LaserSoft Imaging

Does anyone using a Nikon 8000 scanner have any problems embedding icc profiles into your scans. I am totally unable to embed my calibration profile into my scans, at least as far as HDR is concerned. Photoshop seems to correctly recognise the profiles.
I don't know whether the problem is with HDR or the Nikon 8000 version of 5.5 Ai.
I only bought Silverfast because it is supposed to be able to embed profiles, and mine can't even do that. It works OK with my Polaroid 120 scanner but not the Nikon 8000.

Any suggestions would be most welcom, as I have almost 1800 slides to scan for my customers.

Regards,

Simon

Embedding of ICC-Calibration profiles

Please check out Ian Lyons' tutorials on SilverFast:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/sf5_contents.htm

or the complete SilverFast manual on how to embed calibration profiles:
https://www.silverfast.com/download/ai/d ... Ai55_E.pdf

Dear Sir,

I am using Silverfast Ai 5.5 latest version with my Nikon LS8000ED scanner connected to a Mac G4 867.
I have calibrated my scanner as per the SF Ai 5.5 handbook and Ian Lyons pdf docs but I can only manage to embed the Calibration ICC profile "SFprofT (Nikon LS-8000)" after I reinstall the Silverfast (NikonM) photoshop plugin.
The next time I do a scan the profile is no longer embedded, and nothing I do short of reinstalling will work.
I must point out at this stage that the Profiles are not recognised by Silverfast HDR, but they are recognised by Photoshop 6.
I thought perhaps that the Calibration profile was corrupt in some way, so I embedded the "Adobe RGB 1998" profile instead, but HDR still did not recognise the profile but Photoshop 6 did.

Any idea's would be greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely,


Simon Clifford-Smith

Simon,

I think there's some confusion here. When properly set-up, Silverfast uses the scanner's ICC profile, but then converts it into your working space of choice (usually AdobeRGB). This is generally how you want it to work. You shouldn't use your scanner's ICC profile as your working space. If you embed the scanner ICC profile into the scan, than PhotoShop will ask you to convert it into your working space (AdobeRGB, I assume).

Basically, you should let Silverfast do the conversion for you, which does the following:

1. Scans in your image using your custon Scanner profile.

2. Converts this to your PhotoShop working space (AdobeRGB, sRGB, ColorMatchRGB, CMYK, etc.)

3. Embeds this working space profile into the file.

4. Returns you to PhotoShop (if not saving to file), already in proper working space.

There's really no reason to ever embed your scanner profile. It's really more a of a means to an end, allowing your scanner's colors to be accurately converted to your working space.

Also, the only true way to keep your exact colors is to use a calibrated scanner and monitor, and scan, turning all or Silverfasts adjustments off (no red icons up top). You will likely need to reset each of the controls. Then, you should be able to get precisely the same colors.

The point of ICC color in scanning is not necessarily to duplicate the exact color (although sometimes it is), but to get accurate prescan previews and more control over the scanners color behavior.

-Ian A.

Ian,

I agree with what you say, but I want to use Silverfast Ai 5.5 to produce RAW files in HDR format and as such I DO want to embed the scanners calibration icc profile.
The bottom line is my Polaroid Sprintscan 120 works with its version of Ai 5.5 and the Nikon 8000 version does not.
The Nikon version of Ai 5.5 won't embed any profile as far as HDR is concerned.

Regards,

Simon

Simon,

I'm glad you understand my arguments, and now I understand what you're trying to do, so here's how to do it:

1. When you calibrate, make sure you export your ICC profile.

2. Use the following CMS Settings:

Scanner -> Internal: None
Internal -> Monitor: None
Internal -> Output: <RGB>

Scanner (Reflective): Should be greyed out on yours.
Scanner (Transparency): SF_T(Nikon....)
Internal: None
Output: Should be greyed out
Rendering Intent: Abs. colorimetric

Embed Profile: Checked

Now, make sure your profile SF_T.... appears in the "Profile to Embed" box. If not, select another scanner profile, then yours (SF_T...) again, and it should appear in the box.

That works in mine, so try it, and let me know if you have any problems. Thanks,

Ian A.

Ian,
I really appreciate you taking out the time to help me.
The only difference between your suggested configuration and mine is the Rendering Intent. I changed it from Perceptual to Abs. Colorimetric, but the problem still exists.
Because I know that your system works on the same scanner I did some further tests with the following interesting results.
I can embed the profile as long as I keep the resolution to 3500 dpi or under. I thought this could be a memory problem in Photoshop to I increased the allocated memory in Photoshop to 500 Mbytes, but the problem still remains.
As a matter of interest my system is as follows: -
Mac G4 867 Mhz with 1500 Mbytes Ram

Once again thanks for all your help etc.

Simon

Simon,

I also have a pretty maxed out system and was confused myself with high-dpi scans. There's a little known setting under:

Options>General Tab>Scratch Disk

Set this to your disk with the most free space, and it should alleviate the problem.

Of course if you have multi-sampling turned on, then you have to increase disk space by whatever that factor is. I generally use a 4GB partition as my "scratch disk" to be safe. Hope this helps,

Ian A.

Ian,

Rendering Intent: Abs. colorimetric

Not sure why you think Absolute Colorimetric is an appropriate choice. It has zero impact on whether a profle is embedded or not.

Absolute is only used when you want the paper white of reflective scans to be mapped thru to the final image. It is NOT a good choice for film scanners . Actually, its really only used for softproofing prints.

IanL

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ilyons on 2002-02-24 22:39 ]</font>

Ian,

I already use a separate 4Gig partition for my scratch disk and it currently has 3.86 Gig free.
Thanks for the suggestion though.

Simon

Ian, Simon,

To answer your questions, first of all, I said "Absolute Colorimetric" because I wasn't really paying attention, and I had set it that way for a job I was doing. My client insisted on their line art being scanned in this way. Sorry.
I've been a little out of it this weekend, doig a bunch of coding in PHP.

It sounds to me like it's some sort of bug. I guess one way around it would be to do the following:

1. Scan it in as 48-bit HDR file.
2. Open in PhotoShop, assigning your scanner's profile.
3. Save it as a 48-bit TIFF w/scanner profile.
3. Open in HDR.

See if that works for you. Thanks,

Ian A.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ianders1 on 2002-02-25 04:59 ]</font>

Ian A,

This has been my view all along, especially as my Polaroid Sprintscan 120 works OK.
My problem is getting Silverfast to acknowledge the possability that there might be a Bug in the Nikon 8000 version of Ai 5.5

Thanks for all your help.

Simon

Simon,

Glad I could be of assistance. It seems that the Nikon scanners are very complex, and so is the process of programming them. I suppose that's the price you pay for having one fo the best film scanners. Also, remember that Silverfast has the philosophy of releasing their software sooner than most companies, and as such there are bound to be some bugs here and there. The advantage is that we get great new software/features well before we would from other companies.

Hopefully, the crew at Lasersoft are paying attention to this post and trying to duplicate and repair this bug.

If you haven't noticed, there are FAR more incremental releases of the Nikon version of Silverfast than any other brand. This is due to the forementioned complexity. I'm sure that they'll have it fixed shortly. Of course Ian Lyon's is a Polaroid man, and I'm and Epson flatbed man, so we're only doing what we can to help. Try the method from my last post between now and then, hopefully that should work.