More Scanner v750 Profiling
Ok – since my first attempts to create a profile at the weekend, I’ve continued with Provia. Interestingly, the Provia result that worked out best was the profile that is recommended for Velvia 100, Provia 400 and Astia 100. I can only think that the new Provia 100 is being produced using the same base as Velvia 100 and Astia 100 (which would make a certain amount of sense).
If I use the recommended profile, I end up with a lot more Magenta/Pink colour in the mid to low tones. I tried playing with alternative profiles to pull out some of the shadow detail but for the scans I have made so far, the ‘N’ icc profile (N = Wolf Faust code for astia/provia400/velvia 100) seems to get the full range out. see here for wolf faust codes
I’ve also played around again with Velvia scans and am now happy with the pure Velvia profile and I’ve also generated a new boosted profile that will get more out of the shadows which keeps the colours more accurate. I’ve linked to the N, V and V boost profiles at the bottom of this post.
If you want to see some tests with me using the different profiles against velvia, provia and astia, have a look at the following:-
Budle Bay – Astia and Velvia at Sunset
This was taken on Budle Bay and you can see that the velvia profile scanned Astia is too magenta all through the shadows. The ‘N’ profile scan looks great, a nice subtle colour, quite different from the Velvia which is just a little too magenta for my tastes (but accurate to the transparency).
Dunstaburgh Daylight – Provia, Astia and Velvia
Here you can see that the velvia transparency has boosted the greens and we have quite a magenta cast in the sky wheras the Astia and Provia have clean skies with neutral clouds. Of note is the comparison between the Astia using the Velvia profile and the Astia using the correct profile. To see this different clearly, click on the N astia box and then roll your cursor over the V astia box to see the difference. The Velvia profile adds significant magenta to the astia skies and then muddies up the grass with too much brown. The correct astia profile gives an accurate water and grass colour,
Holy Island Shed – Astia and Velvia
Again the comparison between the Astia using the velvia profile and the correct profile shows the velvia profile adding too much magenta, ruining the grass colour and making for mucky shadows. The correct profile really brings the bleached wood out and the summer grass colour becomes believable. The velvia profile also clips shadows. I’ve included the velvia scan for accurate comparison between the two film types (I trust these scans more than my previous comparison).
Holy Island Rocks – Shadow detail with Velvia and Astia
Oops – I used two different compositions for the two films (actually I didn’t I just scanned the wrong trannies) anyway – they’re close enough to show the information.
Again, the improvement in the rendering of the Astia scan using the correct profile is amazing. I’m beginning to like the film again 
shame that it’s so hard to get hold of. For shots like this though, the cool blue shadows and the richer greens make Velvia an obvious choice.
Saltwick Nab – Provia
This is the transparency I used to match up the provia profile. I had used the Velvia profile on the pictures in my gallery where the additional magenta looked quite nice but it wasn’t what was on the transparency. When I used the Wolf Faust ‘N’ profile I got very accurate results.
Hodge Quarry – Velvia and Astia
The shadows on this Peak Imaging development are more intense than the base shadow in my Velvia profile and hence were blocking up (although the colours were spot on). So I made a subtle curve to darken the scan of the target (in Lab) to try and trick EZColor profile generator to create a profile that would pull some more detail out of transparencies. This was a tricky balance – make it too dark and you just get noise in your final scan. Alter the contrast too much and your colour gets inaccurate. I finally found a happy medium.
Click on ‘V velvia’ (the standard scan) and then roll over ‘V pull dark’ and have a look at the black cave on the middle right of the picture. The pull dark profile gets quite a bit more out of the shadows.
And the profiles!
You can download all of the pictures to look at in a program of your choice by clicking here
I’ve added a comparison of the raw velvia profile on that quarry cave compared with the boosted profile in the sidebar.
UPDATE: I should add a note here that Ian Scovell was very kind in spending some time on the phone with me over the last couple of days to talk through my ideas about the need for different profiles and also general background about scanning – Thanks Ian – if you want to leave all this complexity to the experts, Ian makes some of the best professional scans you will find in the UK. They are so good I will happily pay the £12 per scan for full service including cleaning and spotting
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