Fascinating topic. Some posts mentioned CineStill’s upgraded light panel (CS-LITE+ Spectracolor). Does that light eliminate the need for a trichromatic workflow?
Welcome to the forum @Snappy-McSnapface
Using a trichromatic workflow is a choice rather than a consequence of lighting.
Trichromatic workflows can be regarded as a remnant of old times, when scanners were built with monochromatic sensors recording each image light by red, green and blue light respectively.
Using a trichromatic process (with monochromatic sensors) is one way to get colour into an image. Other ways of creating the perception of colours is e.g. the CMYK process of four colour printing. And last but not least, human colour vision developed with light that changed during the day, resulting in our eyes’ respective top sensitivities near blue, green and yellow.
So whatever model we use to produce images, the goal is an “image that looks as I want it”.
Current offerings tend to be continuous spectrum light and sensors that can separate colours. Other tech emerges as we talk and might provide results that we like better.
Lastly, the magic comes from our skills using the tools we can access. And maybe one process is easier to handle than an other. Or more flexible as found by the OP.
I went from the new CS-Lite+ to the big scanlight from jackW01. They are different approaches for capturing negatives. I have found that the CS-Lite+ works well with NLP and gives better color reproduction than their original light. But I would say the nice even light that the 95cri mode on the big scanlight can provide works really well with NLP. The single capture RGB mode not so much.
Trichromatic scanning is a different animal entirely.
This whole thing is very interesting. I’m thinking of experimenting a trichrome process with my monochrome camera at some point.
Guys… I can’t wait to get the Negative Lab Pro standalone version out… you are going to love it. There is so much that I am able to do with it (like proper RGB capture support, custom inversion color spaces, etc) that simply wasn’t technically feasible in Lightroom’s environment.
-Nate
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Exciting stuff! Can’t wait to try it. I am glad you will be including RGB support. Does that mean only single capture or also trichrome?
It’s funny, I came to the same conclusion about NLP with the Scanlight earlier this year, and started doing my inversions in Capture One. Today I decided to fire up LR/NLP again for the first time in months, and was surprised on how great the conversions of my recent scans were. What changed? I upgraded my camera a couple of months ago. I will have to do some more confirming, but I think the A7RIV sensor might get along better with the Scanlight/NLP combo than my old A7RII. There are still some instances of blown out reds, etc., but not as many as I remember from before the camera upgrade.
NLP is an excellent piece of software there is not doubt about that. The thing it does so well is bring the negative into a pleasing window even if there are issues with it, like underexposure or a strong color cast. It may not be exactly what you want but I have always been able to take it somewhere close to where I want to go.
I have found that Capture One, or any currently available RGB inversion software for that matter, doesn’t have that same capability. C1’s conversions always felt harsh to me and I am not well versed in the UI so it was frustrating to say the least.
I have been shooting a lot of portraits lately and I can say for sure that RGB gives better skin tones than anything I can get out of white light and NLP. I liken it to a painting contest where I (RGB) am pitted up against pro painter (NLP) and we both have to paint the same picture. We are each given red, green and blue paint. But before we start the pro painter’s paint gets swirled together where mine stays separate. The pro painter will make something amazing, because they are a pro, but mine will be able to fully replicate any color I want because I started with the separate primaries.
Not a perfect analogy but it’s the best I got right now haha.
C1 is very fluid and easy to use once you get used to the interface. It gets along well with RGB, no matter what sensor is used. My point was that using RGB with NLP was much better for me once I upgraded my camera. I just went back over a few folders from before and after the upgrade, and the difference in color is massive. Much more than I expected.
That’s great to hear you are getting better results. Does that mean you are back using NLP mostly?
NLP is still at its current version 3.1.1.
You might have had Lightroom updates here and there - and they could be the ones to improve the conversions. And yes, I also got the impression that conversions are closer to my target than a few years ago.
Here’s an example of the initial conversion and a sloppy (overcooked imo) copy
(Crystal Mill, Colorado, 1978 on Kodacolor 400, Mamiya 645)
My NLP setting includes rolled off highs and lows as well as clipping values set to -10
The results hardly ever clip and can easily be tuned to stay within bounds.
..and in the ‘Standalone version’ thread Nate promises “Yes, full support for RGB light sources. And BIG improvements on regular light sources too.”
I will definitely use NLP on my next batch, and run C1 in parallel to continue comparing.
It was actually NegPy that got me experimenting again. I was quite comfortable using the Scanlight for single RGB capture and converting in C1, but I wanted to try the trichrome feature. I noticed that NegPy gave me really nice color on single or tri captures, and that my C1 conversions felt a little over saturated on many frames. I couldn’t really see it without comparing.
The problem is, NegPy is very frustrating in every other way, so I started comparing with NLP again as well. I’m glad I still renewed my Adobe subscription, since I was locked in at the old pricing.
I considered that there may have been some software update, except that I re-converted a few batches from my old camera in NLP and the results were not as nice as C1. The new camera seems to be the critical factor. I don’t know if the sensor is that much better or if it is due to some kind of baked-in color management or profiling, but the difference is quite significant.
Yes, I am 100% on board for the standalone when it comes out. I hope Nate adds a trichromatic function as well. I don’t use trichromatic scans often, but I would if they were easier to process. Neither ATB nor NegPy are cutting it.
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You could try to snap a negative with both cameras and see if there is a difference. Or edit the lens info of a duplicate scan.
This should engage different profiles and these might make the difference you see.