Scanning film

jlupine · « **on:** 25 Dec 2011, 05:38 pm »

With my projector malfunctioning, I'm considering scanning my slides. I was looking at the Canon CanoScan 5600F scanner. Does anyone have experience with this or other scanners?

Delta Wave · « **Reply #1 on:** 25 Dec 2011, 05:52 pm »

I use an Epson. It has trays for 35, 120 & slides. The resolution is outstanding.

Photon46 · « **Reply #2 on:** 25 Dec 2011, 06:46 pm »

Not sure what the final purpose of your scans will be, but be aware that scanning film is just the start of image file preparation. Both positive and negative films are COVERED in dust, processing tank gunk, and other sundry defilers of image purity that take enormous amounts of time in Photoshop to clean up. No amount of film cleaning completely eliminates it. There will be a learning curve matching scanning resolution and film grain. For optimal results, you can't really use the same scanning resolution for Fuji Velvia or Kodachrome 64 as you will use for grainier films of higher speed. A phenomena known as "grain aliasing" injects its ugly little head if you try to use too high a resolution. This is a long winded way of saying that for 35mm film scans, you're going to be size limited for printing purposes. I've not used any of the consumer oriented scanners made in the last few years, so perhaps software advances have helped this aspect of scanning. (I use an older Heidelberg flat bed scanner intended for scientific and professional use than has insane resolution, far more than is practical.) The main thing I find time consuming about preparing scans is the "dust busting." If I've scanned a 4x5" at 2000 dpi, I can easily spend half a day cleaning up the scan. My scans get used for reproduction in books and catalogs, so I work to a high standard. For casual viewing, this degree of anal retentiveness isn't necessary of course.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #3 on:** 25 Dec 2011, 07:05 pm »

Whatever scanner you settle on, I strongly recommend looking into a piece of software called VueScan (Hamrick Software). It's available for Mac, Windoze, and Linux. It allows dramatically more control over the scan characteristics than almost any OEM scanner software and supports almost any scanner out there. My favorite feature is that (depending on the scanner) you can take multiple samples of each pixel, which are then averaged by the software, reducing noise. There are two versions, at $40 and $80. The "standard" $40 edition is all I have; the deluxe edition allows you to save raw scanner data and post-process as if it were a new scan without having to re-scan the film. Depending on your hardware, you may be able to use the infrared based dust removal (doesn't work with B&W or Kodachrome.)

No skin in the game, just a satisfied customer.

Photon46, when I scanned my 4x5 film, I aimed to be able to produce a 16x20 end product at >300dpi resolution although I have seldom ever printed larger than 11x14. Does that sound reasonable? (I can definitely confirm what you say about dust etc; even though I used a Kostiner anti-static brush, I still spent a *lot* of time in post with the Heal tool.)

Photon46 · « **Reply #4 on:** 25 Dec 2011, 09:12 pm »

Quote from: dB Cooper on 25 Dec 2011, 07:05 pm

Photon46, when I scanned my 4x5 film, I aimed to be able to produce a 16x20 end product at >300dpi resolution although I have seldom ever printed larger than 11x14. Does that sound reasonable? (I can definitely confirm what you say about dust etc; even though I used a Kostiner anti-static brush, I still spent a *lot* of time in post with the Heal tool.)

If I need a scan good for a 16x20 @ 300 dpi, I take the length of the image (twenty inches) and divide by the corresponding film dimension (five inches) and get a multiplier of four. If I scan @ 1200 dpi, I can enlarge it four times and then have a 300 dpi image.

The bottom pic is a 100% detail from an 11x14" scan @ 600 dpi. You can see all the crap you've got to cleanup in a hi rez scan. This is from a 4"x5" Tri-X negative developed in Pyro developer. It was shot at Great White Sand Dunes and wind blew a lot of dust into the camera that day. I use my scans for making copper plate photogravures, so I need really high resolution scans to make gravure films. I really like the Kostiner brush as well.

Æ · « **Reply #5 on:** 25 Dec 2011, 09:40 pm »

Quote from: dB Cooper on 25 Dec 2011, 07:05 pm

Whatever scanner you settle on, I strongly recommend looking into a piece of software called VueScan (Hamrick Software). It's available for Mac, Windoze, and Linux. It allows dramatically more control over the scan characteristics than almost any OEM scanner software and supports almost any scanner out there. My favorite feature is that (depending on the scanner) you can take multiple samples of each pixel, which are then averaged by the software, reducing noise. There are two versions, at $40 and $80. The "standard" $40 edition is all I have; the deluxe edition allows you to save raw scanner data and post-process as if it were a new scan without having to re-scan the film. Depending on your hardware, you may be able to use the infrared based dust removal (doesn't work with B&W or Kodachrome.)

I just came across your reply. I've been busy these last few days scanning older film prints. Not always being satisfied with the manufacturers supplied software I went and downloaded the trial version of VueScan. 10 minutes later I purchased it. I have a CANON LiDE scanner and I'm on Mac, OS X.
So far so good, I wanted some additional options and got them.

Delta Wave · « **Reply #6 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 12:08 am »

I usually bypass the manufacturer software and scan directly from photoshop.

nathanm · « **Reply #7 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 07:18 am »

Just my 2 cents here, but if I were you I would get your slide projector fixed first and then decide if you want to take on the massive JOB of scanning your film. I emphasize "job", because this will be a job and not necessarily a fun one if your goal is just to transfer from one medium to another.

In my view a projected transparency beats:

Scanning…
Dust busting…
Color correction…
Saving…
Backing up…
Transfering to external media or website…
Displaying on TV or computer.

And it smells better!

I put slide scanning in the category of ripping CDs, but it's 10 times more work. If you're talking about converting many trays of slides to digital you're looking at hours and hours of labor, if you just want to pick a few winners and make prints that's a different story. If it's strict format conversion and archiving I would opt for farming it out to a company rather than DIY.

charmerci · « **Reply #8 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 06:51 pm »

Nathan,

I suspected as much - and I assume that it's much more difficult with negatives/prints which is mostly what I have and would like to have converted to digital.

Delta Wave · « **Reply #9 on:** 26 Dec 2011, 11:45 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 26 Dec 2011, 07:18 am

Just my 2 cents here, but if I were you I would get your slide projector fixed first and then decide if you want to take on the massive JOB of scanning your film. I emphasize "job", because this will be a job and not necessarily a fun one if your goal is just to transfer from one medium to another.

In my view a projected transparency beats:

Scanning…
Dust busting…
Color correction…
Saving…
Backing up…
Transfering to external media or website…
Displaying on TV or computer.

And it smells better!

I put slide scanning in the category of ripping CDs, but it's 10 times more work. If you're talking about converting many trays of slides to digital you're looking at hours and hours of labor, if you just want to pick a few winners and make prints that's a different story. If it's strict format conversion and archiving I would opt for farming it out to a company rather than DIY.

A big job indeed. Not difficult, just time consuming and extremely tedious. On some of my 120 negatives it's taken as long as 40 minutes to do one scan. I have since built a new monster computer and the time has dropped considerably... It's still a chore.
I think it's even more tedious than transferring vinyl to digital, at least there I get to listen to music.
However... to me, it's worth it. It can be fun in small doses and it's still less involved than having an actual darkroom and everything that goes with it. IMO

nathanm · « **Reply #10 on:** 28 Dec 2011, 08:26 pm »

It won't save you any time or expense overall, but I'm really a fan of fluid mounting now. That's the only really effective way of seriously reducing dust. I used to scan dry and that meant hundreds of dust bunnies and scuffs to fix, but with the fluid that's now down to more like a dozen or so. It's also sharper, the film lays dead flat. If I was really patient I could probably load up the bed with about six negs, but I just do one at a time. The prep time is more than dry, but when that clean, nearly-perfect scan comes up on the screen it's a good feeling.

Delta Wave · « **Reply #11 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 12:06 am »

Fluid mounting? Do tell...

thunderbrick · « **Reply #12 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 12:12 am »

+1, please. Anything like the old "no-scratch fluid" of yore?

'brick

dB Cooper · « **Reply #13 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 12:17 am »

+2
No-scratch fluid? Next thing you know, someone

will mention the Staticmaster brush with its replaceable radioactive cartridges...

thunderbrick · « **Reply #14 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 12:43 am »

Hey, I have the table-mount version of that brush! Cleans both sides of the film at once! Too damned small for LPs, though.

Photon46 · « **Reply #15 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 02:32 am »

Quote from: Delta Wave on 29 Dec 2011, 12:06 am

Fluid mounting? Do tell...

Here's a link to page that gives an idea of how it's done. www.betterscanning.com/scanning/msfluid.html

Delta Wave · « **Reply #16 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 01:12 pm »

Thanks for the link.

It makes sense but it seems like a lot more work. It's definitely something to keep in mind though. I can only imagine how perfect the images come through. I'm going to have to try it out now... dammit!

Right now I use just a micro fiber cloth you can get at a sunglasses store for the glass and a rusty-trusty carbon record brush for the negatives. It seems to work pretty well. I get a few straggler particles here and there that I can easily edit out w/ PS.

My biggest problem has been the smaller 35mm negs not always laying flat and getting a weird "rainbow" artifact across the whole image - which I notice only after the fact. Then I have to do it all over again. That would definitely be alleviated from this process.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #17 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 03:00 pm »

Those sound like what are called "Newton's rings" and were a notorious problem with glass negative carriers (which were themselves an attempt to deal with the film curvature problem), some of which had lightly-etched "anti-Newton-ring-glass" to alleviate the issue. Got an example you could post?

dB Cooper · « **Reply #18 on:** 29 Dec 2011, 03:01 pm »

Quote from: dB Cooper on 29 Dec 2011, 03:00 pm

Accidental double post

Delta Wave · « **Reply #19 on:** 30 Dec 2011, 01:11 pm »

No samples at the moment. I'm floating about in the middle of the ocean right now. I know how to fix them, it only really happens if they shift in the negative frame while I'm mounting them. Sometimes I just don't catch it before I scan.