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Originally Posted by obcbeatle
Great thread! On the topic of scanning negatives ... I don't have a scanner that supports scanning negatives. It's just a cheap CanonScan LIDE 35 with no carriage for the negatives and no light in the lid. So ... is it safe to put a negative on the scanner bed just to see if I can scan a negative? I assume it might damage the emulsion side of the negative? I'm dying to scan a couple negatives I bought awhile back. If not I'll just go to a pro photo lab and have them scan and print a photo as I originally intended. Also ... if anyone wants to chime in on a good inexpensive scanner for negatives I'd appreciate the tip. I doubt one exists. Most of the scanners I've looked at are out of my price range at the moment. Thanks!
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Putting a negative on the bed of your scanner wouldn't be any different than putting it directly on the bed of a scanner intended for negatives. Just be sure that the bed (glass) is clean and dry, and try not to slide the negative around too much. Basically, you're just trying not to scratch up the emulsion surface, which would do permanent damage to the image.
I can tell you right now though, if you don't have a backlight, you won't get good results. There has to be a good bit of light passing through the film for the scanner to properly capture the image (otherwise it will turn out very dark, and may not be viewable at all). You can try rigging up your own backlight, which I did at first, with mixed results. The key with doing your own backlight is to have some sort of opaque white material that will diffuse the light source but also be "textureless" so that it doesn't mess with the image you're actually trying to scan. Most desktop scanners with backlights in the lid basically just have a series of small lights (LED I assume, though I've never disassembled one to see) with a piece of opaque white plastic over them. You can use a piece of white paper instead of the plastic, to some degree, but even that will translate texture to the image at the high resolutions that you will be scanning the negatives.
As for recommendations, it depends somewhat on what size of negatives you are planning on scanning. Many of the less expensive desktop scanners will do 35mm, standard slides, and negatives up to 2" wide. If you're needing to go larger, the number of available models start dropping. For myself, I was needing to do anywhere from 35mm up to 8"x10", which limited my choices to the Epson 4990 or the Epson V700. I can't remember now if Epson was the only manufacturer with scanners that would handle 8x10 negs, or if I limited my scope to Epson because of my satisfaction with the Epson 3490 that is still my workhorse scanner (just not for negatives, though it will technically do up to 2"x2" negs). I don't think either is being manufactured any more, but you can keep an eye on eBay for one, usually in the $300-400 range, perhaps a little less if you don't need the film guides.
Whatever route you go, if buying a new (or new to you) scanner, I think it would be prudent to be sure the scanning element is CCD based (which allows some "depth" to whatever is being scanned, rather than it having to be directly against the glass). I'm not even sure if there are non-CCD negative scanners, but I think that would be a necessity if you are using any of the film carriages that hold the film in place since in those cases there is actually a slight separation between the film and the scanner's glass.