1 then selecting all others with v1.0-v2.1 and used sync with only engine settings selected. After syncing I noticed that all the settings had been updated, but the engine settings still indicated v1.0-v2.1. I think this is just cosmetic, but shocks me every time I see v1.0-2.1.
I continued working, checking after the analysis if the engine setting was still v3.1. That’s when I noticed that even though the engine setting was v3.1 the color process was Classic not Refined. Easy to sync, but not sure why this happened.
You don’t need to change the raw camera profile before processing a positive. NLP will automatically change the profile for you just as it does with the negative.
The latest profile version is v2.3. It should automatically update your slide to this when you open Negative Lab Pro.
It doesn’t really matter as much for slides. I’ve had pretty good success setting the white balance based on the color temperature of the light box to try to get as neutral of a color balance as possible, but it’s really up to you.
The default preset for positives has the HSL set to “None.” This is why you see it showing just the base camera profile instead of the enhanced profile with the LUT. Again, feel free to experiment. But just know that the LUTs were designed specifically based on negative film. So results may vary.
Yes, it’s just cosmetic (and the same thing happened in previous versions). The engine settings drop down is just meant to give you a quick way to recreate the settings that were default in previous versions of Negative Lab Pro, but I understand that is not what you expect to see in this situation. Let me see if there is a way to make this stay more in sync.
First, thanks for the clarification. Leaving as shot seems to work reasonably well. I use an electronic flash with diffusers as my light source. I capture RAW so I’m unsure why Lightroom assigns 6650K for as shot Temp. If I find time for more experimentation, changing Temp before positive analysis to see how it affects results might be worthwhile.
Setting temp based on light source (electronic flash) would be 5500K. The original film is daylight Ektachrome 400 that was shot indoors under stage lighting, which was about 3200K. 80A filter was NOT used because of low light conditions. I think the cooler 6650K may actually be helping to compensate for the daylight film in tungsten light.
I understand, positive analysis is a great new addition. Thanks for continuous NPL improvements and support.
I have experimented with Crystal because of the subtractive color emulation. I’m sure you or one of the other forum contributors will develop LUTs for positive film at some point in the future.
Hey Nate. Thanks for the update! Super excited that positives are now in here.
Quick process question. For negatives I use the cool setting on my Cinestill CS-Lite and previously used the warm setting for positives. Should I continue to use the warm backlight for NLP positives or am I better using the white light?
Cheers
Alex
Installed 3.1 and it does magic for slide scanning which I found utterly disappointing before. Slides now can look as I see them on a light table. I don’t know what smart processes Nate has been implementing to make this work but it’s doing wonders for me. Fantastic! One thing I learned is that my trichromatic light source, which works extremely well for negatives to probe the individual C, M and Y dyes accurately, does not at all work well for slides, since it gives very cyan skies and other mess. Slides scanning requires a continuous spectrum light source apparently, so I used my Solux museum bulb which is designed to accurately reproduce daylight, and that works perfect for slide scanning with the new slide magic of version 3.1.
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I’ve been really enjoying the conversions out of 3.1! One thing I’ve noticed after playing around with various white balance settings before conversions is that a 5500K +6 (default) tint in Lightroom produces a much nicer conversion than sampling off the film border. Has anyone else noticed this? I find it gives the negatives a bit more density in the conversion.
In theory, white balance doesn’t matter with RAW files. Due to whatever non-linear functionality is built into NLP, results vary - depending on tonal values, LUTs, pre-saturation settings, colour model etc. I propose that you test your WB settings with different kinds of films, and with negatives old and new. If your WB settings give you what you want under various inputs, you’ve found your goldilocks setting.
I find differences to be subtle in most cases though. I’ve come to have Lightroom white balance negatives automatically and find that it works in most cases, even with camera scans of B&W negatives scanned with UniWB settings. Here’s an example:
Conversions with Colour Model “Frontier” and pre-saturation at "1* of images with WB set to “As shot”, “Automatic”, Tungsten etc. And while differences exist, they are small and a matter of taste rather than whoaaa!
Older versions of NLP were delivering results with bigger differences, but NLP 3.1.1 seems to be fairly immune to WB settings, at least with all negatives I tested with. YMMV.
Previously I did not see much difference in a conversion regardless of what white balance I had set. Now I see major differences in my images. So much so that it’s hardly the same photo with respect to colour and density. Here is an example of the same image in converted with a 2850k WB (LR Auto WB) and 5500k WB. On this film stock (Superia 400), I prefer the auto WB.
Here is an image on Santa Colour 100 (rebranded Aerocolour I believe). Again at 5500k and at 2850K (LR Auto WB):
I’m not sure how well it’ll show after it’s uploaded but the colours are very different on my calibrated displays. Any idea why there is such a major variance in conversion with the different WB settings?
post exported positives. sRGB .jpg files should show the differences, once downnloaded an viewed on the computer…