Lukabulla

Hi ya All .
always enjoy the Discussions on here ..

Re Negative scanners : I wish to scan my old collection of 35mm negs ..
I have tried the Cheap dedicated scanners of about £50 or so but the results
are indeed very poor ..

The next step up are professional scanners of about £250 - £400 (used ) !

Is there a ' Middle way '? where one could get decent results without spending a fortune.
What about these Epsom flatbed scanners with Negative trays ... Any good ?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've been using An Epson V600 for years - many thousands of scans - but I've never done negatives. Lots of people here use the same model scanner, so I'm sure you'll get replies from negative scanners, but hopefully, not negative comments. : )

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

I use the same scanner and have scanned B&W negatives with great success. The attached is a scanned B&W negative that was poor quality due to my negatives were in a flood.

(Download)

chevman Loc: Matthews, North Carolina

Here is a review and a little tutorial on the Epson Perfection V 600 Photo scanner: http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN/V600/V600.HTM. I also use This scanner and it does a very decent job and with a little post processing in Adobe Lightroom you can get some very nice results.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for that link.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Simple answer, yes definitely!

First off, there are many types of scanners. Commercial / Professional Labs usually use Drum Scanners, good ones are extremely expensive, $ thousands! There are also Commercial dedicated Flat Bed Scanners for films. Then there are the ones you speak of, yes, usually rather poor. What many find as a solution is a sort of middle ground of using a General Use or Office Flat Bed Scanner that can scan both prints and films with a removable platen and second light source in the lid. There are many of these. Yes, Epson has made a lot of good ones with Prices usually from $100 to $1,000 USD new. I personally own a Epson Perfection V500 PHOTO Scanner. It does a pretty good job in my estimation. But I wish I had gotten a few models higher so I could scan 4x5" negatives and transparencies. Some current models are Epson Perfection V370 ($130), V550 ($180), V600 ($230), V800 ($780), V850 ($1,000), and Epson Expression 12000XL Photo Scanner ($3,430), etc. The bigger the number the larger the films and transparencies that can be scanned, more features, and more resolution they have. I would have been happier with a V880 or V850 or similar. The issue for me is size of media, not resolution. Most of these have the same resolutions anyway. I few things to note. The resolution of scanner is given in "printing resolution" in dpi not ppi or lpi. I found I never even get close to the max resolution of my scanner. One high res scan can take up to 30 minutes and be several GBs in size on one's HDD! Even Photoshop will smoke to work with such huge files. You want files comparable to your cameras' Raw files, say 12 to 30 MB in size. You'll need to ask more scanner question on the UHH about files sizes and resolutions to understand all this and know where to start in your scanning. A dpi, bit, byte, ppi nightmare. Others have a better grip on this and more experience in graphic arts and the printing businesses.

One trick I've used for larger film is to use a Light Box and tripod and shoot your film with a Digital Camera. It works great for 4x5", 5x7", and 8x10" negatives and transparencies (reversals). I've even gotten pretty good results for 35mm and 6x6 cm and 6x7cm.

This is from a scanned 35mm negative from 1980 with now digitally added coulds.

(Download)

dave.m

i've had the V600 and now the V850. Negative scanning is definitely much better than the low priced scanners. The problem changes to then being one of speed, and no matter what the scanning method, the colour quality of the scanned result.

The cheap dedicated scanners are typically (always?) taking a photograph with a cheap lens and sensor. This is the limitation, and no better and probably worse than using your own camera with one of the old bellows or similar slide copiers. Just search ebay for slide copier. But be aware that if you have a cropped body camera you will get restricted coverage.

Which brings me back to the Epson Vxxx neg scanning. Some points:
* The results are certainly much better than anything I have used except a dedicated film scanner;
* most 35 negs or slides have been commercially 'mass' developed. The image quality is often lacking and no amount of pixel increase will change sharpness as the originals are often grainy from the processing
* enlargements from scanned good negs are at least capable of 10x8 printing and usually good enough for 23" monitor viewing (although the difference in quality compared with a modern DSLR can be obvious)
* professionally developed b+W 120 roll film will enlarge to A3 easily.
* scanning is slow, and if you set a high resolution very slow (minutes for a few scans)
* colour rendition depends very much on the original neg and how it has been stored. Colour fading is common and it is not easy to correct at first. Add mediocre original mass processing + natural fading and the results can be really disappointing

I'm guessing your old photo collection is similar to mine - hardly ever threw anything away as film was so expensive, lots of snapshots, many I can't recognize where they were taken, but also containing a number of gems, or for you of great personal or historical significance. If this is the case then what I did was:

view or scan everything with the cheepo scanner; sort out the keepers (usually just a small proportion); if necessary clean the neg with a microfibre cloth/ blower (liquid cleaner as a last resort); scan with Epson Vxxxx

There are tons of good videos on youtube about retouching old images but there is always a risk of hours of computer assisted time-wasting on a single image! I typically Post process using PS, and one of the best quick tools for a fast sort out is Curves. A very passable image can often be achieved with a few clicks.

Here is an example scan with corrections just using Curves (its a print scan but principle just the same as Epson Vxxx software takes care of the dull orange overall tint of a neg )

* On loading there is obviously a hefty red colour cast (1st image below)
* open curves and adjust for histogram being short on the left and right(2nd image)
* Contrast is better, but still red. Open curves again and select Red instead of RGB. Adjust again so the red histogram fills the width (3rd)
* Much better but Still a slight red which can be seen in the leggings of the little girl on the left. Open curves again, select red, and select the right hand white dropper. Click on a bright white part of the leggings which should be white (4th)

There's more that can be done, but not bad for 3 simple adjustments using just curves.

If you want to splash out a bit and have PS CSx x86 have a look at Kodak ROC filter. I think its brilliant but it won't work in x64 so presumably no later that CS6?)

Once installed as an filter in PS, just select Filters >Kodak> ROC and in this image even default settings does an excellent job (5th) and a small touch with Levels gives me a very reasonable result (6th)

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Unfortunately, I have to make a negative comment about flatbed scanners. I have some negatives that are at least forty years old. My Epson scanner makes a perfect image of the negative - including every scratch and fungus mark. My refurbished Nikon scanner, by making multiple passes and using parallax to eliminate surface imperfections, does a much much better job; a few extra minutes scanning saves me hours of gimp time.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yes, look at the Epson V600 and higher. Also, if you have a macro lens capable of at least 1:1 magnification, know that you can photograph your film images and process them in Lightroom or Photoshop with great success.

John Ryberg

Im considering a Nikon slide scanner to scan my dad's slide collection. Parallax was mentioned in one of the posts. What is parallax?

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

I suppose the decision for a film scanner will depend on the number of times it will be used to scan film. Since I purchased the Epson V600 to scan in my film (35mm and 220mm) and all the film scanning was complete I haven't used the scanner since.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I scan all sorts of paperwork that used to fill file cabinets. Digital is easier to store than paper.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

I have a Nikon Coolscan at work along with an Epson V700. For larger slide scanning jobs the Nikon is used as it will do about 40 slides at a time using the slide feeder (unless it jams). For smalle jobs and for negatives, I like using the Epson. Recently did some scans of an old neg from the 70's and had a digital print made of it that looked better than any conventional print I ever did of it.

Mr Bill 2011 Loc: southern Indiana

I have used an Epson 4990 flatbed scanner for years to scan negatives and slides; it does a fine job.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Basically, parallax is what gives you 3D vision {not me - I can use only one eye at a time}. Looking at something from two or more different angles allows you to determine which objects are more distant than others.

My "ancient" Nikon scanner scans each line 16 times, each from a slightly different angle.This allows the software to determine which objects are actually in the emulsion and which are not. It will have trouble detecting scratches in the actual emulsion, but most of the issues with my slides are something not in the emulsion level, so the software is able to ignore them and figure out what the actual emulsion {"picture"} looks like.

added: after I scan each slide, I use gimp to finish it - to clean up any remaining issues. This is not a fast project, but I feel it is worth doing right. As of this morning, I have scanned 4460 slides over the past nine years, with at least a few hundred to go. I am basically retired now, and typically I find time to scan perhaps twenty each week.