Converting Negatives

[AndyW]

Hi All

I hope that this is in the right place if not hopefully I will learn soon.

I am in the process of digitising my old 35mm negatives (some of which are underwater), and am having trouble converting from negative format to colour photo. Does anyone know if there is a function in photoshop that will do this conversion, or will I need a third party application, if so which one?

Thank in advance

Andy

[KenByrne]

How are you scanning the negs. My film scanner software has a function to convert from colour neg to colour positive. As you've probably found out a straight colour reversal doesn't work. This is because neg film has an orange mask this has to be removed in the conversion process. My scanner software has settings for various film types as the charateristics are different from film to film.

You could try VueScan if your scanner is supported. It can be downloaded here VueScan Scanner Software and it's free to try it. If it does the job then you'll need to pay $40 to get a fully functional version.

I've also found this article which explains how to do the job using just photoshop and the curves tool MacEdition : Features: : June 26, 2003

[AndyW]

Thanks Ken

I am using a supported Nikon scanner with vuescan but was getting very frustrated by the fact that every time I scanned an image the colours were changing and I wasn't able to get a good representation. I think I will download the newest version of vuescan and try again.

Andy