It's often easier to make the color corrections with the scanner software rather than with Photoshop (and I assume that also applies to Paint Shop Pro) because scanner software often includes film profiles, which is very helpful in removing the orange mask from color negative film. But a lot of scanner software can't "read" 48-bit raw files, so you're forced to use Photoshop or equivalent for the color processing. That's why I like SilverFast HDR since it can read the 48-bit raw files. I like to create the 48-bit files with SilverFast Ai (I use Insight to create them for my medium format scanner as SilverFast Ai crashes with large files) because I can do the time consuming color correcting with SilverFast HDR days later if I want to, and if I make a mistake with the color correction, I can always go back to the original raw file and start over. That saves me doing a rescan. Some people like to "arch!
ive" the raw 48-bit files as it has all of the information you can possibly get from the scanner and you might want to process it differently some time later. I don't do that as medium format scans at 48-bits are about 600 MB in size and take too much storage room. If you do a good job of color correcting in the 48-bit mode, you can convert to 24-bit little no fear of regrets later.
I think you'd find it easier to use SilverFast HDR to process your raw scans, but if Paint Shop Pro works for you, use it.
In a message dated 12/4/2001 9:22:04 PM Pacific Standard Time, tristanjohn@mindspring.com writes:
I believe you, Maris, but I'm not too swift when it comes to learning the
ins and outs of software. Let me get a handle on SilverFast, then we'll see.
On a different note, I finally did a RAW scan and worked with it in Paint
Shop Pro until the result matched my mind's eye of what the scene looked
like when I tripped the shutter. Up until now I exported TIFF files
exclusively from Insight. Do others here work with RAW images? What are
your results? I kind of like it.
