Method and system for using calibration patches in electronic film processing

An electronic film processing system for processing exposed undeveloped film, comprising:

• a calibration light source operable to create a reference patch on the film;
• an applicator operable to apply a film processing solution to the film;
• at least one imaging station operable to scan the coated film and produce an electronic image of a scene and the reference patch;
• and
• a computer processor coupled to the at least one imaging station, wherein the electronic image of the reference patch is used in calculating image processing parameters that are used to process the electronic image of the scene to produce initial color values.

A scene image prepared in accordance with the following steps:

• providing a film with a latent scene image on a first area of the film;
• creating at least one reference patch having known spectral properties on a second area of the film;
• applying a developer solution to the film;
• developing the coated film to form a scene image and developed reference patch images;
• scanning the coated film to generate signals corresponding to digital representations of the developed scene image and the developed patch images;
• calculating image processing parameters from the signals associated with the developed patch images;
• and
• processing the digital representations of the developed scene image using the calculated image processing parameters to produce initial color values for the scene image.