I have constant problems with Portra 400 when scanning on an Epson 650 Flatbed and a dedicated PrimeFilmXA for 135.
I only have this problem with this film. The negatives are well exposed and developed correctly (I have done it at home and in the lab).
Every time when converting the negatives (following all the steps in the NLP guide) they come out with a green cast and it is impossible for me to get them to a decent white and the skins always end up a mess.
It’s too frustrating because I don’t have this problem with any other film and I don’t know what to do anymore.
Hi Pablo, welcome to the forum. I can see why you are frustrated, that should be a very nice (Wedding?) picture. There are some very helpful people on this forum so I would suggest that you provide a link to download one of your RAW scans (Dropbox, Google Drive etc.) and see how they can work their magic. It doesn’t have to be an ‘A-list’ image like this one, just one with the same lighting that has the same problem.
Getting a few example scans would help indeed, but you could try to crop the image tightly like e.g. only keep the central part of what you see with a 3x3 grid. Here’s why: Any blown highlight (looks like the clouds might be candidates) can disturb the conversion and cropping such highlights off can really help. You can then un-crop the image after converting.
Is a Engagment Photoshot. A very special client! And I promise them to take some great film photography (and you know how hard is to convince someone to work with film).
Here’s a link to download the RAW. I will upload a 120 and 135 frame. In both cases i’m having a similar issue.
From left to right: Basic, Frontier, Noritsu, None
Top Down: Border Buffer 25%, Presaturation set to 1, 3 and 5 respectively
Bottom row: BoBuffer=0, Presat=5, WB=Auto-Mix with HSL set to 10 (where possible)
This is what I did
create copies and name them
Import them into Lightroom Classic
White balance and crop images
Create virtual copies
Apply NLP settings
This kind of systematic testing can bring you closer to what you want.
Nevertheless, the RH portrait skin tones are not nice, possibly because NLP has not much to work with (greys and blue) and you best export these as TIFFs and use LrC’s colour tools to fix the skin tones. Maybe you’d even need to make this as local adjustments.
Note: I have exported the folder as catalog to test something for my own interest. It won’t work on your computer probably. You’ll have to try to DIY your own tests.
Thank you! After hours and hours and moving every single tool in LR I reach a point where i’m happy with the result.
There’s still some color shifting and weird cast but this is a presentable piece of work to my clients.
I think the problem is in the develpment process. So if anyone has a specific way to develop Portra 400 with CineStill Kit and have consistent result please share it
@PabloTeran, you might want to take an occasional capture of a Color Checker target, specially if you work for (paying) clients. You can then convert that capture, and tune colours based on a known reference. This should then provide colours that are very close to what they were. Still, even with a reference, colours might have shifts due to whatever reason.
You could also compare your negatives with some from a good lab. Colour development used to be fiddly and the slightest deviation could result in lower quality.
X-Rite Color Checker values according to data that had been published and pulled meanwhile:
All colour negatives are designed to be developed using the C41 process. It is exceptionally demanding in terms of the temperature and timing of the development stage, development time is 3m 15 sec at 37.8ºC +/- 0.15C. I know of course that many people use kits to develop at home but I would say consistency is almost impossible to attain within these margins. Professional labs will ensure that their machines keep to within these margins and that the chemistry is always replenished according to throughput. I’d like to think that is also true of high street minilabs but I’ve had a few dodgy results from them.
