Tim Stapp Loc: Mid Mitten

When shooting film; 35mm and 4x5, would slide film scan better than negative film?

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

I don't think so, but I'd like to hear what others say. In fact, based on my experiences, slide film scans better.

Correction: I've never scanned negative film before---only slide film. Don't know.

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

Tim,

I have scanned both types of film, 35mm, and found no visible difference.

From the scanner point of view the transparency film will copy well because the light must pass through the film into the sensors on the traveling head. The copy is a direct transfer similar to scanning a printed paper. There is no requirement to flip the scanned image from negative to positive.

Dependent on who made the transparency holder, and how thick the cardboard holder is, can determine the quality of the scan focus. This could cause the picture to look soft focused when captured in your camera.

The negative film scan must be inverted after the scan to form a positive image file, this is best done with the scan software prior to saving the scan as a .jpg file. The good side of using negative film to scan an image is the film can sit flat onto the scanner bed and be scanned with a lamp above the scanner bed.

I used a HP flat bed scanner with an accessory film holder for 35mm films. The scanner would turn off the scanner lamp and use a stationary lamp in the accessory head. The scanner software and accessory head compensated for any focus shift caused by physical distance between the film plain and the scanner head.

You may not be able to find this scanner available on the market since HP would not release a driver for the latest Windows OS. You should be able to find a good flat bed scanner that will enable you to scan positive and negative films with an adapter for each of your film sizes, and later to perform normal scans of printed documents.

Michael G

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

:thumbup: :thumbup:

blackest Loc: Ireland

for colour, slide film is better. colour negatives are a pain in the backside. Each film variation has a slightly different orange mask, this can drive you crazy. Black & White is fairly easy.

It is a long tedious job, maybe consider a company that specialises in scanning and avoid the pain and suffering.

mcveed Loc: Kelowna, British Columbia (between trips)

On my Nikon Cool Scan V, a film scanner, slides come out contrasty but the colours are pretty good. Negative film produces scans with less contrast but the colours often have to be fiddled. And the fiddling can be a problem.

blackest Loc: Ireland

The fiddling will be a problem, it may be a little less of a problem with a calibrated screen.

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

blackest,

If you know your film type (Kodak, Fugi, Technicolor, etc.)you can create your own scan profile for that film, and make thousands of scans for that type film. If you don't know the color film type then scan one of the trailer strips and setup your color profile to scan for a gray scale. Normally you can visually see the difference in color print film negatives and their inherent color cast in the edge borders of each frame.

You set your color scan profile with the color balance controls in the scanner software, copy down the values for future scans.

Michael G

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I have recently scanned over 35,000 images with a mixture of transparency (Kodachrome and E6) as well as color and B&W negative. There is little difference when it comes to the effort needed.

The real difference is in the latitude of the original media. Transparencies, especially Kodachrome and low-speed E6 films, have less exposure latitude and might start off looking more saturated and contrasty. Color negative has more latitude and is less susceptible to overexposed highlights. B&W has even more latitude.

So it really depends on what you mean by "better".

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Scanned velvia 50 color 120 transparencies and the colors were great. But, for high res scans, better be good at Photoshop to remove fuzz and dust, because at 4800 dpi, it was impossible for me to get a clean scan. On the plus side, PS was able to totally clean an image in about 20 minutes.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Gee, I didn't really want to bring that up, but dust is the one big issue you will need to deal with. Fortunately, most of the images I scanned were not worth the extra effort, but for your better images you might want to deal with it.

First, blow or brush off the film before scanning and, if you are using a flatbed scanner, make sure the glass is clean. Use the dust removal feature of the scanner software and leave the sharpening off until later. PS Elements has a good spot removal and cloning tool and so do most other programs. I don't happen to like the one in Lightroom.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

It depends on the scanner, but the Canonscan 8800F scanner software was much worse than what I could do with the Photoshop stamp tool and healing brush. The canoscan software left correctly colored puckered artifacts where the dust spots had been.
Bob

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Dust removal (Epson) for color and B&W does a fairly decent job without leaving a trace but it will only get the smaller spots. You still have some work remaining.

Digital Ice (Epson and NikonScan) is also supposed to do the job for color but I normally skip it and remove the dust and scratches by hand. I don't think you can use it with Kodachrome and I know it can not be used for B&W.

Auto Retouch (Capture NX2), Spot Healing (PS Elements) are simple and effective but my favorites are Clone and Spec Removal (Picture Window Pro).

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You have more dynamic range with certain color positive films - Velvia comes to mind. Otherwise the results are pretty similar if you are comparing films with similar grain structure. I've done both, but only on older 35mm films.

mldavis2

Cleaning the film/slide surfaces is key to a good scan. Unless you are using a dedicated film scanner with oil-coated slides, dust particles are the main headache. If you're using a flatbed scanner, there is no need to sandwich the film between the pieces of glass as the depth of field of scanners is more than sufficient to compensate for buckling or warping of the surface. And in general, the old Kodachrome slides tend to have the best tonal range and color balance. Some scanners have a double scan feature that does a removal of dust particles in the scanner software by using two different wavelengths of light to determine what is reflective dust particles and what is slide film surface. This feature does not work on B&W film.