Quote:
Originally Posted by thecatspajamas
Steve,
Have you found that there are issues with the fluorescent light in the light box introducing a certain amount of "noise" into the scan? That was one of the home-grown methods I tried for larger negatives prior to buying the 4990, but never was sure if it was just my particular lightbox causing the interference, or something that was going to happen with any other one I tried. I also had some luck with backlighting smaller negatives (35mm and medium format) using a flashlight for the light source and using the smoothest paper I could find to diffuse it (laying negative on the glass, paper on top, then standing flashlight on top of both to scan). Even the smooth paper added some "texture" to the image though at those resolutions. I suppose I could have taken the opaque plastic cover out of my light box and used that instead, but was well on my way to abandoning the homemade set-up by that point.
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It probably did. I haven't used it in a long time, since the scanner does ok with just having the lid down. At the time I wasn't looking for really nice scans I could enlarge and print, just ones that would allow a bit of enlarging and viewing, or to list on Ebay. Stuff like reading the town on a train station that just wasn't legible. (It wasn't in the scan either, they got depth of focus right for the subject, but the background lost just enough detail) Now I use the 40x magnifier and desk lamp for that.
I've had a couple prints made from old negatives by a photo lab. The easiest is a contact print. I had a 4x5 negative of a bus and driver that came out great. The downside is that the print is only as big as the negative.
To do an enlargement the traditional way they need a carrier for that size film so it can be put in the enlarger. I wanted to get some prints from a 35mm movie film I have , but nobody had the right carrier. One was made for the most common enlarger, but it's expensive and nobody nearby bothered buying one since making stills from 35mm movie film wasn't something they ever got requests for. That might be different in NYC or LA. A good lab might have a carrier for 4x5 since it's a common format. They should all have one for 35mm still film. And since they do wedding photos and stuff like that they're usually very good at not losing negatives.
A good lab can do a lot of enhancement, there are filters to increase contrast, and a few other things. Cropping by masking the photo paper is common, and most can do effects like fade borders or oval image area, or two photos on the same sheet.
Steve B