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how do I convert a scanned color negative into a positive on photoshop?

New Here ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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I have just scanned a color negative into photoshop and lo and behold it comes up on screen as a color negative.  How do i now convert it to a positive so that I can work with it.?

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Adobe
Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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I have not tried this command on a negative,but it's Ctrl i (PC) or Cmd i (Mac) for Invert Colors.

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New Here ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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dear gener7, thanks for the prompt reply. Unfortunately, your suggestion

was unsuccessful. I have a Mac and the command "Command i" produced only

radio silence. Thanks anyway.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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I was not being funny.  The Google search I linked to had countless links that directly answered your question. 

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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Trevor: For some oddball reason,your Google link defaults to the Google New Zealand home page from here in the US.

Using "google.com" in the address works here. (Sorry,my html skills are sub par)

https://www.google.com/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=photoshop+scanned+color+negatives&oq=photosho...

Try it now, idb52345  Trevor is a well known expert in these forums and would never intentionally give you the Google main search page.

Gene

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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Gene, that's interesting to know.  We know that Google is clever enough to use local information, but I'd have thought that the search parameters I used would span all continents. 

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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So would I, Dennis. I wonder what the Google.com link shows up as in New Zealand?

Gene

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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gener7 wrote:

So would I, Dennis. I wonder what the Google.com link shows up as in New Zealand?

Gene

It brings up exactly the same links as the Google.co.nz one I posted back up the thread.  I can open both in seperat tabs, and toggle between them and they are entirely identical.   That's not to say that you would see the same thing as me.

Google.jpg

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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Trevor's link works fine for me in the US.  From the very early Photoshop it was advised to use color cast removal after inversion.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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Here's one to practice with

http://www.photosolve.com/main/resources/pw_film_conv/images/neg.jpg

Load, and copy BG layer

Invert

Copy inverted layer

Filter > blur > Average

Invert the averaged layer

Change its blend mode to Color, and drop its opacity to suite.

It ends up undersaturated, so you need to add a Hue/Sat or Vibrance layer

Actually there is a sort of double negaive thing going on there, but I tried doing it in less stepps and failed.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2013 Jun 21, 2013

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The Invert command will typically not do the job on its own for a color negative. This is because color negatives have an amber mask that will become a blue color cast after inverting, so the inverted color negative will not have the proper colors.

The best place to convert a color negative is usually at scan time with the scanning software. Many scanning applications have a good color negative conversion feature built in, and some have profiles for specific types of color film to remove the amber mask more effectively. This is the preferred method because the image comes into Photoshop positive and ready to use.

If your color negative is already in Photoshop, you can invert it as a first step, and then use a Curves adjustment layer to eliminate the mask color using a curve in each channel. You can find various tutorials for this around the web. But it takes a lot more time than getting it right at the scanner.

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New Here ,
Jun 26, 2020 Jun 26, 2020

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APPLE-I works to convert Negative color to Positive color.  OS10.15.4 using Photoshop Elements

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