Editing scans vs. editing digital

[Battou]

Scan your self. Film enabled flatbed scanners really do not cost that much anymore. It's worth the price.

The question is whether a scanner I could afford would really improve the situation? I'd hate to invest in a scanner only to find I still have the problem. If I have to put up $1000 for a scanner that gives results comparable to a DSLR then I'm more inclined to just buy my own DSLR and resign myself to lower quality scans, or no scans, for my film.

I'm wondering if I would get better results by having an 8X10 print made and then scan that on my present flatbed (which does not have film/slide capability). That would be expensive and I would not want to do that with every picture but I could do it with special ones now and then.

no, I've ranted about this a couple times......Sorry I can't personalize this a bit more but I'm seriously late for a meeting.

As far as scanning goes......does your local lab offer photos on CD? they will turn out better than using a flatbed scanner.

That is a double edged sword, sharp enough to the point of saying it's a bad idea. Most places that offer the Photo CD only offer it in the higher processing options (I.E. Kodak Perfect Touch and what not). With these processes the processors literally go threw and compensate and/or correct issues in exposure. Wile yes they will provide a very good digitalization of ones photo the corrections that have been done completely negate the possibility of finding and correcting the issues the one behind the camera is making.

In other words you can't fix it if you don't know it's broken. If one just wants nice prints for family memories that is fine, but for anyone wanting to learn the camera and the facets of photography for internet display, their best bet is to go with standard prints and digitalize the images them selves and learn from some bad looking prints.

Battou: The photo editor I have is called ulead. came with an older camera I had, and its pretty good. I mean, its nowhere near photoshop or anything but its decent.

Oh dear, I've never even heard of it, let alone using it. Not knowing the software I can't be of much help in that department.

But as promised here is the picture I said I would bring.

One was scanned with a Canon dedicated film scanner and the other the print placed in my HP all in one and scanned. Both images have been left as they came out of the scanner with the exception of the resize, That was done by PB's autoresizer (in other words I never opened them in editing software).

Film scan

Print scan

Digital pic of print

These demonstrate the difference between the two types of scanning, as you can see there is no way for me to make this one hundred percent accurate to what I actually captured but I can try to get it very close to the print itself with some saturation and maybe some unsharp masking, atleast for the subject. Knowing the drawback to a consumer grade flatbed scanner is going to be of great use to you at the time being though. Now that you know there is a difference basically you are going to have to hold the print up to the monitor and work the image as close as possible to it by visual comparison. You can get by this way until you are ready, serious enough or have the money to spend the money on a scanner equipped with a negative and slide scanning device or even a dedicated film/slide scanner.

This image also shows something you are going to want to know, commercial print labs tend to print to a medium grey instead of black at times, thoroughly blowing out the sky, but not always, it depends on who is running the machine.




As That One Guy, SierraBravo and Happy Hour all said Pick up that book and don't let these minor setbacks get you down, we have all gone threw the process of incorrect exposures....any one who says otherwise is a lying pile of auto settings.

 

[battletone]

Buy a dedicated film scanner, and learn to scan.
Find a decent lab which will hand over 16bit TIFFs (you'll probably pay more but if it's control you're after then this comes a close second to owning your own gear).

How much $$$ are we talking about to even consider scanning your own?

 

[bhop]

The scans I get from Target are big files.. maybe 5-7mb each. These are Medium res. I tried High res once and those were even bigger and were nice scans, but I prefer medium because they're good enough for 8.5x11 printouts and don't take up as much disk space. They scan low res unless you ask for higher.

 

[Battou]

Buy a dedicated film scanner, and learn to scan.
Find a decent lab which will hand over 16bit TIFFs (you'll probably pay more but if it's control you're after then this comes a close second to owning your own gear).

How much $$$ are we talking about to even consider scanning your own?

I got an awesome deal on a pre-owned Canon Canoscan 2710 dedicated film scanner (the one used for the demonstration above) at $200 USD.

Film enabled flatbeds are available for around that and sometimes cheaper new.

From my research it seems that one of the sacrifices made with the flatbed scanner is time, High rez scans take a wile to exicute, but I rekon it's managable since dedicated scanners are not for everyone.

Take your film shooting frequency into account when making a decition on a Scanner.

 

[Derrel]

Plustek Technology Inc. | OpticFilm 7500i SE Film | A25-BBM31-C

If you have 35mm film to scan, there are a number of solutions on the market now...I just went and looked at B&H Photo and was surprised to see some of the smaller, lower-cost alternative items designed to digitize film.

I have a Minolta Scan Dual III, which is only a 2820 dpi scanner, but it still does quite a respectable job on 35mm slides and negatives. I think Minolta might have let the scanner business. I always thought that dedicated film scanners would do a better job than flatbed on 35mm sized film, but that on larger formats like 120 and 4x5, that flatbeds were amply good,and especially the ones that started hitting the market around 2005.

Right now, I'm starting to consider a slide duplication system and a macro lens...scanning is fine, but it's slow for me...I'd like to be able to digitize a few thousand 1980's Kodachromes and don't have a year to spare...

 

[Buckster]

I got a Canon 8800f scanner for around $165 new off Amazon about a month ago specifically to scan 120 negatives, and it's performing spectacularly, from my point of view. Last night I pulled out some 20+ year old 35mm color negs and was pretty amazed at the quality job it did with them as well - much better than the prints I got back with the film when I had it developed, actually.

 

[Garbz]

How much $$$ are we talking about to even consider scanning your own?

I'm wondering if I would get better results by having an 8X10 print made and then scan that on my present flatbed (which does not have film/slide capability). That would be expensive and I would not want to do that with every picture but I could do it with special ones now and then.

How about between $250AU - $380AU which while currently approaching 1:1 with the US dollar is still stupidly inflated. Rough guess you'd get this here: Canon Australia - CanoScan 8800F which is one of Canon's non LED fladbed scanners for about $250US. There are cheaper ones available.

But this is what I am talking about. Flatbed scanners with film adapters, and cartridges to hold 120 and 35mm film. They are slow. At 9600dpi they take about 5min to scan one frame (but then you're outdoing the resolution of the film and likely the accuracy of the stepping motor in the scanner too). But they give you complete control allowing you to edit in the full bitdepth the scanner supports (higher than most digital cameras), and work on the image in the way you want to.

This is not as good as a dedicated film scanner which may cost twice as much. It is not as good as a drum scanner which may cost 20 times as much. It will not match the quality of a very professional and talented operator of a dedicated film scanner such as those available in many labs, however to get a talented operator often costs money, to get him to hand over TIFFs may cost even more.

It depends how much each photo means to you. I would too like to buy a $1000 8 colour inkjet and have control over my prints, but I outsource it. However I outsource the photos that matter to the people who are good at it, and paid $50 for my last print (ok it was large, but the point is the same).

If you have just a small handful of photos you care about then scan all your photos at elcheapo lab, and take the good ones to a pro lab and you may have a cost effective solution. If you want to tweak and twiddle with every photo, then buy either a more upper class film scanner like the one above, or buy a dedicated film scanner.

This frame may not look like much. But you need to understand that I totally fouled up the developing and shooting of this roll of film since it was my first attempt at Efke IR820. My notes say "frames look very thing, shot ISO6, suggest ISO3 and a 4 min (that's about 25%) increase in developing time".

If you wish I can post a quick example of what the film frames look like so you can see how non-normal the above frame really is, but how I managed to pull exceptable tone (crap image though ) from it with Canon's cheapest cold cathode scanner (few models below the one I linked above).

 

[dhilberg]

You can always rent a scanner from your local photo shop. I rented the very highly regarded Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED over Labor Day weekend. Cost me only $45 and I got something like 130 scans done. It's terrible for B&W negs though. Digital ICE (dust and scratch removal) doesn't work on B&W because of the silver halide, and the scanner's lamp brought out every scratch possible on the negs. Looks like someone took sand paper to them.

For color negs or transparencies, it's an awesome scanner.

 

[Actor]

You can always rent a scanner from your local photo shop. I rented the very highly regarded Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED over Labor Day weekend. Cost me only $45 and I got something like 130 scans done. It's terrible for B&W negs though. Digital ICE (dust and scratch removal) doesn't work on B&W because of the silver halide, and the scanner's lamp brought out every scratch possible on the negs. Looks like someone took sand paper to them.

For color negs or transparencies, it's an awesome scanner.

For me there is no "local photo shop." The closest ones are over 40 miles away and I don't think they rent scanners, but I'll check.

My wife works in the library of a local university and as such I have library privileges. They have a Nikon Coolscan which I can use. The only problem is ... it does not work. Why does it not work? The squeaking wheel principle, i.e., the squeaking wheel gets the oil. They will not fix it just because I want to use it. A student, or better yet a faculty member, has to ask. So far no one has.

 

[Garbz]

Then it's only appropriate that a "grease" payment goes to the relevant student or faculty member

 

[Actor]

Then it's only appropriate that a "grease" payment goes to the relevant student or faculty member

I hadn't thought of that. However, I don't think there's enough in my photography budget to buy enough grease.

I'm beginning to think I need to forget scanning and buy 1000 sheets of Ilford Multigrade.

 

[molested_cow]

I have an Epson v700. It's a flat bed but with pretty decent film scanning capabilities with holders for multiple formats. So far I am happy with it. That said, I do a lot of post editing with my scans. I'd say it's more to do with my camera. Now that I just got a "new" camera, I will soon find out what's wrong... or maybe it's actually me.

I got the scanner earlier this year. I should have gotten a scanner for negative ages ago! Imagine the money I could have saved over the past 9 years! Having a lab scan into a CD is convenient. Results have been a wide mix. I've gotten absolutely beautiful results and absolutely disastrous ones too. With this, it's all about finding that ONE shop that consistently does good jobs and stick to it. For me, I have been moving a lot, so it got to a point that I may as well just get my own scanner. Resolution is something to complain about. I don't make prints, or seldom, so it's ok. Right now, I scan mine at 2400dpi. Someone just asked me to have two of my photos for print and I rescanned them at 4800dpi for a 11X17" @ 300dpi. If you scan negatives often, getting your own scanner is definitely the way to go.