negative picture to positive picture.

[paintshop pro4]

I am a newbe with pro4. How do I change a scanned negative image to a positive image? swap black for white and vis versa?

[LeviFiction]

Well you can just use the "Negative Image" command found under the "Image" menu.

But if that doesn't produce satisfactory results there was a tutorial posted on this board once about doing something like that with a fairly lengthy process.

[paintshop pro4]

Thanks I'll give that a go. If I can just get a positive image I can tweak it from there.

[photodrawken]

If you've got a black and white negative, obviously the Image...Negative Image option will be all you need.

If you've got a colour negative:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
then it's a two-step process:

1. Use Adjust...Smart Photo Fix to first get a good range of "blacks" and "whites" in the image. These settings, for example, with a manual adjustment to the "Black" and "White" sliders (note the positions of the black and white indicators below the histogram),

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
will give you this result:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

2. Then use Image...Negative Image to reverse the colours:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The result isn't perfect, but gives you a good starting point to adjust the colours to get rid of any colour cast, etc.

[LeviFiction]

Here's the post I was thinking of. Someone had asked how to convert a Photoshop tutorial to PSP on doing a Negative color mask.

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... ge#p253982

The idea is to get rid of the Orange color cast in the negative before doing the conversion.

[photodrawken]

Well, after experimenting a bit with this particular negative, the easiest method is to first use Adjust...Color...Fade Correction to get this:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Then, inverting the colours gives this result:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
which is actually pretty good.

The bottom line is that there isn't a foolproof method which works for all colour negatives. You'll need to experiment with the various adjustment methods to the negative image (before inverting the colours) to find what works best for a particular image.

[LeviFiction]

Love the Fade Correction method. Quick and easy, giving an excellent start.

Using the small images you provided I got the best result mixing the Fade correction method and the method for removing the color cast mentioned in the topic above. I overlaid the two results and used a soft-light blend mode.

However, when I took another negative image I found online the Fade Correction is the one that did the best job overall. But, again, got the best result combining the two results this time with Luminance Legacy. So for a starting point, it is excellent.

[photodrawken]

Aha! I've nailed down The Foolproof Guaranteed Works Every Time method!

(I found that when I used the Histogram Equalize on the RGB split channels, dark areas of the converted image appeared posterized and pixelated.)

Here's the poop:

We'll deal with two types of colour negative images -- one that does not contain the film edge with sprocket holes, and a negative that does.

A colour negative without the film edges and sprocket holes
1. Here's the original image:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

2. Use Adjust...Brightness and Contrast...Curves to set the white point to the palest area of the negative image:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

which will give this result:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

3. Use Adjust...Color...Fade Correction with the default setting of "45" to get this result:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

4. Apply the Image...Negative Image to invert the colours and get this:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Images that include the film edge and sprocket holes
We can use the film edge and an additional step to completely remove the orange colour cast from the negative before inverting the colours.

1. Here's the original image:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

2. Use the Adjust...Brightness and Contrast...Curves to set the white point to an area in the film edge:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

3. Use Adjust...Brightness and Contrast...Levels to set the white point to the same area in the film edge, which will really get rid of the orange background colour cast:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

4. Apply the Adjust...Color...Fade Correction at the default setting of "45" to get this:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

5. Apply Image...Negative Image to invert the colours:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[photodrawken]

To follow up on my previous post, just a reminder that PSPX5 has a terrific feature called "Manual Color Correction" which is especially helpful when images have people in them. You access it by right-clicking on the main standard toolbar, choosing "Customize", and on the "Commands" tab scrolling down in the left panel to select the "Unused Commands" option. Then, in the right panel, select the "Manual Color Correction" item and drag it onto the standard tool bar.

Given the previous result, using the "Manual Color Correction" with these settings and a target colour of "Caucasian skin, light":

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

will instantly give this result:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Applying an Adjust...White Balance with these settings:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

yields the final image:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[LeviFiction]

That end result you have there, is what I got when I mixed the Fade Correction and Histogram Equalize methods using Soft Light. Well...not exactly of course since they were different methods but they looked pretty darn close.

[paintshop pro4]

Thanks everyone! Looks like I have a lot of reading and tweaking ahead of me.
However it's good to know that it can be done.

Thanks again.
Pro4