Thread: Film scanners?
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Old April 20th 17, 07:06 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Russell D.[_3_]
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Default Film scanners?

On 04/20/2017 05:20 AM, Noons wrote:
On 20/04/2017 7:13 @wiz, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:


I want to scan the film (presumably both easier and better than scanning
the prints).


If the film is in good condition, indeed.
But whoever scans it has to know what they are doing.
And that is easier said than done...

What resolution should I choose?


Varies enormously with the quality of the film.
I push the Coolscan film scanner to its max of 4000dpi for very good
slides and colour negatives such as Kodak Ektar or similar.
The resulting images are around 20Mpixel in resolution *IF* the original
is in good condition.
Some Kodachromes I've pushed to 10000dpi on the Plustek Opticfilm
scanner, but that was a special case.
For the rest I leave it at 2000 or thereabouts, all that's needed.

What is the resulting size of the JPEG file?


Scans should be left as tiff files. JPG should be used only for final
images for show on the net or for printing. Count on 30-40MB per image
for tiff with basic compression.

Should I save some raw format as well? If so, which one? What would be
the file size?


TIFF is the best to preserve the quality of the original scan. 16-bit
colour if you can get a good editor like Photoshop or similar. Sizes
vary a lot with the resolution of the scan and the amount of detail in
the image. You will also need sharpening software such as Focus Magic,
otherwise the scans will look very bad. It's also good to use something
like Neat Image or similar to clean up any scanning noise.
It all can get very complex...

I notice that the prints from the first couple of rolls of film have
faded, but those after still look OK---probably a difference in quality
of the prints rather than age (since the difference in age is only a few
weeks for prints almost 35 years old).


Indeed. Chemically made prints unfortunately tend to fade badly.
My old ones are mostly gone, but the good thing with prints is taking
shots of them with a digital camera and a macro or close-up lens setup
is likely the easiest way of preserving what is still there.

Should a standard scan of the
negatives result in correct colours? Or does some correction need to be
done? (I used mostly Kodak ISO 200 film, occasionally 400 or 100 and/or
AGFA.)


More than likely you will need some correction as the age of the
negatives will have affected things. The Agfa stuff will likely be
gone, mine are only 30 years old and are already gone!
But Kodachrome slides last a lifetime. Some of mine are over 50 years
old and are in perfect condition.
Colour negatives are pot luck. Some last really well, but the Kodak
Gold series was as bad as the Agfa ones...


I have practically no experience with digital image processing. I would
thus prefer to get this done in a shop, rather than doing it myself.


That will cost a LOT. Scanning is a very long process even with the
best material and requires a good knowledge of software and hardware
used, as well as perfect physical conditions re flatness of negative,
cleanliness, etcetc. Don't expect that time investment to come cheap...

What would be a fair price for scanning all the negatives?


No idea. Here in Australia it'd be prohibitively expensive, hence why I
do all of mine at home.

If some
colour correction needs to be done, is this something that I could
expect a shop to do?


Very likely not. They will do basic colour correction but that's all.
It's a process that takes time and hence gets expensive if not done by you.

Sorry to not be more positive, but it's better if you are informed
upfront of the snags of this process.


Excellent stuff. Thanks, Noons.