Colour Management

A good scan isn’t only about resolution and detail. Colour is just as important, and getting it right requires more than adjusting an image until it looks good on a monitor.

I use a fully colour-managed workflow to make sure the colour captured by the scanner is translated accurately into the digital file. This starts with profiling the scanner itself and continues through to the wide-gamut colour space and embedded profile in the finished scan.

The aim is to give you a file that faithfully represents what I’ve captured from the film while preserving as much colour information as practical for further editing.

Scanner Profiling

Every scanner has its own colour response. The RGB values produced by a scanner are measurements made by that particular device, and without a profile there is no precise definition of what those values mean in terms of actual colour.

I profile my scanning system using a HutchColor 6×7 transparency target. The target contains a large range of carefully measured colour and tonal values, which are used to characterize the response of the scanner and create a custom ICC input profile.

When a piece of film is scanned, this profile gives the raw RGB data from the scanner a defined colour meaning. The image can then be converted into a standard, device-independent colour-managed workflow.

This is different from simply adjusting the colour of an individual scan by eye. The profile characterizes the scanning system itself and provides a consistent starting point for every image.

Transparency Film

Transparency film is particularly well suited to a colour-managed scanning workflow because the film itself contains the finished positive image.

When I scan a transparency, the scanner profile is first used to accurately interpret the RGB data captured from the film. The image is then converted into a wide-gamut working colour space while retaining its high bit depth.

From there, any image-specific tonal adjustments can be made without changing the underlying colour characterization of the scanner.

The objective isn’t to impose a particular look on the photograph, but to reproduce the colour and tonality of the original transparency as faithfully as possible.

Colour Negative Film

Colour negative film is different because the film itself isn’t the finished positive image. The dyes form a complementary image behind the familiar orange mask, and that image has to be inverted and balanced before it becomes a usable positive photograph.

I scan colour negatives as positive RGB originals rather than relying on the scanner’s automatic negative conversion. The scanner profile is assigned first and the image is converted into the same wide-gamut colour-managed workflow used for other film.

At that point I have a colour-managed representation of the negative itself. The negative can then be inverted and individually balanced as a separate step.

This separation is important: the scanner profile characterizes how the scanner sees the film, while the inversion determines how that negative is interpreted as a positive image.

Because a colour negative doesn’t contain a directly viewable positive reference, there isn’t necessarily one predetermined interpretation of its final colour and tonality. When I provide a manually inverted scan, my aim is to produce a natural, neutral starting point while preserving plenty of latitude for you to take the image in your own direction.

Raw positive scans are also available if you’d prefer to handle the inversion yourself.

Black-and-White Film

Black-and-white film is scanned in RGB, even though the finished image is monochrome. Capturing all three colour channels preserves the complete information recorded by the scanner and provides greater flexibility when reproducing the tonal information in the negative.

Finished scans are normally supplied as 16-bit grayscale TIFFs, avoiding the unnecessary file size of a three-channel RGB file. The original RGB scan can also be supplied on request.

Wide-Gamut Colour

Finished Flextight Scans and Drum Scans are supplied in a wide-gamut RGB colour space with the colour profile embedded in the file.

A wide-gamut space can represent a much larger range of colours than a smaller space such as sRGB. This is useful for a master scan because converting to a smaller colour space too early can permanently discard colours that fall outside that space.

Keeping the master scan in a wide-gamut space preserves that information for subsequent editing, printing and reproduction. You can then convert the image to the appropriate output colour space when you know where it will ultimately be used.

For example, a copy intended for the web can be converted to sRGB, while a printing workflow may call for a different RGB space or direct conversion to a printer profile.

If you would prefer your scans delivered in sRGB or another colour space, I can do that on request.

Embedded Colour Profiles

The colour profile is embedded in the finished file. This tells colour-managed software how the RGB values in the image should be interpreted.

Applications such as Photoshop can then display the image correctly and convert it to other colour spaces while preserving its appearance as closely as the destination space allows.

This is especially important with a wide-gamut file. Without the embedded profile, the RGB numbers alone don’t provide enough information for another application to know what colours they’re intended to represent.

A Starting Point for Your Photograph

My goal isn’t to make every scan look a particular way. It’s to give you a technically sound, colour-managed master file that preserves what I’ve captured from the film and gives you room to work.

For transparency film, that means staying as faithful as practical to the appearance of the original. For colour negatives, it means providing a balanced interpretation without imposing a heavy colour grade or stylistic look.

From there, the photograph is yours. Colour, contrast, saturation and other creative decisions can be taken wherever you want them.