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Experience with scanner
cmason
Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
I have read many reviews, so I am seeking personal experience here regarding photo scanners. I am really not sure what I need vs what I should get.
Situation: 15 yrs ago, my wife and I hired a professional photographer who also happened to be the father of one of my childhood friends. We of course orderd the wedding album and a bunch of photos. About two years ago, my friend's father (the photographer) died, and in the process of cleaning out what 35+ years of pro photography leaves behind, my friend handed to me STACKS of negatives and proofs from my wedding.
I would love to scan these negatives (medium format) as well as the proofs in order to archive them digitally, and perhaps print off a few as well,
I do not want to purchase a dedicated film scanner, since I do nothing with film any longer, but a flatbed scanner would prove useful after this exercise is over.
What do you recommend for this job? (brand, model)
Which scanners do a good job of both negatives and photos?
I have seen 35mm negative holders, do some scanners come with medium format holders?
Can you scan mutiple negatives or photos at a time?
Is the quality reasonable? Are prints good or noticably 'off"
thanks for reading...
Situation: 15 yrs ago, my wife and I hired a professional photographer who also happened to be the father of one of my childhood friends. We of course orderd the wedding album and a bunch of photos. About two years ago, my friend's father (the photographer) died, and in the process of cleaning out what 35+ years of pro photography leaves behind, my friend handed to me STACKS of negatives and proofs from my wedding.
I would love to scan these negatives (medium format) as well as the proofs in order to archive them digitally, and perhaps print off a few as well,
I do not want to purchase a dedicated film scanner, since I do nothing with film any longer, but a flatbed scanner would prove useful after this exercise is over.
What do you recommend for this job? (brand, model)
Which scanners do a good job of both negatives and photos?
I have seen 35mm negative holders, do some scanners come with medium format holders?
Can you scan mutiple negatives or photos at a time?
Is the quality reasonable? Are prints good or noticably 'off"
thanks for reading...
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I have an Epson 3170 flatbed scanner, it was the 'midline' flatbed of about 2 years ago. Scanning is more art than science, every scan needs color corrected, cleaned, sharpened, and usually sampled correctly. I am happy with the scanner for my use, the medium format scans print better as the original media is larger and more tolerant to sharpening. The 35mm scans make good screen lookers but need to be shot REALLY sharp to get a decent 8x10 or larger enlargement (not totally the fault of the scanner, 35mm in general needs to be really sharp for quality enlargement)
Here are some examples of what you can expect from a flatbed scanner and the factory software + tweaking in CS2. Each scan represents about 20 minutes from start to save. Aftermarket software, filmholders, and calibration can speed and improve the process, but I have not found it neccesary for my needs.
35mm scanned from Fuji superia 100 neg
scanned from Fuji Velvia 100 medium format Minolta Autocord
Scanned from Fuji Superia 100 neg 35mm
Scanned from 29 year old kodachrome 35mm
35mm not sure of film type, probably ektachrome
YashicaMat 124G TMax 100 Medium Format
That is what you can expect with some practice, and time invested with a flatbed scanner.
Are you finding that you need mutiple rescans to correct something or is that 20 mins PS time? If I could simply scan, and burn to DVD, so that someday, maybe I would do some color correction etc...
It is mostly PS time....each high res 35mm scan takes about 3 minutes...a strip of six in 20 or so.
I agree with Blurmore - I estimate 10 min each at a minumum if I want decent quality scans. Newer flat bed scanners are faster, but for 35mm dedicated fim scanners are very hard to beat.
The idea that you can just scan the film or prints in 30 seconds and be done is a myth, if you want a quality scan. If the film is older and aged, each scan is a work unto itself.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Another question: is it better to scan prints or negatives? I appear to have both: proof prints and negatives. All negatives are 4x5. I am leaning toward negatives, on the assumption that I have a more 'pure' image, without exposure and white balance issues from the bulk proof print. I have never scanned a negative before, so not sure how it works...
Scanning color negatives can be challenging. It's easiest if you have scanning software that knows how to invert the negative and remove the amber mask. Many do these days. If not, you can try VueScan, which comes with many negative profiles that can put you well inside the ballpark so that you only need to do minor correcting.
The hidden cost of bulk scanning is the time, as you are finding. If you can invest the time to learn fast scanning and fast correcting, maybe it will be worth your time. If your time is worth too much, maybe it's better to send them out to a service.
To scan 4x5 negatives you'll need a 4000 series Epson flat bed scanner, although my stepfather has an HP unit with a 4x5 attachment light, I have no idea how old or what model this is. Basically a flat bed scanner serves a dual purpose, reflective and tranparency media. For transparency media you need a light source below and above the media. My 3170 overhead lightsource will only accomodate a 6cm wide piece of media. The higher end units accomodate a 4 inch wide media, allowing 4x5 scans. As for which to scan Negs or Prints, you can scan prints on any flatbed and can go on the cheap in your scanner selection. Do not expect the results to be printable at larger than the original media size if scanned from prints. Scanning prints is fine for having a screen size quality archive of your old photos. Scanning negatives give you the ability to reprint and enlarge as well as archive (at much higher file size) almost all the quality in your original media. I consider this to be superior, but also more time consuming and more expensive. So far as the conversion from neg to positive, even the must rudimentary scanner software will convert the image. The higher end software (silverfast and I think vuescan) allows the use of custom film profiles, which automatically enhance and correct the film according to the specifics of the original film type. Nice for color, not so much for B&W. 4x5's need to be scanned one by one on most flatbeds. The factory Epson medium format carrier allows only 1 frame per scan. The 35mm negative carrier allows 12 frames to be scanned at once (if cut 6 per strip) and the 35mm slide carrier allows 4 slides scanned at a time. There is an aftermarket medium format carrier produced and sold on ebay that allows 3 6x7 4 6x6 or 2 6x9's I believe to be scanned at once. Alternatively you could take the 4x5's to a pro commerical photofinishing operation at get 4base drum scans which are very nice undistorted but not terribly high res scans made. Or 16base high res scans made for considerably more money. Drum scans are the IT, the best scans possible for 4x5, 5x7 or even 8x10 transparency.
List price is $450. Current Amazon.com price is $429.26.
Scanning negatives entails more work than scanning the prints, but the results are much better. Once you master the basics, you should have no problem making good prints.
Honestly, if you're looking to scan hundreds (plural) of negatives for archiving, I would try and find a company to do it for you. But I would definitely scan the best ones for myself.
I have probably 150 4x5 negatives, all in archive sleeves and well cared for. The prints are simply 5x7 (or similar) proofs, printed by the pro photographer's print service. I question some of the prints since the backs of them have notes such as "lighter", "too yellow", 'push .75", etc indicating how he would order the final prints to be delivered to the customer (me). I am guessing that he got them printed in auto mode for review.
Interesting that negative scanning beats print scanning. I suppose I was assuming that the larger size of the print would result in a better image, since the scan resolution is the same, the print would be a larger image for the scan. But I suppose the negative has more detail and resolution resulting in more data in the scan than a photo?
I recently bought an Epson 4990 and have been doing a lot of scanning of old medium format negatives and prints. Most are B&W, but a few are color. I agree with the analogy of RAW vs JPEG regarding scanning negatives versus prints. You have a choice regarding the amount of processing to do in the scanner. It takes me about 18 minutes to scan 3 medium format negatives. I've done about 85 so far, and have many more to go. It helps if the negatives are in good condition. They really need to be flat - curling ones are very problamatic.
My approach has been to do some task multiplexing while I scan, but the computer is tied up for the duration and it is rather tedious.
BTW, most places were backordered on the 4990. I couldn't find the PRO version, and I grabbed one with the limited edition software when I found one at a reasonable price, thinking I would upgrade the software if/when I feel the need for it.