Moose spoke thusly:
> I'm not entirely in agreement with him. When scanning color neg film with
> an ICC profile, I usually find the scan to
> look quite good "right out of the box". However, I still am mostly
> interested in the histogram at that point - and he is
> the well known master printer.
>
Moose's ICC profile applied in the scanner software is really just applying
a pre-programmed curve to the image file. It's a time saver for getting the
image close to the way the film renders a standard scene in standard
lighting to a standard result. Absolutely no different than AA's "Zone
System" which was a calibrated way of doing ICC profiles before there ever
were ICC profiles.
Since Moose referenced VueScan, let's address that. When you do a scan with
VueScan and a decent scanner, one can turn off all the color adjustments.
Perform a preview scan and see how light or dark the image is. Altering the
scanner exposure (first tab) is no different than adjusting the exposure in
a camera--it's a way to get the basic exposure as close to YOUR raw file
ideal as possible. Some with ETTR, some will EFTM, some with ETTL. The
histogram is a great guide. Once you have the entire histogram comfortably
within limits (the Nikon scanners make this easy as they have gobs of DR),
then you can scan and save this file making believe in your head that it's
just a RAW file from a digital camera--as it is exactly that. The scanner is
a digital camera and the scene just happens to be a macro picture of a flat
see-through object, not a 3D distant image. So treat it as such.
So, Moose's ICC profile is pretty much like the ICC profile digital cameras
apply to the image data when you are doing in-camera JPEGs. Actually, it is
no difference at all.
Ctein applies his own curves (which is all an ICC profile is) to the image
file in PhotoShop. Moose applies them in VueScan. Same thing, the curves are
applied in exactly the same way post-scan. The scanner is doing absolutely
nothing different. Tabs 2, 3 and 4 in VueScan are all post-scan. Only Tab 1
addresses the physical traits of the scanner itself.
AG
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