I used it successfully on Kodacolor 400, one of the most popular color negative films in 1987 (when the photo below of me and my daughter was taken with my Canon FT-QL SLR). That strip of Kodacolor most definitely does have an orange mask.
Try it - don’t just go on the basis of preconceptions.
Canon EOS R7, shot RAW at ISO 100, f/5.6, shutter speed 1/250, electronic first curtain to get full bit depth. Used the LED backlit JJC FDA-S1 film (and slide) scanner attachment that screws into a lens’ filter threads with my EF-S 60mm f/2.8 macro lens and the EF to R adapter. (While their instructions say this will get only the center of the image, it gets it sprocket holes and all.)
PS I left Photolab set to my default RAW import settings - no changes were needed.
Please see my post above where I talk about this tool where I said…
“While this setting does invert the negative and allow for “normal” processing, some other tools are still inverted. E.G. the White Balance Pick Colour dropper. If you use this after you have made any adjustments, it will mess up the colours. The Selective Tone sliders are also reversed.
So, rather than use the dropper, I set the WB manually by eye immediately after I selected Negative (RGB). Then, I started adjusting the individual RGB tone curves, then Luminance and contrast. I fine tuned the colours using the HSL panel.
End result - not any different to the process I described above.
It eliminates having to swap the colour channels with the Tone Curve but, you still have to adjust the individual RGB channels anyway.”
The orange mask is still there but now it becomes a blue mask.
I am not saying that this tool is useless, rather, there is little advantage in its use compared to just swapping the colour channels. It can provide a good starting point depending on the negative.
I tested various images on different film types, including roll film, and was only able to invert one image without the blue mask overlay. In all other cases, I removed the orange mask using the white balance tool.
A friend who I had lured onto mirrorless a year or so ago brought his EOS R6 Mark II over and we tested the same rig on a strip of his old orange-masked negatives using his EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS- which once again got the entire frame, despite the instructions saying it would only get the center:
I suspect that the white balance setting that you used are the reason that a straight inversion using curves worked for you.
Part of the point of this thread was to investigate if the new Invert and curves tool from Film Pack 8 are worth buying. In my opinion they are not for the following two reasons, using them changes the action of the white balance tool rendering it useless and the new curves tool does not provide the same features as the built in curves tool.
I use curves to invert the colours and set the black and white points for each colour. Here the histogram that is part of curves is useful. Then the two sliders in white balance may be used to make fine corrections while observing the main histogram. Some images benefit from a boost in contrast.
With that all said there are better alternatives:
The app Filmlab2 straightens, crops and converts a folder of images to either jpeg or tiff and is good value for money.
The app Capture One provides a semi automatic method of converting multiple images. Having downloaded a trial I now realise that I struggle to see and use the tools provided in DxO because of the dark, low contrast design of the user interface. Also the histogram in DxO lags behind the adjustments whereas the one in Capture One does not and the tools provided by Capture One are not as course as those of DxO PL.
Now that I have tried Capture One and now recognise the short comings of the user interface in Photolab I will be using Capture One from now on.
You’re not the only one. The DxO developers decided about four years ago to design an interface that only a twenty year old could appreciate. Even though the DxO userbase slants over-forty (to understate the case).
I have trouble using PhotoLab. Even on a bright monitor, I can only use PhotoLab as I more or less memorised the interface back in the days when there was still some contrast in the interface.
Is there anyone home at DxO? Reading these forums? Listening to their users? It seems the new minds in the DxO marketing department believe the way to win in business is by wasting millions and millions on advertising instead of by winning hearts and minds.
Copying colour negatives isn’t something I’m likely to do but I found this thread quite interesting in a what can be coaxed out of Photolab way.
If I were to attempt it, I might shoot some colour negative film of a colour calibration chart, get the best result possible then use that as a starting point preset for other scans.
I just decided to start with my 35mm slides and then moved on to my negatives but it is a long process and I just hope its worth it in the long run.
The more conversions I do the better I’m getting although every so ofter there is an image that just does not want to look good. Then its best to give up for a few hours. Thankfully once a few presets have been created the conversions are fast and its good to be staying in a raw workflow.
