Andrea,
The calibrated auto correction will try to match the chrome for color
in whatever state it's in, but it sets the end points (contrast) for a
"good" black and white. My guess is you're getting scans that are too
contrasty to correct. You can put contrast in, but if you take it out
you lose so much image detail the image just looks wrong no matter
what you do. So I would try scanning with the custom IT-8 profile for
color, but include the edge of the mount in the scan area and the
black point should set on that. Hopefully this will give an
approximation of the original. Then import the scan into Photoshop
(use a hi-bit scan) and put the chrome on a 5000K light box and work
toward an exact match with curves etc. A hardware calibrated monitor
will probably help a lot in this situation. AFAIK there is nothing
you can do beyond trying to get a fairly flat and "raw" scan into
Photoshop to work on because different films fades individually. With
practice you may even get relatively fast -- relative to real slow
that is.... :)
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrea de Polo <andrea@alinari.it>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 1:07 PM
Subject: filmscanners: Scanner calibration for old dyes!
> Hello,
>
> I have my Microtek Artixscan 4000T calibrated using the Kodak IT8
> slide and my chromes look ok; The problem is when I have to scan
very
> old slides, dated back in the 1940' and 1950; the have major color
> deterioration; by apply the current ICC profile I will get very bad
> color balanced images; this is because the dyes and colors of the
> current target from Kodak, Agfa, etc, are very different from the
> images dated back in the 1940 .......
>
> How shall I than calibrated and match my color for those kind of old
> images, considering the fact that I do not want really to provide
> accurate color restoration, BUT scan and maintain the color hue and
> color value of those old images close to as they are today???
>
> TIA; Andrea
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