Scans from prints or negatives?

[HMojo]

First of all, I'd like to say "HELLO" to RFF and all of its members. After about 4 months of popping on here and there as a guest, I finally joined RFF just yesterday.

As I am relatively new to rangefinder cameras (about 6 months shooting), this forum and its members have been extremely helpful in guiding my journey into RF photography.

Now, onto business:

I almost exclusively shoot B&W (always ISO 400), and don't develop or print my own pictures. I've had some CDs made from scanned negatives a couple times and noticed that the digital images seem subtantially more grainy than their printed counterparts. Is grain more apparent on a computer screen or do many places (like Samy's Camera) use filters to sharpen images when scanning negatives?

Would I be better off getting my own negative scanner or perhaps using a flat-bed scanner and actually scan my prints?

Thanks!

 

[ch1]

Those CD images are probably medium or even, low resolution JPEGs.

You'd be better off scanning your negatives directly using either RAW or TIFF as your "archival image". You can always then create a lower-res JPEG version for sending out over the web or posting here to the Gallery.

I usually use RAW (NEF in my case - see my own query posted today) and burn my images to a DVD. This is because RAW images are about 65mb and will fill a CD real fast (maybe you'll get 10 images on it)!

 

[iñaki]

It´s better to scan the negatives yourself (The scans they do in the mini labs are very bad). Always better to scan negs than prints.
You can use a flatbed or a dedicated scaner (better this one) for the negatives.
I use a flatbed for my negatives (Epson 4490) because it can scan also medium format negatives, but If you only want it for 35 mm, a dedicated scaner could be better for you.

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

Welcome 🙂

Those commercially scanned jpegs are lower-res scans. For best results, try scanning your own. I use a dedicated scanner, Minolta 5400, and there is a ton of details that it picks out that the commercial lab scanners just don't. At its highest resolution, from Velvia 50, 100, the scanner creates 16bit color files that are 199mb. There's detail for you. Good luck.

 

[HMojo]

Thanks for all the advice everyone! I knew I was doing something wrong given that many of the images here on RFF, as well as many other sites, look fantastic.

I will look into getting a dedicated negative scanner.

 

[sockeyed]

I guess that it depends on what you want to do with your images. If you are just going to post them on-line for on-screen viewing, I find that lab scans on something like a Fuji Frontier are more than adequate. In fact, I find scanning colour negs on my dedicated scanner (Minolta Scan Dual IV) a real PITA as I can never seem to get the colours right.

On the other hand, I get very good results scanning B&W negs on my scanner.

 

[Nick R.]

Like sockeyed said, for color shots I like to scan the prints because then I don't have to worry about getting the color right. A good scanned print will be fine for web posting.

 

[dmr]

In fact, I find scanning colour negs on my dedicated scanner (Minolta Scan Dual IV) a real PITA as I can never seem to get the colours right.

That's the same scanner I use, and I do mostly color negatives, sometimes color slides, and I'm scanning a lot of my ancient B&W negatives.

One thing I've discovered, that seems to work for me, is to do little if any adjustment of the colors and such in the scanner software, but scan at 16 bit, multiple pass, and do the color correction in Photoshop after. Then switch to 8 bits after the color correction is done.

About the only thing I haven't been able to correct to my satisfaction (see the "twilight" series in my gallery) are those I recently took using Walgreens/Agfa film, but a recent roll of the same stuff under similar light scanned on the Fuji Frontier gave the same results.

On the other hand, I get very good results scanning B&W negs on my scanner.

At the urging of some of the people here I've tried scanning B&W also as color positives and then inverting in Photoshop. I haven't really noticed that much difference. I think the key is to pay attention to detail. 🙂

 

[ch1]

I must say that I never have tried scanning color negatives as I almost exclusively shoot slides. But my wife shoots print film (or did -now she's trash-talkin' about going digital) and I'll stry scanning some of hers to see how the Nikon 5000 does.

I still think scanning in RAW or TIFF is the way to go for the initial image. Even if you then "boil the image down" to a JPEG that is "right sized" for posting here I believe you'll have a finer finished product. And of course, the RAW/TIFF image will be the finest archival image you can then access later on.

 

[jano]

What sockeyed said: depends on what you want to do.

If you plan to print your digitized images, you should scan the negatives.

If you plan to only share your images on the web, and continue to have your lab develop and print your negatives, perhaps scaning the prints would be best.. with that, you can save a lot of money and just buy the very cheap $40-100 flatbed scanner.

Jano

 

[marknyc]

I got an Epson 4990 last Sunday and love it. Works fine for me for BW negatives (although I am not making large prints), but the advantage for me is that I also shoot large format and its scans of those are amazing. (Also, I am shooting Polaroid 55 so, with the scanner, I can get from shutter to scanned in a few hours without a darkroom.) As someone else said, if its only BW neg scans you are doing, get a dedicated, rather than flatbed, scanner.

As for processing, you might try some mail order places. www.mylab.com is a BW dedicated shop and I've just started using them for 35mm as I don't have access to a darkroom at the moment. So far, so good.

 

[dmr]

I still think scanning in RAW or TIFF is the way to go for the initial image. Even if you then "boil the image down" to a JPEG that is "right sized" for posting here I believe you'll have a finer finished product. And of course, the RAW/TIFF image will be the finest archival image you can then access later on.

Agreed, 100%. The workflow I've kind of been settling on is to do a max res scan, 16 bit, at least 2x sampling, and save to a .tiff file, which ends up being 70-80 megabytes. Then I won't touch that, but I'll move them to CD ROM when I get enough of them. That way if I need to go back to square 1, I won't have to scan again.

Then I'll read the .tiff into Photoshop and save as a 16 bit .psd file, which does seem to load and save faster than .tiff files. I'll do all of the level and color correction at 16 bit and then convert to 8 bit, touch up if necessary, and print from that.

If I want a web or gallery version, I'll resize to 800 pixels long side at 72 dpi and save as a .jpg file.

I learned a long time ago that there's quite a bit of "image rot" from multiple loads and saves of .jpg files.

 

[Roger S.]

Could be a combination of a fairly poor scanner at low resolution and aggressive sharpening.
Here's info on the problem of "grain aliasing"- scanners exaggerating grain. The quality I get scanning with a 4000dpi scanner at max resolution is far better than lab scans, or the 2700 dpi example posted here:

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Grain.htm