Scanning and Post-Processing Colour Neg Film

Version 1.1, page 4, ©2003, 2004 by Dale Cotton, all rights reserved

Photoshop, 16-Bit Work, continued

• 10. Use the brightness (RGB) "channel" in the Curves dialogue to adjust the image's contrast to whatever makes you happy:

Fig 8. Adjusting contrast

Note:It is this step that is most likely to degrade your image in 24-bit mode. Changing the curve by any significant amount expands some portions of the historgram and squeezes others together. When you only have 256 steps from black to white, such distortions can create visible degradation to your image.

• 11. If desired or necessary, use Photoshop's Hue/Saturation dialogue to tweak the saturation of the entire image. In this image I goosed the Red and Yellow saturations up a tad to compensate for Reala's weak yellows and reds:

Fig 9. Adjusting saturation (Velvia, anyone?)

• 12. Spot the image at 200% to remove scratches & specks that VueScan missed, the black edges of film, and foreign objects such as phone wires:

Fig 10. Disconnecting phone service for outlying customers