Scanning negatives

[donmcc]

Does anyone have any experience with scanning negatives. I discovered that one of the collections in my local town museum is a collection of several thousand negatives that were once owned by the local photographers.

These would all be stored as b&W (primarily) negatives, although there will be some color. I would hate to have to get them all printed in a darkroom. Are there any tricks to scanning from the negative, then Photoshopping to create a digital file?

I hope to apply for a Heritage grant to allow (college) students to do such work.

[Bo Aakerstrom]

No tricks, you just need the right equipment.

A film scanner would be your best option, sadly these days they are not so easy to come by. I would have recommended one of Nikon's CoolScan units, but they are no longer available AFAIK. Perhaps EBAY is your friend here?

Plustek OpticFilm is one option, even if the software seems to be a weak spot. A 3rd party application would resolve that.

Hasselblad's more expensive offering is another.

Avoid using a flatbed scanner with a film attachment, I had a Canon CanoScan 9000 F, for a very short while. Not only painfully slow, the output was not much to write home about either.

[terrie]

donmcc: Are there any tricks to scanning from the negative, then Photoshopping to create a digital file?

Are they all 35mm?

As Bo notes, you need a film scanner (or a flatbed that will scan negs/slides--never used my Epson 2450 to scan negs/slides). As Bo also noted, dedicated neg/slide scanners can be hard to find and ebay is a good place to look. If you need other than 35mm, it gets trickier to find equipment...

I'd definitely recommend getting VueScan to use as your scanning software--wait until you know which scanner you will be using because while Vuescan works with most scanners, there are probably some it doesn't work with...

My scanning has been primarily (actually...all) with slides but I think with Vuescan you'd find neg scanning to be not that big a deal. I scan using VueScan basically doing the scans in batches--saved as TIFFs--and then I work on a group of scans in Photoshop--the Healing brush is absolutely indispensable because no matter how hard you try, you're never going to get a really clean neg/slide.

A few months ago, I boought a Plustek OptiFilm 7200 on ebay for a very good price--it was missing the power cord which I was able to find inexpensively online. It only does 35mm (negs/slides).

Terrie

[donmcc]

That is the thing, they will have many that are larger formats, as they are older files from the 50s and before.

Thanks for the links.

[terrie]

donmcc: That is the thing, they will have many that are larger formats, as they are older files from the 50s and before.

Ahhh...that's what I thought might be the case...

I'd take a browse at ebay for slide scanners and see what's out there...I'll try and see what I can find...

Terrie

[terrie]

Ok...using the link I'd posted before and also searched on 'film scanner' (did use single quote marks), I browsed around ebay and there is lots and lots of 35mm scanners available but not much in the way of medium/large format neg scanners but I did find a Microtek i900 Medium Format (also does 35mm) scanner listed with a buy it now price of $99 (ebay item number: 220812242335 in case the link above doesn't work). I'd suggest taking a look at this one...asap and do the buy it now...

Alternatively, buy a 35mm film/slide scanner inexpensively on ebay--I've been pleased with the Plusteck OptiFilm 7200 I bought and I have my old Minolta Dimage II (might sell that on ebay)--and then search for a service that could scan the larger format negs for you.

Terrie

[donmcc]

It was sold before I got to it, but thanks for looking. I can't buy that quick anyway ... it would require an entire grant process. I really looking for something in a couple years (things move slowly in education).

Good to know that such a beast exists. It looks like just what I would need.

[terrie]

donmcc: It was sold before I got to it, but thanks for looking. I can't buy that quick anyway ... it would require an entire grant process. I really looking for something in a couple years (things move slowly in education).

Too bad it was gone--figured that might happen.


>>Good to know that such a beast exists. It looks like just what I would need.

I thought it did too...did a quick searh on 'microtek i900 scanner' (used the single quote marks) and found an amazon listing with more spec details...that you might find useful...and another place that actually has it in stock...

Terrie

[John Spragens]

I wonder how the market for film scanners is going to play out over the course of a couple of years, or however long it takes to get the grant and set things in motion.

The last of the Nikon scanners just dropped off the market in the past year or two. It's easy to imagine the used market drying up, as well. But equally easy to imagine that people who bought in the past few years will be finishing up their projects and wanting to sell their scanners.

I have a Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro. With the right carriers, it can scan film up to 6 x 9 cm, which gets a lot of the older roll film sizes. Nikon made one -- the Super Coolscan 9000 ED -- that could handle a similar range of film sizes.

When the scanners go off the market, the driver updates stop coming, too. That's why VueScan is such a big help. It'll run under a wide range of operating systems and talk with a huge number of scanners. Personally, though, I prefer the Minolta software for mine, and I'm maintaining archaic operating systems (Windows 2000, and holding with Snow Leopard on the Mac side) so I can continue to use the Minolta software.

For processing the scans, a lot depends on the quality you need. If you just need to be able to identify people and places, you can sacrifice a lot of quality and save a lot of time. (And maybe even get satisfactory results from a flatbed scanner with film-scanning capabilities.)

I've gotten in the habit of a workflow that begins with a "linear" scan, which I then run through a Photoshop plug-in called ColorPerfect [http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html]. That inverts the scan (the linear scans of negatives produce a negative image) and, in the process, preserves a very good range of grays (or more colorful midtones in color images). But it's kind of fiddly, so if speed is important, you might not want to bother with that.

I second the kudos for Photoshop's spot healing brush. But, again, you can wind up spending an hour or two or even more on just one scan if you want to get it looking really good. If you just need to be able to recognize faces and places, you may not want to invest the time to clean things up that much.

[terrie]

john: I have a Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro. With the right carriers, it can scan film up to 6 x 9 cm, which gets a lot of the older roll film sizes.

I knew Minolta made a scanner that scanned other sizes in addition to 35mm but I couldn't remember which model so thanks for mentioning yours...'-}}


>>I second the kudos for Photoshop's spot healing brush. But, again, you can wind up spending an hour or two or even more on just one scan if you want to get it looking really good. If you just need to be able to recognize faces and places, you may not want to invest the time to clean things up that much.

That's certaining something that can be done well after the fact rather than immediately after scanning and it could be that I just have particularly dirty slides but even using a slide/neg cleaning brush, I still find lots of crud in my scans...'-}}

I know there some sort of solution one can buy--PEC?--and I've considered it but then I'd have to dismount and remount my slides which seems more trouble than using the Healing brush however, for negatives it might be worth getting...

Terrie