Negative scanning

Dmitri · Apr 12, 2013

Has anyone successfully used a regular scanner to scan in film negatives, without using a special attachment or device?

Light Guru · Apr 12, 2013

You need a scanner that has a back light unit above the regular scan bed.

Garbz · Apr 13, 2013

No you need a backlight. I have however digitised a photo by placing a piece of film on a white monitor and taking a photo with a macro lens.

Dmitri · Apr 13, 2013

Garbz said:
No you need a backlight. I have however digitised a photo by placing a piece of film on a white monitor and taking a photo with a macro lens.

Guess I have to try that. I tried scanning it with a light behind it (iPhone) and it worked well, but won't scan in color... Thanks Garbz.

Josh66 · Apr 13, 2013

There was a guy, WTF is his name... His daughter is on here too. I want to say he's from Cleveland.

He was using a regular scanner and some sort of light with limited success. Technically, it worked, but it wasn't exactly ideal.

Dmitri · Apr 13, 2013

Thats what I tried. If you put a light behind the negative (in my case from my iphone laying on top), then it scans it in nicely. But it isn't great quality, because of the size, and apparently it doesn't read the colors the way photographing it might.

bratkinson · Apr 14, 2013

Basically, there's two ways that I know of to reliably scan negatives...

Plan A: Buy/rent/borrow a flatbed scanner that has a built in light in the cover to effectively light the negative up...just like making a contact print. The key here is the 'right' light...wb, intensity, duration that's 'known' to the scanning hardware/firmware/software. Coming up with a makeshift 'flat' holder for the negative(s) as well as proper exposure issues may work so-so to 'good enough' for one or two negatives, but after 10 or more, you really need a proper negative-capable scanner.

As an aside, slide scanning has the same limitations. The same flatbed scanner should have attachments for slides as well. Some dedicated slide scanners have auto-feed stackers,too!

Plan B: send them out to be scanned, or pay a friend that has the capabilities.