Konstantin,
I have
succesfully profiled my Nikon Coolscan IV ED film scanner, which is very similar
to your 4000 ED. Here are the steps which you can try:
- Have a very careful look in your \windows\system\color folder for all custom profiles you have put there for your scanner and monitor, and move them out. I don't understand some of the results you are getting, and it might be due to you using different settings when you created the profile, to the settings you are actually using when you are doing subsequent scans. The reason I would also like you to move the monitor profile out is partly because I have not used the Little CMS Monitor Profiler at all yet, and I want to take this one step at a time. Once you have produced a usable scanner profile, then you can try the monitor profiling. So, let's start fresh by cleaning out all custom profiles.
- Open
the Nikon Scan application. NB: Actually run the Nikon Scan *application*
- do not "import" into a photo editing application by using the
TWAIN interface of Nikon Scan.
Apply the following settings:
- Click on Prefs, and select the Color Management category, and enable "Use Nikon Color Management System". The reason for this is that I have noticed that Nikon Scan seems to sometimes scan with a gamma of 1 (when in fact I had asked it to scan with a gamma of 2.2), but only when color management is disabled. So I always enable color management, but select Scanner Profile. The two modes are identical, except for the fact that when color management is enabled (with Scanner Profile selected), it allows the various image adjustement tools to be used. I.e, it is a way to provide a raw, non colour managed scan, but still allow the image adjustment tools to be used.
- Ensure that the Color Space is set to "Scanner Profile".
- In the Tools Palette, ensure all of the following have neutral settings: Curves, Color Balance, LCH Editor, Unsharp Mask, Digital ICE, and Analog Gain
- Set the Pixel Depth to 8. - Set the scan resolution to 1200dpi. (not critical, but 2900dpi is overkill)
- Click on Settings, and select "Set User Settings".
- Exit out of Nikon Scan, and then re-start it
- Scan your target, and save it to a TIFF file.
- Open the scan in Photoshop. Don't use any colour management - just open it, and have a look. It should look normal - it should not look dark and saturated like the scans you were getting. If it looks dark & saturated, stop here - there is something wrong.
- Now create a profile using the Little CMS Profiler, and, assuming that the Profile Checker reports that the profile is ok and accurate (you should get a max dE of around 2, from experience), install the profile into \windows\system\color
- Open the scan of the target in Photoshop, and tag it with your newly created profile. The scan should (of course) still look normal, and it should also look a bit more saturated and contrasty.
Please
see how you go with the above, and report back. Good luck.
:)
Greg.
