Processing of scanned negatives

[Donald]

As some of you know I have started (after a 50 year (or so) absence) shooting film, now on a Hasselblad 500CM that I have recently bought. Earlier on I posted a question and then withdrew it once I found the answer. However, this one does continue to elude me:-

Why is the NIK software package not available to me from Photoshop with a scanned image?

I know there must be a logical answer, but I'm damned if I can find it. The whole NIK software option is just greyed out (i.e. not available) in the 'Filter' drop down menu.

Any answers or leads to follow from my esteemed colleagues on here will be gratefully acknowledged ... particularly if it stops me going crazy trying to figure out the answer.

[Manfred M]

Check the colour space the image is coming across in. The Nik software only works in an RGB space.

I saw this issue when I was working in L*a*b* colour.

[Manfred M]

By the way, what was the answer to your original post?

[Donald]

By the way, what was the answer to your original post?

Why were the images coming out dark?

Well.........

On the layers dialogue, on the 'Display Options', the 'Show Amount of' setting was set at 'Pigment Ink %' and not at 'Light (0-255)'. Quite why this should have caused the layer table to be reversed (Black on top left and White on bottom right) AND for the image to be printed much darker, I have no idea. But changing the 'Show Amount of' setting was the answer.

Now off to try your solution as above, which, incidentally, did occur to me in bed last night. Will let you know what happens.

[Donald]

STOP PRESS - UPDATE

Under ‘Edit/Convert to Profile’, the ‘Destination Space’ was coming in at ‘Working Gray – Dot Gain 20%’ changed that to Adobe RGB and, bingo, my NIK software is back.

Many thanks, Manfred. I knew you’d come up with the answer.


post script:- It seems to be pretty random as to which colour profile is assigned when making the scan. I've just corrected another image and the profile assigned to that was 'Working CMYK'.

[Manfred M]

Why were the images coming out dark?

Well.........

On the layers dialogue, on the 'Display Options', the 'Show Amount of' setting was set at 'Pigment Ink %' and not at 'Light (0-255)'. Quite why this should have caused the layer table to be reversed (Black on top left and White on bottom right) AND for the image to be printed much darker, I have no idea. But changing the 'Show Amount of' setting was the answer.

Now off to try your solution as above, which, incidentally, did occur to me in bed last night. Will let you know what happens.

That is the default configuration when you are using a CMYK colour space and appears to be how the offset press industry worked. A couple of my photography instructors came out of the publications industry (catalogues and magazines) and they were used to working in that colour space, so it was part of our curriculum. They were so used to that interface configuration that they changed the RGB defaults to match the CMYK ones when demonstrating post-processing techniques (confused the whole class who were used to working with the RGB defaults).

Another "quirk" with CMYK is that the cyan inks are less "efficient" than the magenta or yellow inks and one had to use about 33% more cyan than the other colours when making adjustments in that colour space to get a neutral gray.