Lossless image inversion of RAF files for film scanning? (C1, SilkyPix...)

Hi all,

recently, I've been developing some of my decades old (don't ask...) film backlog and as a replacement for the tedium of flatbed scanning - to get a 4 MPix image... - I've started trying out taking images of my b&w negatives on a light plate.

I'm using an X-E3 with an adapted lens and extension tube for the time being. My OS is Windows 10.

Here's where I ran into what I assumed would be a minor obstacle: image inversion.

C1 22 Pro

My regular software of choice is C1 22 Pro. I was surprised that there is no option to invert an image at the click of a button. To arrive at a base image, here are my preliminary steps:

1. Base Characteristics Tool; Curve: Linear Response
2. Curve Tool (RGB):
   1. Curve Point: Input 0, Output 255
   2. Curve Point: Input 255, Output 0

Luckily this can easily be applied to any number of images at the same time and now my images are "correct" where black is black and white is white.

Background Layer, note inverted curve tool (exposure reduced 1 stop from SOOC shot)

But what confuses/annoys me is that now all exposure related tools are "upside down". Want to reduce brightness? Increase the value of the exposure etc. This even applies to adjustment layers on top of the background/base image.

Adjustment Layer, note "regular" curve and 1 stop "brighter" exposure slider on adjustment layer

Is this really the only way of inverting an image in C1? In the long run, this might do my head in...

Silky Pix - Raw File Converter 3.0

I'm not keen to generally move to another software, but would be willing to incorporate an additional step into my workflow for my analogue images. So my next angle of attack was to see if I could somehow invert the RAF file and convert it to TIFF or PNG, before continuing normally in C1.

To get decent demosaicing, I thought I might give Fuji's Silky Pix Raw File Converter (v3.0) a try. Aside from being a bit sluggish, a clunky GUI and questionable localisation ("initialising" settings means resetting them to defaults, apparently), maybe it could work. There's batch processing, you can import/save development parameters and there is, of course, a curve tool.

Should work, right? Wrong.

Note curve correction Input 254 Output 0; false colour bottom left and at top of the frame (Image isn't flipped here yet - no such functionality)

The curve tool won't allow points at 0 and 255 respectively. 1 and 254 are the respective ends of where adjustment points can be placed. Data outside these ranges will cause false colours, see above.

I've attempted brute forcing an adjustment at 0 and 255 by exporting the development parameters (user "taste", gotta love the localisation ), editing the resulting file and importing the development parameters back into the program. Unfortunately this will either result in no changes in the curve at all or an entirely black frame.

Other options

There've been a few more options I've looked into:

• darktable: The GUI does not appeal to me at all and I'd rather not have to import each batch of "scans" into a catalogue.
• Irfanview: Used as a light/fast viewer, great batch processing. Unfortunately when batch processing RAF files, the program will only use the embedded preview image, not the demosaic'ed (is that a word?) raw data. So I end up with a low res, low headroom file - that was quickly and efficiently inverted.
• Iridient X Transformer: No option to invert image in conversion process.

What I am looking for

Ideally I'd like a light program that can apply the following steps to a batch of files:

1. Import & demosaic RAF file
   • Ideally with side car files or other means that do not involve import into a catalogue
2. Invert image
3. Optional: horizontal flip (to correct negative orientation in scanning process)
4. Export as DNG or TIFF

Does anyone have a recommendation how to best achieve these rudimentary(?) steps? I know C1 would nearly get me there, but it really isn't convenient to have to consider every edit "upside down".

Thanks for any recommendations/thoughts!

PS: What an odd convention that it's still considered a "scan" of a film, although no scanner is involved in the process.

Of course the second I create a topic here, I stumble across a potential solution in Capture One.

Apparently a "Cultural Heritage" version of Capture One supports film positive and negative processing. While those functions aren't officially supported by the regular commercial version, according to 3 year old Capture One forum post the hidden functions can be called by inserting certain lines into custom styles:

If you want to have this enabled on your style you can add the following line in your text editor to the end of the style.

<E K="TechnicalProcessingMethod" V="2"/>

V=1 is B&W
V=2 is Colour
V=3 is Slide Film

Also a flip function exists too:

<E K="Flip" V="1"/>

V=1 is Mirror on Horizontal
V=2 is Mirror on Vertical

Having quickly tried this, it appears to be working.

Annoying that Capture One don't make this available in the regular version out of the box, but what a genius hack!

Just to quickly show the result of using this code:

<E K="Name" V="B&amp;W Negative Horizontal Flipped" />
<E K="TechnicalProcessingMethod" V="2"/>
<E K="Flip" V="1" />
<E K="StyleSource" V="Styles" />

Base image, without any adjustments:

One click later:

Obviously this could be inserted into and combined with any other default development parameters one might wish to use. And all sliders work "normally". Brilliant

Great find, thank you!

Thank you for this; it changes my life.

I'm on a Mac, and using Capture One Express 23, so I ran this command in Terminal.app to copy the files to my user Styles directory:

rsync -av \
/Applications/Capture\ One\ 23.app/Contents/Packages/CH/Styles/Film\ Scanning/*/*.costyle \
~/Library/Application\ Support/Capture\ One/Styles/

Then I can select them like any other style.

This approach is not perfect. for example, "Color Negative Generic 03" wants to flip things horizontally. Maybe this just means I'm scanning the negatives upside down?

Regardless, this gives me another solution besides Darktable (unhappy with the UI, UX, ergonomics) or FilmLab (unhappy with software quality, technical details, edge cases, tweak ability).

I've considered writing my own program leveraging libraw, but I have a day job already...

I assume you don't use LR since you start off with Capture One, but many of us use Negative Lab Pro as a plugin to LR Classic. There is a big update coming in the next few weeks with stuff like roll analysis and the ability to save presets, so you might want to wait to purchase if you do actually use LR. But there is a free trial to see how it currently works. I use it with color and BW film.

https://www.negativelabpro.com

And yes, if you do inversions manually, your controls will all work backwards....because you are controling a negative, not a positive.

graystubble wrote:

Thank you for this; it changes my life.

I'm on a Mac, and using Capture One Express 23, so I ran this command in Terminal.app to copy the files to my user Styles directory:

rsync -av \
/Applications/Capture\ One\ 23.app/Contents/Packages/CH/Styles/Film\ Scanning/*/*.costyle \
~/Library/Application\ Support/Capture\ One/Styles/

Then I can select them like any other style.

This approach is not perfect. for example, "Color Negative Generic 03" wants to flip things horizontally. Maybe this just means I'm scanning the negatives upside down?

Regardless, this gives me another solution besides Darktable (unhappy with the UI, UX, ergonomics) or FilmLab (unhappy with software quality, technical details, edge cases, tweak ability).

I've considered writing my own program leveraging libraw, but I have a day job already...

Wow - this is a great tip, this makes quite a few useful styles available that bring out pretty good colours in my slides with only a few more tweaks!

Thanks!

mollyc wrote:

I assume you don't use LR since you start off with Capture One, but many of us use Negative Lab Pro as a plugin to LR Classic. There is a big update coming in the next few weeks with stuff like roll analysis and the ability to save presets, so you might want to wait to purchase if you do actually use LR. But there is a free trial to see how it currently works. I use it with color and BW film.

https://www.negativelabpro.com

Yes, I like to keep my (infrequent enthusiast) workflow as lean as possible. With my digital images - the core of my photography - I'm very satisfied and familiar with C1 edits and have no interest in supplementing or replacing it.

When it comes to addins, LR certainly has much more choice and I was aware of the addin, which is mentioned on this and other forums frequently.

And yes, if you do inversions manually, your controls will all work backwards....because you are controling a negative, not a positive.

I understand the why, of course. But if there had been an invert function at the base, all controls could then apply "regularly" on top. Such as the hacked functionality.

graystubble wrote:

Thank you for this; it changes my life.

Big words but glad it's helpful.

I'm on a Mac, and using Capture One Express 23, so I ran this command in Terminal.app to copy the files to my user Styles directory:

rsync -av \
/Applications/Capture\ One\ 23.app/Contents/Packages/CH/Styles/Film\ Scanning/*/*.costyle \
~/Library/Application\ Support/Capture\ One/Styles/

Then I can select them like any other style.

Good tip. I don't expect to need more than the inverted image as a starting point. Is there anything interesting in the other styles?

This approach is not perfect. for example, "Color Negative Generic 03" wants to flip things horizontally. Maybe this just means I'm scanning the negatives upside down?

The style files can be opened with a text editor. I'm sure you could remove the flipping from styles that included it.

Regardless, this gives me another solution besides Darktable (unhappy with the UI, UX, ergonomics) or FilmLab (unhappy with software quality, technical details, edge cases, tweak ability).

I've considered writing my own program leveraging libraw, but I have a day job already...