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Negative Lab Pro

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Linwood Ferguson

Linwood Ferguson
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Is anyone using Negative Lab Pro?

While locked in for Covid I'm back to digitizing negatives and gave it another go. I tried it some time ago and was not overly impressed, but thought I would try again. Going to do two things in this post, one is give a bit of overview of what I see, but also hope to solicit other input to see if you are finding it worth the cost (about $100 +/-).

On the good side (for me) it operates on raw images and adjusts lightroom settings, as opposed to making a pass through TIFF (or whatever) and adjusting outside. That makes it a lot more efficient in terms of disk space and keeps it (sort of) in the lightroom workflow.

On the bad side, like all LR tools until Adobe will let us invert the tone curve earlier, it reverses (or just plain screws up) the sliders. So further adjustments are difficult in LR. So if your goal is to make "normal" adjustments inside LR, you are still limited to tools that invert the tone curve outside and bring a positive back into LR, e.g. Photoshop.

In the next few posts I'll put a bit of my experimentations and experience.

The product by the way is here: Negative Lab Pro

You get a free trial that allows you 12 negative conversions. It's actually better than that, as you can experiment but not save the results (i.e. their "apply") without it charging you for one of the 12.

Installation is fairly manual but easy -- you unzip the file, copy over a bunch of profiles into the LR profile area, and then add the plugin like any other plugin. It runs then off the File, Plug-in Extras menu.

The online instructions are a bit dated, they say:

IMPORTANT: Make sure to TURN OFF the “Use Graphics Processor” option in Lightroom if it is enabled. To do this, go to “Preferences > Performance” and un-check the “Use Graphics Processor” option.

Which concerned me, but the release note install instructions in the file say:

If you are using a version earlier than Lightroom Classic v9.0, mMake sure to TURN OFF the “Use Graphics Processor” option in Lightroom. To do this, go to “Preferences > Performance” and un-check the “Use Graphics Processor” option.

So it would appear whatever limitation was involved no longer exists. I did not turn off graphics in my experimenting.

More to follow...
 
Yeah, I just have to set my mind to it. Lately I've been occupied with dusting off my sewing skills for mask making. I've got a lot of work to do in LR even adding keywords and develop adjustments to my best photos for the last 5 years covering about 10 great travel vacations. Just haven't gotten to it yet. Digitizing old photos and negatives has been on the list even longer.

I've been thinking about getting an Epson scanner or the Nikon ES-2 with an adapter for my camera or maybe both to give me more options. Do I really need Silverfast software if I'm going to use LR or PS? I may try out Negative Lab Pro after seeing your results.
 
I've been thinking about getting an Epson scanner or the Nikon ES-2 with an adapter for my camera or maybe both to give me more options. Do I really need Silverfast software if I'm going to use LR or PS? I may try out Negative Lab Pro after seeing your results.
I don't particularly like Silverfast but lots of people love it. I did like Vuescan but I found I could generally do a better job with Photoshop for positives, and for negatives it is a bit easier than photoshop but not really better. Faster maybe.

What you need is driven in part by what you have. If you have stacks of old photos without negatives, a flatbed scanner (I think) is easier than trying to use a copy stand. Unless the photos are large -- if more than 8.5 wide you either need an expensive flatbed or a copy stand. If you have lots of slides, I think the ES-1 is ideal (the ES-2 probably almost as good but it looks slower as it needs a carrier I think). No software other than lightroom required, it's REALLY fast and easy with slides, most of the time is in cropping once in lightroom, and maybe touching up exposure.

Now if you have large negatives (say 220 size) it's a whole different thing, as you need either special holders, a copy stand, a special negative scanner, or a flatbed scanner -- and then you might find VueScan or Silverfast helpful.

Inventory, and google a bit to see photos of people's setups. I'd also suggest in the inventory apply some judgement -- my old photos (without negatives) were almost entirely from an instamatic or brownie or something and were in poor focus. I wanted to keep many of them (lots I tossed) but putting huge effort into a perfect digital copy of an awful quality photo wasn't worth it.
 
I'm using an Epson V500 scanner for my photos, and I'm waiting for the Nikon ES-2 to become available for my slides. After I had scanned about 95% of the photos in my first batch (about 3400 photos) I found negatives for most of the photos. I might use the ES-2 on the negatives of the more important photos to see if I get better results than the scans. I found the Epson Scan software that comes with the scanner to be good for photos, but others like VueScan better. When I looked at Silverfast a couple of years ago, the version you purchase is tied to your scanner. If your scanner breaks and you get a different model, you have to buy a version of Silverfast for the new scanner.

I'd suggest getting the book "Digitizing Your Photos with Your Camera and Lightroom" by Peter Krogh and taking a look at website scanyourentirelife.com. The website is more about scanning photos, but has some interesting thoughts about organizing and file naming.
 
I will take the earlier advice and pull everything together before making any final decisions. I know I have lots of photos of my children growing up that I want to save but I'm not sure they are in good enough shape to digitize. They have been in albums since the 80's, the kind with "sticky pages" under plastic (I didn't know better then) and the few times I've pulled a photo out in recent years, it has diagonal lines throughout from the pages. I think I still have all the negatives so my first step will be to match negatives to prints, at least by years. Then I'll work on digitizing the negatives and only do prints where there are no negatives. In all cases I do plan on culling first and only doing the best.

I didn't realize Peter Krogh had a book on Digitizing. I'm a big fan of his Organization book so I'll definitely look for it.

Thanks all.
Mickey
 
If you go to damuseful.com, you can get the book for 50% off until the end of April. His other books are also 50% off.
 
I think I still have all the negatives so my first step will be to match negatives to prints, at least by years. Then I'll work on digitizing the negatives and only do prints where there are no negatives. In all cases I do plan on culling first and only doing the best.

I hope you were more organized. I've been finding negatives all split up. I just found a second roll from the night of my son's birth, the first I did a couple years ago, this was in a separate box. Who knows how they got separated. And probably 5% or less of the negative sleeves are labeled.
 
We'll see. I think I have all negatives stored in boxes in only a few places. I have no idea whether things are labeled or not. One of the reasons I haven't started this project yet is I'm afraid of what I'll find. :eek2:
 
Scanners vary from about $100 to $1200 in the common range, with $200 getting a pretty decent one (US pricing).
On this, a number of years ago I bought an Epson V500 as a general scanner/copier and one with attachments for slides and film. Unfortunately, the slide scanner only takes 4 slides at a time. A friend lent me his V700 which takes 12 slides at a time. A great time saver especially when I'm initially performing quick-and-dirty scans to thumbnails for review. So, balance price with capacity relative to your volume.

But you need to train yourself to be a digitizer before you dive in fully. Experiment, practice a bit on a small (but representative) sample, figure out what works well, what you can get good at, all the while you are also organizing
I found this advice invaluable. Also, ensure you experiment with POST processing if you are going that route. Most scanners will allow you to select a limited number of adjustments when scanning. If you are just going from scan to file to print, make sure you understand how to use these. If you are going into something like LR then there is no need to use any of the controls except maybe dust control. Epson has a nice ICE technology.

Also understand how to name the scanned files. For some reason, in my youth, I mixed up slides. This has led to many more separate 'batches' in order to load everything into LR properly. My workflow involved loading, scanning, then numbering each slide in a batch to match it's file name suffix. The slide numbers from the developer would not always be of value.
 
Also understand how to name the scanned files. For some reason, in my youth, I mixed up slides. This has led to many more separate 'batches' in order to load everything into LR properly.

I'd also recommend creating a keyword for each box of slides or sleeve group of negatives (I label each roll with a number, and then each sleeve with a decimal, e.g. sleeve 103.3 is the 3rd sleeve of roll 103). I then put in the roll number (only) as a keyword when I image them in. Or box number for slides. I figure I can look through a roll or box, but this gets me close enough if I ever want to go back to the original.

Alternative #2: Through them out after imaging. But I'm a pack rat. ;)
 
Extremely interesting thread Ferguson,
My goal is to digitize my negatives from the early 1980’s to late 2000 when I switched to using digital cameras.
I have my Minolta Dimage 5400 scanner it is a film scanner for negatives and slides not a flatbed scanner, since around 2007. I am familiar with creating scans to tiff files but it is a slow and tedious process.
A few years ago after I purchased an iMac and did a OS update to a new version maybe Mohave the scanner stopped functioning since there was no updated driver for the scanner. Then I came across an update from VueScan that offered support specific to the Dimage 5400 which allowed me to continue using the scanner. But as indicated earlier its a slow process.
A few weeks ago I decided to explore the possibility of using my camera to photograph the negatives so as to speed up the process. A few days ago I came across a new application “Negative Lab Pro” from the Blog post by Victoria.
The app claims that it can allow me to use VueScan application with my specific scanner to create DNG Raw files which can be imported to Lightroom Classic. I have been using Lr since 2007 when it was launched as my go to app for processing my raw files.
It was like a dream come true and I am now stuck in trying to get the process to function properly, when I follow the instructions provided by Nate the DNG scan from my scanner with VueScan displays just a totally white background. The info properties appear as I would expect just no color image. Any idea why that would take place?
I am on a short vacation and will check my process with the tips provided in the thread and provide further info. I would be a great start before processing in LrC.
 
P.S. I am using Mac OS 11.2.3.
The DNG imports into LrC but the image is still a weight back ground.
While using Nate's instruction the popup concerning a change in metadata not sure if to use the option to write to file or import from disk.
 
I have been using the software for 9 months or more and found that it was so much faster and better than the previous manual method with lightroom that it was the only effective way to work. It is obviously essential to use RAW and the white balance from Neg Lab Pro to get good results though the subtleties of Nate are still way above my skills and needs at this time. I still have difficulty dealing with the limited light sensitivity range of film and its colour effects. I have found that the Pansonic GH4 does a great job for me and has a resolution better than the old 35 mm films with their very patchy local developers and more demanding camera operation.
 
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I have been using the software for 9 months or more and found that it was so much faster and better than the previous manual method with lightroom that it was the only effective way to work. It is obviously essential to use RAW and the white balance from Neg Lab Pro to get good results though the subtleties of Nate are still way above my skills and needs at this time. I still have difficulty dealing with the limited light sensitivity range of film and its colour effects. I have found that the Pansonic GH4 does a great job for me and has a resolution better than the old 35 mm films with their very patchy local developers and more demanding camera operation.
For an issue with Facial Recognition with scanned images and NLP, see post #4 in this thread on the forum. Face Recognition.

Phil
 
P.S. I am using Mac OS 11.2.3.
The DNG imports into LrC but the image is still a weight back ground.
While using Nate's instruction the popup concerning a change in metadata not sure if to use the option to write to file or import from disk.
White background no image viewable.
 
White background no image viewable.
This thread is about Negative Lab Pro, but it sounds like you are using Vuescan? I'm confused as to your question's context. Or are you trying to use both together?
 
I am have access to the full creative cloud suite.
OS is macOS 11.2.3.
I recently installed Negative Lab Pro in the free test mode.
My goal is to scan my 35mm film negatives as raw DNG to work with in LrC 10.2.
I am in this forum since I learned about the possibility of using NLP (negative lab pro) from the Blog article on the website.
The scanner that I have is Minolta Dimage 5400 which is a film scanner not a flatbed scanner and VueScan is scanning software app similar to Silverfast that allows the capture of raw DNG files that is supported by NLP.
The reason that I need to use VueScan is because that is the only application that has support for my scanner and my OS i.e. Big Sur.
My specific question relates to the final step in the process while the DNG has been imported to LrC.
I am at a beach resort for a few days and not at my home computer so I am not able to supply screen captures.
Also I also have to check an update to VueScan which was released on 23/04/2021.
 
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Generally one uses something like vuescan to scan a negative AND invert it to a positive.

And generally one uses NLP if you have taken a picture of a negative, e.g. macro lens and digital camera.

That's not to say you couldn't scan a negative to a negative and use NLP for that. But you have to make sure that your scanner software is not doing the normal thing of inverting it. But generally speaking the file from Vuescan, even if DNG, is not going to be a raw image like from a camera, so not sure if NLP will be happy. You could ask the guy at his site, he's pretty responsive.

As to DNG -- that seems a bit of a side complication. My suggestion would be to use the default format out of Vuescan first (Tiff maybe) and get that working, then try DNG if your really want DNG.

Honestly though, if you want to use Vuescan (or any scanner support software), I would let it do its thing and do the inversion to a positive, then take that into Lightroom for tweaking. I think trying to stop it halfway and invert separately in another program is a complication without a benefit.

But ... I've only done a very tiny amount with scanner (vs camera imaged) negatives. Maybe someone else has more clarity... ?
 
Thanks for that clarification, I am already reaching out to Nate for help however I just thought you may have been able to assist.
Nate has a full article on the process but somehow I am not able to get a viewable image. I have no problem in creating a tiff but NLP is offering a raw DNG option to LrC with more benefits than the tiff including profiles.
If I create a tiff then I have no need for NLP.
My other alternative is to forget the scanner and use my Camera to photograph the negatives. My negatives are from 1980 to 1998.
 
Interesting. It's been longer than that since I used Vuescan. In that case ignore everything I've said, I guess they can be used together (though I still do not really understand WHY you would want to).
 
So it's the cost of NLP $100 vs additional equipment to setup for the camera scan, backlight $100, macro lens for my camera OM-D EM-1, 30mm m4/3 $300 other items maybe $200.
I just cannot get the test functioning properly to test the quality output.
 
Over the past few days I did a bit more reviewing the info in the thread and have ordered a Macro lens a backlight and riser to hold my camera while scanning the negatives.
I will then be able to use the scanner or my camera to create raw files for use in NLP.
Does NLP work with the native raw files from the camera or do you convert to DNG when importing into LrC?
 
Does NLP work with the native raw files from the camera or do you convert to DNG when importing into LrC?
If it's a compatible file for lightroom NLP should work with it, but you can check with them, they have a large number of camera profiles that are loaded (.DCP files).

And Vuescan's conversion was not good enough? I was not terribly impressed with it personally, but I know a lot of people use and like it.

My goal was to end up with positives -- for things I may really want later I used tiff, but for many snapshots I wasn't ready to delete but likely will never look at I just converted to jpg. So from my time doing it, it was more "whatever got me the best result". I did a few vuescan, some I ran through photoshop and inverted (that's really not a bad choice but tedious -- just isolate each color separately), most I did via NLP. I suspect you will also find that for some negatives different approaches work better than they do for others.
 
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