I'm sorry, but can you clarify what you mean by "Learning the Camera Raw import process"? What process?

As I am sure you know, many digital cameras today can export uncompressed image data directly from memory instead of compressing the data into JPEG files. This data is known, generically, as "Camera Raw." (I say "generically" because every camera manufacturer has their own standards for Camera Raw. Camera Raw for Canon cameras vs. Nikon cameras might not be the same.)

Consequently, there must be an intermediate step to import Camera Raw images into Photoshop or other applications. However the benefit of this is that you have MUCH more control over the image as it is being imported into Photoshop.

You have exposure, brightness, contrast, color temperature, tint and several other controls at your disposal that give you a wide range of control. There are other features of Camera Raw import that let you do things like pre-crop the image before going into Photoshop and methods of making localized color adjustments or effects.

On top of all this, you get the added bonus that all these adjustments are done "non-destructively." If, at any time you decide to, you can go back to the original Camera Raw import stage and change one or more settings to readjust the image to your liking.

"Learning the Camera Raw import process" refers to understanding the controls of the Camera Raw import dialog and how to use them. It takes time to learn but the user will benefit greatly from the effort. Properly learned and executed, it can improve your work by orders of magnitude in a very short time. That is part of the reason I said that the time it takes me to produce a satisfactory image decreased from a matter of hours to mere minutes. I learned about Camera Raw and how it is used.

If you have "good" scanner software like SilverFast or VueScan you can create scans output in Camera Raw format (Or better yet, in "Digital Negative" format which is basically an open source form of Camera Raw. :) )

So, yes, you are adding in another step to your scanning workflow by doing this but you are gaining more control over your image and, hopefully, improving your work. Done properly, the amount of extra time it takes you to go through the Camera Raw process will be far less than you would spend tinkering, otherwise.

I suggest, that, if you don't already use Camera Raw to import images (digital camera or otherwise) into Photoshop you should take a little time to investigate it. I think you'll like what you see.

And, to bring this back around to the topic sentence, I think that the color cast problem would be minimized or even eliminated all together if you used Camera Raw to import your scanner data into Photoshop.

Hi



It gave me much better results. I must say the color cast issue is not gone but becomes much easier to manage in Photoshop.
...
Unfortunately, everything comes at a cost. Scanning takes much more time this way.

yes, what I did was to observe where is the film base and where is the darkest point for each of the channels and then save that in my nikon scan as a film type. Then I just load that and I know I'm capturing the whole range properly of the film. So under exposed or over exposed it always works

saves me heaps of time

where this falls down is that the thumbnail mode for the SA-21 does not like this, and I need to take time to align these.

PS: for batch scans of things I have been using the Epson, and only use the Nikon for stuff I wish to take care with ... but I agree that it is hardly fast. Perhaps something similar can be achieved with vuescan. Have you read this by Erik Krause


For C41 I have another super-advanced workflow only applicable to Nikon
scanners: Do normal advanced workflow, then in color tab look at the
film base color values. Take the largest one and divide by the next
one. Take the result as a multiplier for the corresponding channel
analog gain value. Do the same for the remaining channel.

If f.e. your channels have film base color values: Red 0.9, Green 0.6
and Blue 0.5 the resulting analog gain values will be Red 1.0, Green
1.5 and Blue 1.8. Unlock film base color, do another preview and lock
again. The film base color values on color tab should be all more or
less the same. If they differ you can repeat the steps.

This way you get a pretty neutral negative. Now you can increase all
(locked) film base color values to 1.0 and scan the whole roll of film
with these settings. In my experience this neutralization of film base
color by different channel exposure works much better than the
mathematical one and you get almost clipping-free image data.