Negative Scanning Philosophy?

hipsterdufus

hipsterdufus

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So, I have started the somewhat monumental task of scanning my negatives These have accumulated from the last ten years that I have been shooting photography seriously. And by "scanning", I mean that I have been scanning EVERY SINGLE negative. After scanning about 10 rolls of 35mm film, I am wondering if it is worth it to scan every single picture I've ever taken. It seems like it may be more intelligent to only scan the really "good" stuff, in order to conserve time and energy. What is your general philosophy when scanning your old stuff? Do you scan everything? What is your case for/against?

Also, on a related note, do you scan on the highest quality? I find that with my 8800F, highest quality scanning takes around 40 minutes for 10 negatives. So, I've been scanning at 2400 dpi, unless there is a picture I know I want to be "archival quality". Again, cases for/against? I appreciate your thoughts.
 
When I scan current stuff and old stuff, I only scan the ones above a certain threshold. For current stuff, that threshold is reasonably low. About 5-10 per roll, sometimes more, sometimes less. A lot of them get scanned at 1333 dpi, which gives me 1200x1800 scans (good for 4x6's and flickr). The keepers get scanned at 4000 dpi.

I also tend to wet print my favorite ones.
 
I file all my negatives (from about 1957) and still use a wet darkroom occasionally but I have to admit that since buying an Epson V700 scanner and Epson R2880 printer I'm scanning more. Great for convenience but not for circulation!
I had all my "good" older negatives scanned commercially some years ago. Now I scan any current negatives that I think are keepers and reject any that are below average. Nobody wants to see them. I then make a second cull of the scans so I only end up with the best of the best on my computer - no point taking up space I'm not going to use and I can always rescan if necessary.
I've run some tests recently and determined that whilst the theory of scanning at high resolution to original size and then resizing sounds fine, there is, in fact, a degradation of image quality when you resize - easily seen with an 8x loupe on a side by side comparison. I can also detect a (very) slight difference in print quality between 300 dpi - the usual recommendation - and 600 dpi, so I scan to the latter in the knowledge I can always drop the output resolution. For all practical purposes 300 dpi is enough though.
I turn off the auto sharpening in the scanner, and scan at 600 dpi output to the final print size I intend using. Any sharpening I do in Photoshop pretty much at the end of any post processing. I know then what I'm doing and not trying to work with something the scanner imposed on the original file.
 
Scan only the greats or strongly sentimentals after looking through them on a lightbox. Life is too short to spend it scanning mediocre pics, n'est pas?
 
I scan what I'd proof-print. So some that I'm just checking to see if they're good ones, along with the obvious good ones.

Certainly not all of them.

You could pay a service to mass-scan them if necessary.
 
In addition to my Minolta 5400 (and newly-acquired Nikon Cookscan III, whiich I'll use for "quickie" scans via the laptop), I have a tabloid-size UMAX PowerLook 2100XL flatbed. With this, I scan up to two 36-exposure rolls at a time and create digital contact sheets, which I subsequently print on cheap-but-not-horrible 11 x 17" paper (an "enlarged 'contact'" print, in essence), for immediate or future evaluation. From there I make my selects, then fire up the film scanner.

(This is in regard to negative film; for slides, I simply reach for the lightbox and loupe.)


- Barrett
 
For new films, I scan everything at mid- to low-res, these are my digital contact sheets, so to speak. Then I go back and scan the really good stuff in 14 bit and hi-res. Or I go to the darkroom and print it.

My reason to have everything on file is that my opinion on what are good shots does change over time...
 
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My approach to this issue is tied directly to the media and tools I use:
  1. In the analog area, I exclusively shoot 35mm BW negatives.
  2. I use a light table large enough to show an entire 35mm film in its sleeve.
  3. I use a 35mm film scanner (Nikon Coolscan V ED) - no MF or flatbed scanner
  4. I also use a DSLR (for which I own a macro lens)
I originally planned putting the negatives of a film (in their sleeves) on my light table and shoot a digital 'proof' using my DSLR. Since that would require that I'd need an additional (rather costly) copy stand , I have postponed this step.

Right now, I check my negatives on the light table using a high quality loupe and make a rather strict selection of the negatives that will be scanned. When scanning, I alway use the highest native resolution my scanner can deliver, and archive the scans as 16 bit TIFF files (offering a viable basis for subsequent postprocessing). So, I only scan my 'keepers'.

In hindsight, buying that light table proved to be one of the best (and most reasonable) investments I made in conjunction to gearing up for analog photography.

When scanning, I replicate my physical archival structure for the negatives for the scanned files on my computer: Every film has a number, and the directories that hold the scanned files use the same numbering scheme (together with a rough description of photographed topic/location etc.).
I have observed that it is possible to learn 'seeing' the negatives in a way which lets me recognize faces on the negs as well as judging which negative has the required density/contrast/highlight-shadow distribution for a good scan. That, together with a well organized use of tags, has proven to be sufficient for my purposes.
​
So, I can live with the fact that I don't have contact sheets right now.
 
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After having developed a film I scan at medium-low res all the film, it tyakes me more or less one hour. From that, imported in LR, hafter some lughtness/contrast adjustment i make contact print for evaluation and archive purpose. The good ones I re-scan at high res.
robert
PS I do not scan the old stuff I have, unless I need a paricular picture for a special print/use etc
 
i use 8800f, scan at 1200. If I were you, I would pay someone to do it professionally. ( only because I can imagine how tedious the process would be for you ).
 
kossi008 said:
For new films, I scan everything at mid- to low-res, these are my digital contact sheets, so to speak. Then I go back and scan the really good stuff in 14 bit and hi-res. Or I go to the darkroom and print it.

My reason to have everything on file is that my opinion on what are good shots does change over time...
Click to expand...
I really like this idea of a digital contact sheet. I think that this is the concept that I've been missing in my workflow. Forgive me for being such a noob, but is 14 bit a DNG file?
 
Scanning is very time-consuming and tedious!

Even though I've had the scanner for going on 5 years, I still almost always get a CD when I have the film developed. I'll use that for "proofs" or casual prints.

If I want a nice print I'll re-scan, paying a lot of attention to detail.

I use the lab scans as my "contact sheet" using Windows Explorer to preview. 🙂
 
i use dslr with macro lens to shoot the negatives to camera - i do sets of around 5 films, it takes me something like 1 hour shoot it. i'm still improving my primitive technique - i just use a tripod and and home made carrier for negatives backlit with by a preview window of diaprojector. most of people says it's not worth it but for me it's fun to work with film.

Arjay what setup do you use? did you get some decent results compared to scans?
i'm working with d700 + makro planar 100 + pk3
 
Arjay said:
I originally planned putting the negatives of a film (in their sleeves) on my light table and shoot a digital 'proof' using my DSLR. Since that would require that I'd need an additional (rather costly) copy stand , I have postponed this step.
Click to expand...

hellomikmik said:
Arjay what setup do you use? did you get some decent results compared to scans?
i'm working with d700 + makro planar 100 + pk3
Click to expand...
I've done some tests now, without a copy stand.

I laid one (BW) film in its translucent sleeve on my light table and put a sheet of window glass on top of it to keep the film flat. I then shot the film using my Nikon D300 with a 28-105mm lens (this lens has a decent "macro " function) in hand-held mode.

I then used a specific routine in Nikon Capture NX2 to convert my shots into a positive proof sheet:
  1. I do a rather crude color-to-BW conversion, using the film base color as the reference color for the conversion filter (this gives best reproduction of tonal values, even with chromogenic films that have a brownish-red base).
  2. I process these shots for maximum tonal value rendition, clipping away the pure white of the light table and using the film's base tonal value as white point reference.
  3. Subsequently, I invert the image using a gradation curve (the curve is straight and runs perpendicular to a normal, unmodified gradation curve / straight line).
  4. I then have the proof sheets printed by my local drugstore.
Ultimately, I intend to create a series of batch processing commands or something like a macro, so that I don't have to perform all these steps manually.

This gives me a negative of my negative shot, i.e. a viewable positive. The resulting quality suffers from the uneven lighting of my light table, and of minor perspective distortions (lack of copying stand), but the resulting "proof sheets" are sufficient as a tool to search pictures. The proof's quality in print, however, is not sufficient to judge whether a negative is really sharp, or whether its density is satisfactory (I feel this can better be judged by looking directly at the negative).
 
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Use the Sivlerfast preview window

Use the Sivlerfast preview window

Likewise with time I am developing a similar eye for the good ones and rarely if ever scan a whole roll.

not_in_good_order said:
I've never scanned an entire roll of film. In my experience, if a composition has potential merit, it jumps out at me just by looking at the tiny image presented by the negative (or slide).
Click to expand...

In addition, I'm using the same CanoScan 8800F, same as the OP. I fully recommend the medium format aftermarket rig sold by betterscanning.com. I don't only use it for MF but also for 135 film to scan two strips of 5 or 6 negatives at a time (a spot of transparent tape is helpful for this). If you use the Silverfast software that comes with the 8800F you get a decent preview window and can zoom in quite large to a negative that you think has potential and skip it if you don't like it.
 
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I put the negs. in sleeves and scan (700ppi or there about) as a 'contact' scan. I use this as a reference to see if there any usable ones. Put the sleeves under a heavy pile of books for a couple of days and then rescan the gooders. Easy peasy, as they say. Being able to do a contact scan of a printfile sleeve is a big plus when using a flatbed. 4x5 is another one.
 
Arjay said:
This gives me a negative of my negative shot, i.e. a viewable positive.
Click to expand...
I have just discovered an additional benefit of my digital "proof sheet":

I store the proof sheet images together with my film scans. When I load a proof sheet (which carries a highly visible label with the film's storage number that also corresponds to a clearly identifiable directory), and open it in a viewing program such as Nikon View NX, I can toggle easily between an overall view of the entire proof sheet and a 100% view. Since the proof sheet has a resolution of 12 mpixels for an image of the entire film, a 100% view into this image gives me a fairly usable preview of what's on the individual film frames. I can recognize faces, get a reasonable impression of the individual picture's composition and generally see what's in the picture.

Before I can decide if the picture is worth a high-res print/scan, I will still need to put the film sleeve onto my light table and inspect it using a good loupe. But the proof sheet image is definitely useful for image preselection.
 
Count me as another who does a digital contact sheet... For both 120 and 35mm, I stick the whole roll into PrintFile sleeves, slap them on the flatbed, and do a 1200 DPI scan of the whole sheet. It really helps to have a positive image of everything you've shot. There are shots that don't look exciting when you're looking over the negatives, but wind up coming alive because of a detail or facial expression you couldn't see in negative. That's also why I scan the contact sheet at 1200 DPI.

The PrintFile sheet will have a serial number and a camera name written on it, which gets scanned along with the negatives. My serial numbers look like "135-0100," for 135 format, roll 100. If the camera was an Olympus Epic, the scan would get saved as "135-0100-epic.jpg" in the "contact sheet" directory.

Once I have a shot I want to scan, it goes into the film scanner for a multipass 4000 DPI HDR scan. If I'm going to spend the time to scan it, I want a "digital negative" that can be reinterpreted later on. The final scan takes its name from the roll and frame number; for example, 135-100-24A.jpg
 
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