negative to positive/ film to digital

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I have 35mm Kodak Vericolor negatives which I want them to be transferred into high quality positive digital (stored on CD)images. What is the process? What equipment would I need? How easily are they done commercially? What are the prices like? I would appreciate your reply.

-- Michael Emre (graphica@mail.com), February 17, 2000

Answers

Hi Michael:
You have a couple of options. You may opt to buy a decent 35mm slide and negative scanner if you have a lot, and/or plan on doing this for your current batch and more in the future. There are several that are good, and probably fall within a reasonable budget. Minolta, Canon, Nikon, Polaroid and HP all make nice units. Nikon is on the high end (absolutely superb quality for about $1300.00) while HP is on the low end (very good quality for about $500.00). This, of course, is if you are only planning on 35mm. If you need large format now or in the future it's more expensive.
I have the HP as my needs are modest. There are cheaper scanners - but not worth the poor quality scans they do.
If a scanner investment makes little or no sense then I suggest you send the negatives to Kodak for a picture CD. The quality is superb and they are on a permanent media for long term storage.
Some photo stores will also have the capability to scan your negatives. Be sure they are using a decent scanner and not one of those neg-a-shredder units you can buy for $100 at your local flea- market!

Des

-- Dan Desjardins (dan.desjardins@avstarnews.com), February 17, 2000.

If you are interested in transferring them to digital images using a desktop personal computer (PC) you have a range of options in the desktop film scanner market, for 35mm The market gets narrower for medium format, and virtually non-existant for large-format

First of all gather your sources, compare prices, and read product reviews. The most important thing about a film scanner are its technical specifications and its included software. You have to look out for five things for the technical specifications / hardware.

BIT DEPTH Depending on your needs, seek a bit depth no lower then 3.0 and no higher then 3.2 if you have a budget. 2.8 might do your job but get a 30 day money back guarantee to be sure. BIT DEPTH is also called DYNAMIC RANGE, DMAX and DMIN, DENSITY RANGE, and probably a couple other things to confuse the public into thinking they're getting a deal. For your information, many people will say 3.2 is not enough bit depth and you should spend $500 for 3.6. First you should ask yourself what is the purpose of the scanning - output, or web, or archival, or etc....3.2 will cover a lot of peoples needs, 3.6 can be overkill, and below 3.0 will probably ensure dissapointment.

BIT DEPTH is information that companies try to hide from you. Its just a number, but its like revealing your waist size to your internet date.

The only way to know is to SEE SCANS made by the BIT DEPTHS, which is near impossible, unless you spend your time on the internet looking for people putting up their pictures. The film scanner companies don't even do it. You can try it. But use a meta search engine like google.com.

I suggest you also go to www.bhphotovideo.com for their specs. Then click on their 'links we like' and you can look up the desktop film scanners individually.

One last note - concerning BIT DEPTH the BIT DEPTH/RANGE of a print is always less then the original (negative, or positive) because you're going down a generation. And the BIT DEPTH/RANGE of a negative is narrower then a slide. Or the other way around, the slide narrower then the negative. Ask somebody who remembers. The maximum BIT DEPTH of a color 8x10 print is say, 2.6, and the maximum BIT DEPTH of a color negative is say, 3.02, so if you get a BIT DEPTH FILM SCANNER of 3.2, you can be sure you covered all the bases, for negative and positive.

Consult other people on this. They'll back me up. Beware of people who compare bit depth the way they compare the size of their harddrives . . .

MAXIMUM RESOLUTION - 2720 by something, is a good place to start these days. Bear in mind film scanner technology is advancing much slower then laptops. When you see a number like 2320 x 4200, then multiply the two numbers and the total will tell you how many pixels you can read into the image file. This is equals to what they say about digital cameras, things like 1.3 megapixel camera...... which is equals to 1280 x 1024.

BIT COLOR - 24, 32, 12, BIT COLOR. They say that 24 bit color is photo color, equals to true color. So I would say stick to 32 or 24. 32 will give you better reproduction values. 24 might dissapoint you.

AUTO OR MANUAL FOCUS - this is another detail they hide from you. Canon sells manual or auto focus models, but minolta is always fixed auto focus. This might become a serious issue in the future of the scanner.

OPTION ACCESSORIES OR ARE THEY INCLUDED - minolta again, sells you an APS adaptor for another $120 dollars, but canon gives it to you included. Minolta makes everything an accessory to charge you more, but canon gives it away. For example, SCSI cables, APS adaptors, etc...... Call the salesguy and make him look it up but always get a 30 day MONEY BACK guarantee, and not an in store credit, and make sure they don't charge a %25 restocking fee.

To answer your question, what is needed....

I suggest you first make yourself tolerant of the technology and not make conclusions on how advanced it is. Don't be excited. Some of the claims are true, some are not. If you want to get it done commercially, you can call the photo shops and get referrals but the prices they charge for scans are unreasonably high. One of the highest choices you have is to get a DRUM SCAN of your negatives, but they are done at a high cost and sometimes only frame by frame, therefore $50 by $50. Similier resolution can be obtained by calling KODAK at 1-800-GO-KODAK and getting a list of their KODAK SCANNING stores, where you can get a MASTER PRO, PRO CD scan of your images, for a better cost then the DRUM SCANS, but the savings might not be encouraging. Wedding photographers do this.

When you are scanning on a desktop film scanner (the cheapest model $250 US, going up in 12 steps to $1300) even if you don't have photoshop you are giving yourself complete image control. Going to a lab or commercial outlet takes all of the control away. You're paying the same cost (10 negatives, 10 x $50 = $500.00) for less control, same or less quality, and a cd, no choice to change anything, etc.

The software thats included with the film scanner is also crucial to film scanning. Its best to consult a store to try the model yourself in the store, which is near impossible, but tell them you woulden't buy a car, an appliance or a computer without trying it so why should you spend over $500? And if they don't have a return policy.....bring that up too.

The software if its good, will make a preview scan at less then half the time it takes to make the real scan. In the preview scan you can adjust the contrast, the colors, the balance of light, the details, to the point where the real scan reflects those changes as you made them, thereby saving time. Push the salesman for details on the film scanner software, you'll hear them fumbling on the phone like an idiot.

By the way, photoshop 5.5 doesn't support 32 bit image editing well, almost not at all.

Getting photoshop LE or better then that, photoshop 4.0 or 5.0 FULL VERSION is a deal. The LE version sells for $270.00 from adobe, 5.5 for $650. Go on www.ebay.com and you can maybe buy the FULL VERSION for $300.00, people do it all the time.

The company JASC makes paint shop pro 6, which is $99. Its powerful, and imitates photoshop in its design. Its called the poor mans photoshop.

Overall, I would recommend buying a desktop film scanner. That way you're working with yourself (unless you don't like yourself) to get the same results you would be struggling to get from an unaware "image expert and graphic designer" who can sometimes charge a $40 per hour cost for editing.



-- Jeff Epstein (nospam@noemail.com), February 20, 2000.


Or get the Acer Scanwit 2720s 35mm scanner for about $450, which comes complete with Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), February 21, 2000.

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