scanning and processing negatives

[jimmyb]

Probably a total noob question but, when you scan a negative does the scanner itself process it into a useable (in colour) image or do you load the scanned file of the negative into photoshop and do it yourself?

I started out on film years ago but always just sent it to the processors and if i wanted it on the computer got a CD with the processing, Have I just wasted years of prints of rubbish photos?

 

[s162216]

You can either get the scanning software to do it or you can do it yourself. A negative is a subjective representation as its designed to be printed/scanned to the users view, two traditional printers or scanners may represent the same negative similarly or completely differently.

The scanning software will usually give an entirely usable image which can then be worked on but it can work better exporting the unaltered negative and inverting it using a plug-in like colorperfect which gives a representation like the films characteristics and then alter it to your taste.

 

[ChrisR]

Probably a total noob question but, when you scan a negative does the scanner itself process it into a useable (in colour) image or do you load the scanned file of the negative into photoshop and do it yourself?

As Samuel said, scanners that can cope with negatives usually come with scanning software. My plustek came with two packages, a cheap Windows one that I've forgotten and didn't install, and Silverfast SE Plus. That is a beast, completely unintuitive, but more or less learnable. Others swear by Vuescan, which is considerably cheaper and probably updated better. I gather that Epsons come with their own software.

Slides and black and white are easy. Colour negatives are the problem because of the orange masks (is that the right word?), which are different for all films (AFAICS), and even between different versions of the same film (eg Kodak Gold went through many versions with slightly different masks over the years). Both Silverfast and Vuescan have "presets" that are supposed to correct the inverted scan for particular negtive films. The trouble is, they don't have all the films in their presets (at least, for the 35 year old films I started scanning), and many old negatives don't give you much of a clue. I had a problem recently with some Fuji C200 negatives; I couldn't get the colour right. Someone here helped take one of my negatives and run it through ColorPerfect, and the result was excellent. The trouble was, I had to send him a linear TIFF which started at 45 MB and came back over 100 MB! I can't run ColorPerfect myself as I don't have Photoshop and don't want to buy it.

So for the moment I'm making sure I get all my colour negatives scanned at development time, and I'm also choosing colour negative film for which I have a preset. Not ideal, but it'll do!

You'd think the scanner software suppiers would exploit communities like TP by providing simple means of importing presets that others have researched, but AFAICS that isn't the case. :bang:

 

[jimmyb]

I think I'll stick to getting them scanned at the processors rather than buying a scanner!

You'd think the scanner software suppiers would exploit communities like TP by providing simple means of importing presets that others have researched, but AFAICS that isn't the case. :bang:

Think they're missing a trick there, might persuade more people to start scanning their own negatives if they made it a lot easier.

 

[ChrisR]

I think I'll stick to getting them scanned at the processors rather than buying a scanner!

Yes, the quality of the scans I got from the processor (done with a Noritsu scanner) is way better than I've managed to achieve with my Plustek. That said, some folk have commented that the 7500i is one of the weakest Plustek scanners.