Scanning a contact sheet?

[Chuck A]

I have always found a contact sheet to be a useful method of picking photos to print. I have started developing my own B&W again after a long absence but I don't want to set up trays to do paper. I just don't have the room.

I have an Epson 3170 flatbed scanner and scan my negs on it but I want to be able to scan a page full of negs to make a contact sheet. I can't get the darn thing to do it. It only gives me the center portion of the negs. I have tried a multitude of seting to no avail.

Does anybody have some ideas about this?

 

[lubitel]

Do you have one of those black frames that you put on a scanner when scanning large format negs? Thats what our 4990 needs for some reason, when scanning large negs or just putting some neg. strips on a flatbed.

 

[Chuck A]

You are probably right. I even tried just placing the negs on the glass without the proof-file page, but it doesn't even recognize them. I guess it needs the holder to calibrate or something. The largest negs the 3170 will do is 6x9, so I can't get a contact sheet out of that.

 

[photodog]

The light source in the lid of the 3170 is not large enough to illuminate the entire 8x11.5 scanning area.

 

[kaiyen]

well, one thing is that you have to leave the calibration section uncovered. this is probably the first 1.5-2" of the section of glass under the transparency unit. Whatever you do you can't cover that.

You should then be able to put a large light source, like a light box, upside down on top of the negatives. You now have a really big transparency unit. Scan with that and it should come out.

The only thing i"M not sure about is whether scanning in transparency mode restricts the scanner head to only the roughly 3" channel.

allan

 

[Chuck A]

I understand now. The light source is causing me the problem. I didn't realize that it didn't cover the entire area. duh!!

 

[amateriat]

The technically painless (however financially painful) answer is to acquire a flatbed with a transparency adapter which can handle at least an 8x10" negative/transparency. Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll be doing a lot of wrangling to little good effect.

The first scanner i had which did this was an old Afga Arcus II which I picked up for relatively cheap via the 'Bay. That got replaced with a tabloid-size Umax PowerLook 2100XL (a publishing house was getting rid of all four of theirs because they couldn't figure out how to make them work with their new Power Mac G5 towers - I really think they got sticker-shock at the cost of SCSI cards for those Macs). These can handle two 36-exposure rolls in one pass. If you're going to do a fair amount of contact scans, something with a bigger tranny adapter seems the best bet.


- Barrett

 

[RayPA]

I started a THREAD about this a while ago. One solution is to use a digital camera and a light source to create a down & dirty contact sheet.

🙂

 

[Zack]

If you have a digital camera with a macro lens, then put the negs on a light table and take their photo, then upload them to photoshop and invert.

 

[Chuck A]

I started a THREAD about this a while ago. One solution is to use a digital camera and a light source to create a down & dirty contact sheet.

🙂

Interesting idea. I will have to give it a try.

 

[oftheherd]

I will have to do a little research for it, but there is a utility that takes your files and reduces them to a contact sheet. I don't recall the name of it and I think the IT folks must have taken it off my machine here at work when they were scavenging for more space on my C drive. If I have a chance when I get home I will try to find it and post it here. It isn't perfect, but it does the job.

 

[Chuck A]

I will have to do a little research for it, but there is a utility that takes your files and reduces them to a contact sheet. I don't recall the name of it and I think the IT folks must have taken it off my machine here at work when they were scavenging for more space on my C drive. If I have a chance when I get home I will try to find it and post it here. It isn't perfect, but it does the job.

That would be great.