gmw12 wrote:
I have a bunch of color negatives which I photographed and saved as jpegs and RAW files. Is there a free programme which can handle the conversion into positives, including the neutralization of the orange mask ?
(I tried GIMP but the learning curve is a bit too steep).
The biggest issue with 'free' is that it isn't without the costs of time, frustrations, poor quality, a long learning curve, and other expenditures. "Free" options may be out there, but they might be so painful to use that you give up quickly.
There is a good reason the systems that work well cost money. Converting color film negative images to positives that resemble reality (or at least resemble Type 'C' traditional silver halide chromogenic process prints) is very complex. I know, from having run a very high volume, very high speed, very high quality scanning operation in a commercial professional portrait lab for five years (late 2000 to early 2005). The systems we used were:
> Kodak DP2 Print Production Software (a MS SQL industrial class server database)
> Nine Kodak Bremson HR-500 and HR-500+ scanners
> Nine Kodak Wheelman color correction stations with calibrated, profiled monitors
DP2 was a $40,000/year license. It ran on about 75 workstations in the lab (at no extra license charge per PC)
The scanners cost about $55,000 each with computers to run them.
The Wheelman setups (color console, high-end PC, monitor, furniture) cost about $4000 each.
The network infrastructure to make use of the system and its data cost millions. And, of course, we printed on Noritsu digital mini-labs (100K to 180K each x 15)
The results from the system described in my white paper (the PDF attached above) will do a job at least as high quality as those expensive commercial systems did for us back when film was still king. But remember the old adage, "Good, Fast, and Cheap... Pick any two?" It's good and cheap. It's much slower than the lab was. The lab was good, fast, and expensive! We scanned 7 to 9 images per second during peak usage.
You do need:
> A subscription to the Adobe Photography Plan, about $11/month with tax included.
> Negative Lab Pro Lightroom Classic Plug-in software ($99 one time, plus tax).
> A well-diffused light source capable of very high "color rendering index" output (under $50)
> A suitable film holder — the EFH is under £100. It's a little more in dollars due to exchange rate and shipping.
> A computer with custom-calibrated and custom-profiled monitor (I assume you have that already).
> A camera and macro lens (I assume you have that already).
> A tripod or copy stand or other device to keep the film parallel to the sensor (I assume you have that already).
Here are a few samples of scans from the setup I describe. These were particularly difficult to process due to the age of the negatives and the conditions under which they were stored: