Why are my reds consistently oversaturated?

Image Editing Help
1

Hi all, dear Nate

this is my first post so please excuse my bluntness and lack of experience, I have read through some posts here already but none of them quite seemed to address my problem properly so I thought I might give it a shot.

Technical setup and workflow:

  • DSLR: Canon 7D Mark I from 2012
  • Optics: Canon 50mm, 1.4 and a 21mm extension tube between body and lense (“fake macro”).
  • Negative holder and light source: “Valoi easy 35”
  • Tethered shooting via Canon EOS Utiliy 2.
  • Aperture priority at f8 and 100 ISO
  • ETTR allowed for overexposure of up to 2 stops.
  • Import of raw files to Lightroom Classic
  • Applied NLP default settings (NLP v3)
  • …So far so good!

The result you can see here:

IMG_0017
IMG_00171920×1280 3.11 MB

The film is AGFA VISTA 200-N (35mm), nothing special in those days (2003). I bought and had it developed in a local drug store back then (so the negatives are well over 20 years old but have not been taken out of their spot ever, until yesterday).
The issue I have with this shot in particular is that the reds seem very artificial and do not seem to blend in nicely with rest of the picture (I picked this shot because the color is so omnipresent here). This is something I noticed in a large number of other shots, too, though. Not only from this roll but within a wide range of color negatives that I converted over the past couple of weeks with the above setup and settings.
I un-coverted this particular shot over and over and tried lower pre-saturation levels as well as other color models but whatever I did, it just did not seem to come out quite like the print I got from the store (needless to say that “Ferrari Red”, as beautiful and deep as is may be, never pops quite that hard in my humble estimation).
As I said, the issue seems to be a systemic one (I hope it is, anyway) but I just cannot figure out what setting(s) I have to tweak to make especially the reds in my pictures less “thick”.

I will upload the raw DSLR scan as soon as I have figured out how to upload .CR2 files…

I very much enjoy the plugin in general and I am happy to learn more about the dos and don’ts, it makes the endeavor of saving old film so much easier!
Thank you so much in advance for your help!

Cheers
Thomas

2

Welcome to the forum @Behemoth

Saturation of reds can be caused by the characteristics of the film used, storage time etc…and also by “Ferrari red” as well as Canon’s rendering of red.

You might try to “scan” with less pronounced ETTR and with a preset that reduces red after the conversion, which is easier to do with a positive copy.

3

From my experience Agfa Vista 200 is much warmer than earlier Agfa emulsions (e.g., XR i).

4

Dear @Digitizer,

Thank you for your swift reply.

Following your tips I took a series of DSLR scans from this particular negative, first in full f-stops and later even in thirds of f-stops within a bracket from -3 EV to +3 EV: Some interesting results surfaced, mostly on the fringe values of the bracket though. On the other hand: Anything from roughly -2EV to +2EV was giving me very similar results to the one in my initial post. I noticed rather subtle differences in the reds though (probably also in other parts of the picture but I focussed on reds, exclusively). Eventually, I picked the one I felt most comfortable with only to realise that it was just a third of a stop apart from what the inital one was.

The even bigger surprise came however when I looked at the picture on my laptop screen instead of my monitor. Here the colours appeared much more “natural” all of a sudden. So, maybe the problem is not really to be solved in the plugin or in Lightroom after all but rather in adjusting the screen correctly?

Now I fear I might have to get another monitor…

Cheers
Thomas

5

Calibrating might help too. Most people use measuring devices from Calibrite or Datacolor.
The devices come with appropriate software, but DisplyCal (open source) works too.