[Leica] Scanning Kodachrome

[pklein at threshinc.com (Peter Klein)]

My scanning of 1970s-era Kodachromes continues.  I'm using a Canon 
FS-4000 with VueScan Pro.  The FS-4000 can do a two-scan pass with 
different exposures, which really helps with shadows.  I scan to 16-bit 
TIFF, do my major adjustments in Picture Window Pro, then convert to 
8-bit for resizing and sharpening.  Yes, my monitor is calibrated. I 
save to sRGB once the file is adjusted in VueScan and goes from RAW 
space to TIFF.

I hadn't scanned film much recently, so I am relearning Kodachrome's 
scanning issues.  I don't mind the orangy-ruddy flesh tones, that's just 
part of what the film does.  But one thing that drives me crazy is that 
even with VueScan's Kodachrome profile, my old 1970s slides scan a bit 
green/cyan in the shadows, and a bit magenta in the mid to upper 
midtones.  Fixing either color makes the other worse.  Full sunshine 
pictures are usually OK, ,but for contrasty pictures with both sunlight 
and shade, simple color balancing using a white sample doesn't cut it.

Here's an example, which I posted previously as "Purple Mountain 
Majesties."  You can find other examples in the same gallery:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/MyYouth/Franconia+Range+from+Cannon+Mountain.html

This is an extreme case (early morning angled backlight, deep shadows 
and bright clouds in the same picture), but it illustrates the problem. 
I have a lot of outdoor mountain photographs with a high contrast range 
like this.  My old habit of underexposing 1/3 stop for better saturation 
probably didn't  help, though in the above picture, I was cramming an 
awful lot of dynamic range onto a contrasty film.

Anybody have any secret VueScan workflows or profiles that would help 
with this?  Suggestions?  Making color masks for every picture is not 
going to happen--I'd do that for a wall-hanger, but not for every good shot.

--Peter