Digitizing Negatives with Negative Lab Pro - A Plug-in For Lightroom

The photos on this blog entry are not examples of my best work. They were taken at night after a photowalk for a review on the Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 IS USM. At the time, I had not yet acclimated back to the proper practice of film photography. For that reason, half the roll were either out-of-focus or not exposed correctly. So naturally, I never shared any of these photos, since this addendum of a photowalk did not yield sufficient content to satisfy my requirements for a blog entry. As such, I shelved them to be used at a later date.

Last week as you may recall, I shared a blog entry on digitizing black and white film on the Leica M Typ 246 Monochrom. On it, I said I was going to discuss more on Negative Lab Pro, the plug-in I used to convert the shared images from its negative to its positive. I did not elaborate more on it last week because the photos I shared were all black and white. Converting black and white negatives with Negative Lab Pro does not fully demonstrate its benefit, since its functionality is not a necessity when converting black and white negatives.

To perform black and white negative conversion on Adobe Lightroom, all anyone needs to do is set the points of the Tone Curve to “custom” and then flip the diagonal line on the graph upside-down. Admittedly, this is a somewhat crude solutions, since it also reverses the direction of the tonal sliders in the Develop Module and requires a significant amount of tonal correction. Even so, it does work, which really is the point. But with color negatives, the same cannot be said, given how the variable of color complicates the conversion process.

Kodak Portra 800 @ 35mm Focal Length - Pakon F135

Kodak Portra 800 @ 35mm Focal Length - Nikon Z6 + Nikon ES-2 + Nikon AF-S Micro 60mm f/2.8G

Kodak Portra 800 @ 35mm Focal Length - Leica M10 + Leica BEOON Copy Stand + Leica APO 50mm f/2 Summicron-M ASPH

If you jog your memory back to a previous blog entry regarding a comparison of different negative digitization methods, converting color negatives duplicated with the Nikon D850 (which essentially is representational of any through-the-lens or mirrorless cameras) yielded very poor results when captured in RAW format. Without the benefit of its in-camera conversion function, which can only capture in JPG, the resulting digitized images were highly desaturated. As such, that made recovery of loss color details extremely challenging in post.

Unlike digitizing black and white negatives, where the issue of color duplication is immaterial, digitizing color negatives does specifically depend on the outcome of color reproduction. If the conversion of color from the negative to the positive is washed-out in detail, then any reasonable chance of recovery is very unlikely (if not seemingly impossible in actual practice). To be frank, I have never been able to accurately recover the correct color capture of any converted image digitized from a color negative, just by using Adobe Lightroom in post.

For that reason, digitizing color negatives with through-the-lens or mirrorless digital cameras is an exercise in futility. That is a shame, given how the accessibility of digital cameras in mainstream use make them the ideal option to digitize negative. If only there were a way to convert color negatives digitized on a digital camera to its positive more effectively. It would free us from resorting to awful devices running on Silverfast or Vuescan (like a Plustek or flatbed scanner) or out-of-production Windows XP devices (like a Pakon, Noritsu, or Frontier).

In a manner of speaking, there are more effective ways to convert digitized color negatives into positives. This is where Negative Lab Pro enters the discussion. It is a more purpose made methodology for converting color negatives than the alternative of reversing the Tone Curve in the Develop Module. That said, Negative Lab Pro is not a direct one click application for converting color negatives into positives. Rather, it is a finicky multistep series of operations that requires a certain amount of initiative, competence, and learning curve to master.

To install the plug-in into your computer, you must follow the accompanying instructions. I will not write about it, since the instructions are self explanatory. To execute the operation, you need to click “control-n”. That calls up the on-screen dialogue. The interface then has a drag down menu asking you how you want your negative scanned and at what magnitude of pre-saturation. Once you have made your selection, you can proceed with your conversion. To do batch conversion, make sure that you are in the Library Module of Adobe Lightroom.

After the conversion, you are then given a list of options to fine tune the results. This includes autocorrections in color and density, in addition to tone profiling and sharpening. Below that, you are provided a list of options to fine tune the tonal rendering and the color balance of the conversion. Once you have made your choices in the fine tuning, you can then apply your conversion. That becomes the image in your Lightroom Library, which can then be edited further as a positive in the Develop Module - albeit with the Tone Curve still in reverse.

Editing in reverse is never intuitive. To overcome this complication, Negative Lab Pro does give you the option to export the conversion as a TIFF file, which can be edited conventionally (and not in reverse) in Lightroom as a positive image. Moreover, this option can also be performed as a batch process for multiple selected image files, which can also be synchronized to the master image (much in the same way the synchronization feature found in the Develop Module in Lightroom). This does greatly facilitate the negative conversion process.

However, all the benefits offered by Negative Pro Lab are already at your disposal in Adobe Lightroom. Image files can have their Tone Curves set to reverse. After that, tonal curve adjustments along with tonal fine tuning, contrast, saturation, and tweaks in color balance can be implemented. And if you do not fancy the prospect of editing your converted negatives in reverse, Lightroom does provide you the option of saving your image as a TIFF file. In that way, I do not believe Negative Lab Pro is absolutely a necessity for negative conversion.

And it is not as if Negative Lab Pro converts the color capture of the digitized image as shot. The list of options displayed on the dialogue window clearly demonstrates how dependent Negative Lab Pro is to manual inputs from you, as oppose to automation from its own algorithm, in order to be executed properly to reach the most optimal outcome in conversion - that is to say - as close as possible to what was shot. To do that, one must be able to work towards the correct color capture, which depends on what one can visualize from memory.

Furthermore, Negative Lab Pro has some inherent limitations in execution. Most notably, the number of image files that can be processed under batch processing is limited by your computer’s processing capabilities. On my maxed-out MacBook 12”, I can only consistently batch process three images. On my maxed-out MacBook Pro 15” 2019, I can only consistently batch process seven images. Beyond that, I run the risk of encountering a computing error, which can only be resolved if I reset the image file by clicking “shift-command-r”.

Still, Negative Lab Pro does streamline the process of converting a digitized negative image into a positive. In that way, I believe it is a worthwhile plug-in to recommend for analog photographers interested in simplifying the process of converting digitized negatives into positives. I mean let us be frank. Most of us are not going to be able to figure out how best to natively convert negatives into positives with Lightroom. It can be done. But, resorting to Negative Lab Pro is just so much less of a headache than fumbling around in Lightroom.

Nevertheless, I do not think I will switch to Negative Lab Pro, since I still find my Windows XP era Pakon F135 to be less of a hassle. That said, most film photographers do not have a Pakon F135 or its equivalent from Noritsu or Frontier. Because of that, I believe it was worthwhile for me to recommend Negative Lab Pro, even though I found it tricky to master. As you can see from the progression of my shared examples, it did take me a couple of tries before I got the hang of it. That said, my photos would have fared better had I shot them right.

In my opinion, I believe Negative Lab Pro yields better results than my Pakon F135, if executed correctly. That said, my Pakon F135 is much more convenient, which makes it my preferred method for digitizing negatives - especially since I only publish for online screen use.

PS - I don’t know why there were ghosting on the bottom half of my digitized images from the Nikon Z6?

Film was shot and developed at box speed. Negatives were digitized with a Pakon F135, a Nikon Z6 + Nikon + Bolt VM-210 + FTZ adapter + Nikon Micro AF-S 60mm f/2.8G + Nikon ES-2, or a Leica M10 + Leica BEOON copy stand + Leica APO 50mm f/2 Summicron-M ASPH + Kaiser Slimlite Plano LED tablet. All images have been edited to the teeth. Background person in the title image has been edited out.

Disclaimer

Nov 3 Digitizing Negatives with Negative Lab Pro - A Plug-in For Lightroom

Disclaimer

Nov 3 Digitizing Negatives with Negative Lab Pro - A Plug-in For Lightroom

Nov 10 On Leica Losing Its Soul - A Commentary on the Future and Holding onto the Past

Oct 27 Digitizing Black and White Film with the Leica M246

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