Why do some colors show up wrong on scanners?

[noildoof]

I know this is an issue with Sailor Moon cels, where a specific red shade scans as light brown, and I also have a similar issue with one of my cels.

Recently I removed the stuck sketch from an unknown cel (her name is "Mary" as written on the sketch, that's all I know). I rescanned the cel, but the colors on her earrings and bow are way off from the actual cel (I remember the seller's image also had off colors). This wasn't an issue the first time I scanned it years ago with a different scanner.

Does anyone have an explanation for why/how this happens, and whether or not it's on purpose?

[oxypetalus]

From what I remember it has to do with the sensor inside the scanners. A lot of people experience scanners not being able to capture bright colors like pink or neons correctly. I don't know the technical reasons why but it's pretty common. Sailor moon cels experience this a lot for example. My guess is that the scanner you're using now doesn't have a sensor good enough to capture neon/bright colors but the older one was. It takes work and some practice but you can manually edit the colors in photoshop or another image editing program to try to match the cel. I do that for all my scans. I did it quickly for your scan below. You have to make a selection (of the earrings or bow in this case) and do manual adjustments. It was also too blue/magenta overall so I fixed that too.

edit-for-ab.png (386.92 KiB) Viewed 4511 times

[cutiebunny]

I remember hearing that it had to do with preventing counterfeit US currency to be made. I don't know how accurate that is though

[noildoof]

I did it quickly for your scan below. You have to make a selection (of the earrings or bow in this case) and do manual adjustments. It was also too blue/magenta overall so I fixed that too.edit-for-ab.png

Thanks! I actually made a corrected version myself as well.

I remember hearing that it had to do with preventing counterfeit US currency to be made. I don't know how accurate that is though

That would make a lot of sense, if true.

[GuyvarIII]

I've been told it's the light source. Really old scanners used standard fluorescent bulbs, then they moved to Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL), and now they're LEDs. Each of these types of light behave differently, and different companies have literature to tell you why even among LED light sources their LEDs are better than someone else's . Epson, Cannon, Mustek, etc. also have different filters and settings to compensate for different types of light... and, some scanners also just have built in settings to supposedly make your scans look "better" and just sacrifice color accuracy entirely. That being said, for the most part, newer scanners are both more power efficient and give brighter scans.

But, then again, something always looks wrong somewhere... and, then it's time to open it up in Photo Shop.

[noildoof]

Thanks for the explanation! I guess that must be it then - I highly doubt the light source used to photograph the cels during production was the same as the ones used now in modern scanners.

[lansing]

No don't correct the color yourself in photoshop because you didn't even know what the actually color looks like. When cel were made, they would had a bright lamp placed right on top of the workstation while painting. So if you don't have a similar setup (which 99% of us don't) , you're not going to see the actually color. That's why we'll need a scanner.

I have wrote a guide on how to scan accurately here, the tldr is, buy a good scanner and the scanning software Silverfast and you're good to go.

[noildoof]

I'm definitely not buying a new scanner, I just bought a brand new one a month ago that I had to drive 1.5 hours to pick up after returning another one that was defective.

Silverfast looks neat, but they have no option for Epson Perfection V39. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[lansing]

I'm definitely not buying a new scanner, I just bought a brand new one a month ago that I had to drive 1.5 hours to pick up after returning another one that was defective.

Silverfast looks neat, but they have no option for Epson Perfection V39. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Get Epson Perfection v600, there is no point to keep a crappy scanner. The new scanner will probably cost less than one single cel in your collection.

[noildoof]

That's a $230 scanner, I'm absolutely not paying that much right after buying a brand new scanner just to get slightly better scans. And no, the overwhelming majority of the cels in my collection didn't cost that much.

Please stop pushing this, it's starting to get on my nerves.

[oxypetalus]

No don't correct the color yourself in photoshop because you didn't even know what the actually color looks like. When cel were made, they would had a bright lamp placed right on top of the workstation while painting. So if you don't have a similar setup (which 99% of us don't) , you're not going to see the actually color. That's why we'll need a scanner.

I have wrote a guide on how to scan accurately here, the tldr is, buy a good scanner and the scanning software Silverfast and you're good to go.

I remember your scanner tip post from a while ago. I have a very good scanner (Epson 10000XL) but the version of Silverfast that goes with my scanner costs over $300 not even including an IT8 target so I would rather pass on it. The scans I tested with the trial version of Silverfast didn't look that different from the scans I get using the free Epson scan program either. I personally like to do RAW scans without any auto color/contrast/brightness and then I just adjust to my taste in photoshop. There are many ways to get to the same end result but I think people should just use whatever methods/resources they have available to them.

[lansing]

No don't correct the color yourself in photoshop because you didn't even know what the actually color looks like. When cel were made, they would had a bright lamp placed right on top of the workstation while painting. So if you don't have a similar setup (which 99% of us don't) , you're not going to see the actually color. That's why we'll need a scanner.

I have wrote a guide on how to scan accurately here, the tldr is, buy a good scanner and the scanning software Silverfast and you're good to go.

I remember your scanner tip post from a while ago. I have a very good scanner (Epson 10000XL) but the version of Silverfast that goes with my scanner costs over $300 not even including an IT8 target so I would rather pass on it. The scans I tested with the trial version of Silverfast didn't look that different from the scans I get using the free Epson scan program either. I personally like to do RAW scans without any auto color/contrast/brightness and then I just adjust to my taste in photoshop. There are many ways to get to the same end result but I think people should just use whatever methods/resources they have available to them.

I just checked Silverfast's website, wow they really hidden the cheaper version from your scanner. I checked my version 8 and it has the preconfigured icc profile for your scanner, which means that you can buy the cheapest version (SE) and it should still work. What a bad business practice.

[oxypetalus]

I just checked Silverfast's website, wow they really hidden the cheaper version from your scanner. I checked my version 8 and it has the preconfigured icc profile for your scanner, which means that you can buy the cheapest version (SE) and it should still work. What a bad business practice.

Yeah Silverfast is weird and has a different version of their program locked to each scanner. So if you were to buy a new scanner you'd have to buy another copy of Silverfast that corresponds with your program or pay to "upgrade." I think there's one scanner that comes bundled with Silverfast and is quite popular among photographers.. I think that might be the one you have actually. But anyway, I kind of don't even want to buy from them as a company because of that shady practice.

In my research I saw that Vuescan has the ability to calibrate a scanner with an IT8 target as well. I am curious to know if calibrating a cheaper/less accurate scanner would work well ? like, could it correct for the scanner's inability to pick up bright pinks/purples like in OP's case ?

[lansing]

In my research I saw that Vuescan has the ability to calibrate a scanner with an IT8 target as well. I am curious to know if calibrating a cheaper/less accurate scanner would work well ? like, could it correct for the scanner's inability to pick up bright pinks/purples like in OP's case ?

I have Vuescan too but its calibration algorithm is inferior to Silverfast.

I just did couple of calibration tests with my old Canon Lide50 and MX920 scanner with Vuescan. I first calibrated the scanners with my IT8 target and make a scan, and then checked their deltaE with 3D LUT Creator.

Canon Lide50 calibrated

canon lide50 calibrated_deltaE_5_86.jpg (1.11 MiB) Viewed 4218 times

Canon MX920 calibrated

canon mx920 calibrated_deltaE_5_38.jpg (1.2 MiB) Viewed 4218 times

The color on the smaller grid is the correct color read from the reference file. If the calibration is accurate, the color on the IT8 target should be matching to the one on the grid. But as you can see, both of them are way off.

Though this still doesn't prove that the color is unfixable because the bad calibration could be caused by Vuescan's algorithm not doing a good job. So I ran the calibrated scan with 3D Lut creator's color matching algorithm, and the result turned out to be pretty good.

Canon MX920 calibrated + 3dlut

canon mx920 calibrated + 3dlut_deltaE_1_87.jpg (1.15 MiB) Viewed 4218 times

Most of the patches were matched except for the teal color. However, this is still a hit or miss because it only works for a certain processing order. For example if I do a noncalibrated scan -> 3dlut, the result would look pretty bad with the darker red and blue being way off.