Whats the best way to scan film negatives?

Question

I have hundreds of old negatives from the pre-digital era. I want a cost effective way to scan them. Big film scanners are expensive. Stores want about 50cents per shot scanned (translates to expensive). Has anyone had any experience with the regular flatbed HP scanners (e.g. Scanjet 4370) with their negative adapter? Is the quality good?

Answer 1

You need a high resolution scanner that has a back lighting capability to do negatives or slides. (The back lighting shines thru the negatives or slides, so the scanner can see them.) The scanner also needs to have a way to hold the slide straight.

You need high resolution to capture the small details in slides or negatives. Both have much more detail than prints.

You can get dedicated film/slide scanners or flatbed scanners with the required capabilities.

Earlier this year I got an Epson Perfection 4870 to scan 83 wedding negatives. It did a great job! I scanned at 4800 ppi, and used the included Silverfast dust removal. (Silverfast is independent award winning software.) Then I down-sized to 10x10 at 300 ppi.

I got the 4870 for $200 (minus a 10% web coupon) with free shipping at the online Epson store in the Clearance section. It was described as "Refurbished", but it looked brand new, so may have been just leftover 2004 stock. Anyway, it has worked perfectly.

Newer equivalent model is the 4990 for about $400 new. There is also a 4490, with slightly less capability.

You can, of course, pay lots more for flatbed or film scanners. But I could not find any reason to need results better than I got with the 4870. The images are much better than I get out of my 5 mp digital camera.

Doing the scanning takes time. Using the dust removal software, the scanner took about 15 minutes per 1.25x1.25 in. negative. (Still faster than doing it manually with Clone tool in Photoshop.)

It also takes computer resources. My negs came out with file sizes around 75 MB before downsizing to about 27 MB. Editing can slow down at these sizes.

Email me if you have questions.

And have fun doing this. I did!

Answer 2

Before purchasing a flatbed scanner, test scan some of your negatives on a film scanner such as the Nikon Coolscan V.

I did some tests with slides on my Nikon LS30 film scanner and an Epson 1650 Photo flatbed scanner. There really is a difference in sharpness.
The fact that a flatbed scanner has a piece of glass between the scanning element and your negatives/slides makes you lose a lot on sharpness

Answer 3

I used to use a regular computer scanner with an attachment for scanning slides.. this would probably work well.

Answer 4

you can get good results with your scanner and the adapter; if you have to many, you will find it is time consuming, and the 0.50 cents is not that expensive, however talk to the person and tell the number of negatives, you might get a brake.

Answer 5

I have an Epson Perfection 1260 and found it produces very good results, both with black and white negatives and colour transparencies.