As of Negative Lab Pro v2.1, SilverFast HRD DNGs are officially supported, with compatibility for any scanner model and new dual-illuminant profiles that produce better color renditions.
Learn more about the official recommended settings and steps here:
I’ve left the original archived discussion below. But as of v2.1 of Negative Lab Pro, much of the recommendation and discussion is deprecated.
[ARCHIVED]
Hi guys,
While I don’t have “official” recommendations on Silverfast conversions just yet, I wanted to start the conversation here and share a bit about what users have shared.
Here’s generally what I’ve seen users doing with good result:
Set Silverfast to scan in “positive” mode (so that it doesn’t invert your negative)
Scan as “48-bit HDR” (depending on your version, this may be done different ways… at least in SF 8.8, I believe you need to go to preferences and check “HDR raw” )
Scanning to DNG - the preference is to scan to DNG, but for it to work optimally, I will need to create a RAW camera profile to use in Lightroom, so this method isn’t fully supported yet. I’ll include some experimental profiles below. You can email me or PM a link to your DNGs, and I will build a profile for your scanner.
Scanning to TIFF - it is also possible to scan to TIFF, but be aware that this will scan to gamma 1.0, and for it to work optimally in Lightroom, you will need to convert to gamma 2.2 (which you can do in Lightroom using the “Tiff Scan Prep” utility included with Negative Lab Pro.
How to Convert in Negative Lab Pro
Import your Silverfast scans into Lightroom
If your scanned as a DNG, you will need to make sure you have added the custom profile (see info below). If you created a TIFF, you will need to go to “File > Plug-in Extras > Tiff Scan Prep” and convert from linear gamma (1.0) to gamma 2.2.
If you’ve left borders in your scan, crop them out (or use “border buffer” during conversion to account for border)
In most cases, you should NOT use Lightroom’s white balance tool prior to conversion
Open Negative Lab Pro. If working on a DNG, for now set source to “Vuescan RAW DNG”. If working with Tif file, set source to “TIF Scan”. Set other settings as you wish, and convert
For this type of scan, I would recommend trying the “linear + gamma” tone profile first, and adjusting brightness and contrast first.
DNG Profiles for Silverfast DNGs
I’m currently still experimenting with DNG profiles for Silverfast. You can help by sending me 48-bit HDR DNG files from Silverfast made with your scanner!
Add the profile to your lightroom camera profile folder (on Mac, this is usually at “~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles”. On Windows, it’s typically at “C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles”, but this may vary a little bit)
Restart Lightroom
If you’ve previously converted the DNG (prior to adding the profiles), you’ll need to unconvert, and then reconvert.
Exactly how I scan with SF 8.8. Positive - 48bit HDR Raw - HDR is checked and gamma 2.2 in preferences, scan to dng. Scanning to tif does not seem to encode gamma 2.2, which means one would have to do that in LR, at least it doesn’t work for me, I have tried this. I can send you samples of both Nate, as I am not expert in these things and might be talking nonsense here :).
For the conversion, I have been using Vuescan and it seems to work just fine, but I will try tif scan to see if there is a much of a difference.
I feel scanning to tif from SF does not encode the gamma 2.2 into the scan, but if you scan to dng, it does. I have tried both and get similar results that you got.
I have been scanning to TIFF for years and using Silverfast HDR to convert to positives to work on. Don’t remember what lead me to choose TIFFs. Will have to research a little to see if I should change my workflow. Is there a way to assign gamma 2.2 to the TIFFs in Lightroom?. Thanks for all your help @Carmen.
There is a plugin in LR that you can use to convert TIFs to gamma 2.2, I think it’s called Tifprep. It’s just one extra step is why I don’t use it. DNG works best for me.
@Carmen Thank you so much for your help. Much appreciated. I can’t find Tif Prep Utility. I see in the instructions that it would be included but I don’t see it in my installer. I will certainly move to DNG in the future but have many, many TIFFs that I would love to convert if possible.
I think my TIFFs are coming in at a linear gamma setting because my scanner has no profile assigned to it. I profiled it ages ago but my targets are now way outdated and would need new ones to re-target. Wondering if there is a generic one out there?.
Ok, yes, there is definitely a difference between how Lightroom is interpreting the DNG and Tiff… after looking into this a bit further, it appears that the ‘gamma’ setting shouldn’t actually effect the output… it will still be output at gamma 1.0 even if you change that setting… but with the DNG, even though the underlying data is gamma 1.0, Lightroom is adding it’s own gamma encoding to it…
It looks like it does, but it doesn’t actually (see the little “profile missing” sign underneath the profile). If you changed the profile back to “embedded” or “color” it shouldn’t change the image.
If you an email me some dngs, I can dig around a bit and see if it is possible to add any kind of profile… I seem to recall though from past attempts that it may not be possible to do in the same way that I’m able to do with Vuescan…
I notice that there are some other changes happening in the film type, exposure and curves… If I understand Silverfast’s HDR setting, I don’t believe that this would effect the output file, but may be worth testing just to make sure!
In Lightroom, select the image (or images) you want to convert. Then go to “file > plugin-extras” and the “Tiff Prep Utility” should be there right underneath “Negative Lab Pro”
I have profiled my scanner now. Not sure if properly. Are getting interesting information. I am seeing a difference between scanning as a negative and scanning as positive. Nothing conclusive yet. Need to investigate further. The only means I have to profile my scanner is through VueScan. Not very familiar with it. Need to make sure I am doing things right.
@nate, NLP is doing a great job with conversions once correcting gamma to 2.2 with tif prep utility. TIFF is definitely saving to 1.0 linear gamma from Silverfast if no profile is selected in preferences in Silverfast. My only problem is that the utility is creating a new file with the gamma corrected. It would be a very tedious process to convert all my digital negs now. All good stuff to be learning.
What great news!!. I’ve been struggling trying to find a solution but was getting nowhere. Anxious to try the profile. Thank you so much. I can send you any type of file you’d like from Silverfast if you like.
I’ve build the profiles for the Plustek OpticFilm 120 and added to the download link. At least on the files you sent, it seems to make a big difference in terms of getting good colors right off the bat…
(Be sure to unconvert and reconvert after successfully installing the profiles… also, probably helpful to reset any previous settings you used in Negative Lab Pro on the unprofiled version… with the new profile, there should be much less blue/cyan cast to remove).
Oh thank you so much!!! It looks great! I will do as you instruct, can’t wait to try it out tonight. Thanks Nate, you really are so kind to us all, honestly and sincerely mean this. I have never got so much support EVER for any software, hardware, plugins etc. Cheers!
