🌐 🇩🇪 🇬🇧

photoinfos.com

Converting Color Negatives with SilverFast HDR 8

2022 © Thomas Gade

Index: From Negative to Positive

SilverFast by LaserSoft is a professional scanning software. Versions are available for almost every film scanner. LaserSoft has developed some of the industry's leading methods for converting scanned color negatives into naturally colored positive images - methods that are generally not available in RAW converters designed for digital photography. This raises the question of whether professional scanning software can also be used to process photographed color negatives. The answer is yes: SilverFast HDR 8 performs this task exceptionally well. (Price: €299)

The program itself cannot interpret RAW files from digital cameras. It was designed to process raw image data produced by proprietary film scanners and is conceptually a product of the days when computers were much slower and processing scanned images took considerable time. To improve efficiency, the scanning workflow was divided into two separate steps.

1. Scan the originals and save the raw image files.

2. Batch-process the raw files after scanning, for example overnight.

With today's high-performance computers, this separation is no longer necessary.

How Can Camera RAW Files Be Used with SilverFast HDR?

On the website colorneg.de, Christoph Oldendorf offers his ColorPerfect software. It is designed for converting scanned color negatives, scanned black-and-white negatives, and photographed black-and-white negatives into positive images. It can also process RAW files from digital cameras.

Oldendorf also developed the utility MakeTiff, which converts RAW files into linear TIFF files. The program is explained in detail on his website: http://www.colorneg.de/MakeTiff/ You can download and test MakeTiff, but a ColorPerfect license is required for full functionality. (Price: €67 in July 2018.)

Using the program is straightforward. Copy the RAW files into a folder, start MakeTiff, and drag the files into the program window. MakeTiff creates .tiff files in the same folder. If necessary, the extension can be renamed to .tif with a file manager such as Total Commander. The original RAW files can then be deleted. SilverFast HDR 8 can open these linear TIFF files without any problems.


A linear TIFF appears dark with a greenish color cast.

Processing Linear TIFF Files in SilverFast HDR 8

Once the RAW files from photographed negatives have been converted into linear TIFF files, they can be processed in SilverFast HDR 8 to produce accurately colored positive images. SilverFast provides all the necessary tools at a professional level. This is hardly surprising, as it has long been one of the world's leading scanning applications for photographic film.


In this example, selecting Negative together with CCR (Color Cast Removal) was sufficient. CCR automatically removes unwanted color casts. The NegaFix menu also allows you to specify the film manufacturer and the exact film type so that dedicated film profiles can be applied. In this case, that was unnecessary, but it is worth experimenting with these settings depending on the film.

Achieving comparable results with conventional RAW converters is considerably more difficult and rarely reaches the same level of quality. By using SilverFast HDR 8, the capabilities of a professional film scanning application can also be applied to photographed color negatives.