Original negatives

[steve B]

My scanner will scan some negatives fairly well without a light. It has a setup for 35mm, but it's only for 35mm, and it's never worked. To the point of making the scanner not run when it's plugged in.

Instead I put my wifes lightbox from the sewing store upside down on top of whatever negatives I'm scanning. They're not cheap at around 35 dollars or more, but cheaper than a new scanner.

The stuff archival supply places sell for negatives is about as good as you'll find. Library of congress has a few pages of instructions for archival storage of nearly anything. They're a bit over the top in some cases, but it's what's currently know to work best. Even partially following the guidelines is better than nothing, although I've bought stuff that was stored horribly that was just fine. (And stuff with nearly archival storage that had problems)

Steve B

[thecatspajamas]

Mark,
Very nice images of Gehrig! Looks like your method of scanning in portions and then "stitching" together worked pretty well. That's something I never considered before just buying a new scanner, and might be a good alternative for many collectors who only have a few negatives they want to scan. Good suggestion!

It looks to me like the difference in brightness between the left and right halves could be from the scanner using different "auto-contrast" settings for each. I wonder if you might be able to eliminate the difference by either manually adjusting the contrast rather than letting the scanner software do it (keeping the same setting for each half)? Or else do the preview for the first half, allowing the software to auto-adjust, and then slide the negative over but don't do a preview for the second half (in effect, keeping the same settings for the second scan). Seems like that might help photoshop in aligning everything correctly when combining the two scans as well.

Of course, I could be way off base with the reason for the difference Either way, thanks for sharing those.

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.

[Lordstan]

Lance,
Excellent idea! I think you may very well be correct. I am using an autocorrect/enchancing setting and it could be changing it up for each side.
I will try your suggestion the next time I scan a large negative.

Thanks for the kind words as well.

Best,
Mark

[steve B]

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.

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

[obcbeatle]

Originally Posted by steve B

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

Thanks for the tips on DIY methods for creating lighting for scanning negatives, i.e. lightbox, flashlight... Interestingly ... I tried the flashlight method: negative on scanner glass with emulsion side down; white paper on top of negative and flashlight on top of paper, but all I get is a white circle after scanning. I guess the light is too bright or the paper is too thick. Also tried adding light above the negative while on the scanner bed (from different angles .. no paper) but again I still get just a white scan like it's too much light, i.e. no scanned image of the negative. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong :-) Anyway ... I'm going to try to find a photo lab next week to just make a couple prints from these negatives. As an aside ... I can scan the negatives just by laying them on the scanner glass with the lid open and in normal room light, but the scan is a bit dark. Is there an OSX software tool that will flip the negative to positive and maybe allow some touching up? I may be able to get a copy of Photoshop. Just felt like trying this during the weekend, till I can get to a photo lab. Thanks in advance!

[obcbeatle]

Never mind on the OSX software tools. I installed Photoshop and see that I can use Image/Adjustments/Invert and Image/Adjustments/Levels and probably some more Image/Adjustments/~ to get rid of some of the weird colors. It looks like it would be best to do some of this stuff when scanning using the TWAIN or scanner drivers during the actual scan of the negative(s). However ... my scanning software doesn't have a "negative" or other option to use when scanning. I'm guessing the scanner drivers for the "negative scanners" that are out there DO have those options. Oh well. Thanks!

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by obcbeatle

Never mind on the OSX software tools. I installed Photoshop and see that I can use Image/Adjustments/Invert and Image/Adjustments/Levels and probably some more Image/Adjustments/~ to get rid of some of the weird colors. It looks like it would be best to do some of this stuff when scanning using the TWAIN or scanner drivers during the actual scan of the negative(s). However ... my scanning software doesn't have a "negative" or other option to use when scanning. I'm guessing the scanner drivers for the "negative scanners" that are out there DO have those options. Oh well. Thanks!

Jerry,
Are the negatives you are trying to scan color or b/w? Color negatives (the kind with that orange hue) can be tough to invert manually in Photoshop as its not just a straight simple inversion as it is with b/w. That was another thing I was very happy to allow the scanner software to do automatically for me.

As for the flashlight backlight option, it sounds like the light source is adding too much light so that it just blows out the image, kind of like staring into the sun. You might need to use thicker paper or a different flashlight to lessen the amount of light passing through. Although if you're getting passable results with just ambient light by leaving the scanner lid open, by all means, go with whatever works. I think you will have a hard time getting printable images that way, even after tweaking in Photoshop, but if you're just wanting to preview them on screen, that method may work fine for you.

[obcbeatle]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Jerry,
Are the negatives you are trying to scan color or b/w? Color negatives (the kind with that orange hue) can be tough to invert manually in Photoshop as its not just a straight simple inversion as it is with b/w. That was another thing I was very happy to allow the scanner software to do automatically for me.

As for the flashlight backlight option, it sounds like the light source is adding too much light so that it just blows out the image, kind of like staring into the sun. You might need to use thicker paper or a different flashlight to lessen the amount of light passing through. Although if you're getting passable results with just ambient light by leaving the scanner lid open, by all means, go with whatever works. I think you will have a hard time getting printable images that way, even after tweaking in Photoshop, but if you're just wanting to preview them on screen, that method may work fine for you.

Lance ... the only negative I've tried so far is black and white, although I do have one color negative. I've only tried this one of my three B/W's so far since I don't want to damage the other two while I test using my scanner. The B/W negative I'm using is a single 35mm negative probably cut from a strip, and I didn't pay a lot for it, so if I mess it up it won't be the end of the world. You are exactly right about the "too much light" problem. I finally put the scanner in my lap (it is a small scanner) and moved around under the room light and scanned and can see that as I move from different places around the room the scan gets darker and lighter. And if I put any light too close to the glass it just "blows out the image", as you say. I think today I will try to find a place in the room using the ambient room light above as the only light with the scanner lid open since that seems to do about the best, so far. But the three issues so far using this method are:

1) The scan is either too dark or too light (can't seem to find a happy medium ... yet).

2) Sometimes with the ambient light the brightness looks OK, but the scan has ripples in it (this is too bad because the amount of light appears to be pretty good). Maybe this scanner just is too wimpy for what I'm trying to do.

3) Often after I invert the image in Photoshop there is a very light green tint.

Primarily I'm just trying to get a decent enough scan so I can archive it to see the image for my own viewing pleasure. And ... I really wanted to post a couple of my negatives to the forum to show, but the scans have been pretty bad. I'll keep trying today. Also ... I'll be getting prints made from a photo lab since I doubt I'll ever be able to get a good enough scan from my scanner. As always, thanks for your input!