Month after month we have enquiries from readers asking about why their scanned pictures don't look like the original print, and it would seem that the main reason for this is simply a misunderstanding of the equipment. A scanner is not a photocopier and will not produce accurate reproductions time after time.
Let's for one minute return to the dark ages of darkroom technique. If you have used a darkroom to print colour pictures then you will know the hassles and tribulations. First of all before you can print a colour picture you have to place in the enlarger head a filter pack. This is a mixture of any two of cyan, magenta, yellow in differing thickness' known as cc's. This is to compensate for a natural colour cast in that particular manufacturers brand and type of film. Then of course your negatives might have a cast of their own so test strips need to be done, jiggle with the filtration and do more test strips.
It has been largely automated these days with mini labs and auto enlargers, but all the same an original negative has to be used to set up all the variations. These are provided by the film manufacturers, usually a face, a colour strip, and a grey card. Then the set up can be done quite accurately. The reason I draw your attention to all this is because although not nearly as daunting, your scanner has to make some assumptions about what it is scanning.
Somewhere in the software you will be able to calibrate your scanner. You will either be asked to place a grey card in it, or it will scan the inside of the lid, whatever it is trying to find a starting point for the scans you will be doing. After calibrating I like to try and find a picture with a good mix of colours, red, blue, green and white. All the colours come in many shades, but white is white, but as you have learnt already it reflects nearby colours. I then scan with no adjustments and using my picture software I use the drip to pick up the colours and then see what the software says they are. If you have never tried to see what colour cast a picture has it is very hard to do on the computer screen.
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| Now the picture on the left was the original non adjusted scan and looked fine as was, until I made some adjustments which gave the much more satisfying scan on the right. Once you have made your adjustments to your scanner then most of the work you do should be true to life as you see it. | |
Some photographers like warm pictures as it gives a feeling of warmth and sunny days. Some prefer what is termed a cold picture as they believe it is truer to life. I haven't even tackled brightness and contrast in any of these pictures the adjustments are purely colour cast.
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| Again the picture on the left has been adjusted to give me what I am looking for from the print and is a lot nearer to the original print. | |
As I say once you have made your adjustments and saved them as your preferences then that should be that. If it starts to wander off then re calibrate your scanner. If you change film stock or lab then redo your preferences. There is no reason why you cannot save several preferences for different situations.
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| You can see very clearly here how adjustments can be made to good effect. | |
I hope you see how adjusting your scans so the colour is right gives each picture that little more sparkle. If you had first looked at the left hand pictures on their own most of you would have found them quite acceptable, it's not until you compare you can see the difference.
Now below is an example of how to approach your adjustments.
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| This is the original picture. | Tackle the contrast and brightness first. | Then remove the colour cast to arrive at the finished print you want. |
This model is Cherri and she is in our model directory.
I hope this gives you some idea of why working with your scanner is so important. Of course you could just scan away and make the changes in your image software later, but it is easier to do all the adjustments once and know your prints will look right.
©Struthers Web 2001