I have no success with color management - HELP!

[amac212]

Should I expect to be able to scan a negative in SilverFast and have it appear with the same colors/hues when I open it in Photoshop? I don't understand if my software is buggy or if I am all of a sudden no longer to control the output of my scans. (I've been using Silverfast for YEARS, but this problem is new).

I have been trying all different types of settings under the CMS tab, and regardless what I select, the scanned image I pull into photoshop has dramatically different colors than what I selected in my scan. I find Color Management to be such an unnecessarily difficult concept. I have read, re-read and re-read the 80+page Color Management section of the Silver Fast manual and sometimes I wish it would speak in laymen's terms and just simply state "if you want your image's colors to appear in Photoshop exactly as they are when you are adjusting and scanning in SilverFast, here's EXACTLY what you need to set in the CMS tab.

My Photoshop CS3 Color settings include:
- Adobe RGB (1998) under "Working Space"
- Preserve the embedded profile under "Color Management Policies"
- I have it set to ask me if I want to change it the profile to the working space, if I embed something different than Adobe RGB 1998.
- Relative Colorimetric

I have spent hours scanning rolls of film (medium and large format slides and negatives) only to discover that none of them are usable after I have pulled them into Photoshop. So for several hours now, I have been trying to work with a single exposure in SilverFast to identify and fix the problem. Days have passed - and I cannot seem to "fix" the problem. After scanning this single image, I have been going immediately into Photoshop to see if my colors are identical to the colors I set in SilverFast. So far, no matter what settings I use, I am unsuccessful and I'm at a loss what to do.

As I've mentioned, I have used many different settings in SilverFast.
Currently my settings in SilverFast Ai v. 6.6.1r7:
Input-->Internal None (for Negatives), ICM (for Positives with the appropriate profile referenced in the "Profiles for ICM" section listed)
Internal--> Monitor: ICM (The ICM Profile listed currently is Adobe RGB (1998). I have also tried setting it to the profile I created for my monitor using color mgt software)
Internal-->Output: RGB (I never scan directly to the printer)
Embed ICC Profile is checked [Profile to Embed: Adobe RGB (1998)]

Incidentally, when I scan an image, Silverfast shows me a small thumbnail of the scanning progress. The colors in this thumbnail are dramatically different than the larger preview. Sometimes, once the scan is complete and the tiny thumbnail disappears, my larger scanned preview changes colors except for the portion of the image that had the tiny thumbnail over it.

Also, sometimes after I've scanned a negative and pull it into Photoshop, I am warned in Photoshop that the working color space does not match. It tells me that the scan (though I scanned as Adobe RGB (1998)) has the profile SF_T_EpsonV700 embedded. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE WHEN I AM SCANNING NEGATIVES??? This is what is happening now. And so I am stuck... unable to control what SilverFast is embedding and confused and frustrated.

Please, please help.... What settings should I be using to render an image in Photoshop that matches what I see in SilverFast?

[LSI_Luebker]

Dear Customer,

is it possible that you are doing a HDR Scan ?

Otherwise I just saw one thing that does not seem to be correct

the setting of input->internal should be ICM rather then none.