Handcolored negatives to debut at Celebrate the Arts

Varying degrees of success getting the saturation I want with neutral black and white surrounds. With the exception of the yellow rose...that was purely an exercise in color contrasts and pen point vs broad side coloring to build texture.  I think it all worked, 'cept the first.  Am slowly learning that it isn't exact opposites on the color wheel when scanning hand colored black and white negatives to make them into positives.

A bit on scanner settings. I do scan max DPI with the Epson Perfection V600.  I scan from the profession mode where I can get the best control of the final output.  The max DPI is 12800 which even from a small negative yields huge files...along the order of 50-70 megs depending on the detail in the image.  I chose the scan in 48 bit color to capture all the subtleties of the color I apply to the negatives.  I still use the Black and White film as type as opting for "color negative" gives it all a ghastly orange tint that simply can't be corrected out.

File resizing for image size and usable dpi for images is done with the help of Adobe CS5. While we are on the topic of CS5, have I mentioned recently how much I love the "spot healing brush tool"?  Its simply magic and is the most useful tool in working with scanned negatives and "spotting" out rough spots in the color or removing dust particles.  No matter how clean I keep things there still is dust that makes it into the scan...microscopic stuff that I can't really see until the scan is blown up, yet the tool removes it and blends in the scene perfectly.

These images will be appearing in the trusty satchel of images and possibly framed for the coming Monrovia Association of Fine Arts "Celebrate the Arts" to be held on October 8/9 in the heart of Old Town Monrovia in Library Park.  (Monrovia, California, not Libya).