Workflow: Do you scan every image?

[furcafe]

Same here, w/my definition of "flubs" meaning that there is nothing useable in the frame. Although it's very tedious & time consuming, the reason I do this is that even negs/slides that don't work in their entirety can often contain elements that I'll use, or others will use, for other purposes (stock, graphics) in a crop. I also like to have an electronic record of my mistakes (to supplement the hard copy) for learning/diagnostic purposes.

I scan everything but total flubs.

 

[visiondr]

If one has a flat bed scanner, then assembling a virtual contact sheet would work great. But, with a Coolscan V, I take a more pedestrian approach. I examine the negs under a loupe over a light table (this is a skill well worth practicing). Then I preview scan only those with promise. Those that may end up as keepers get the full-on scan and are saved as tiff files.

 

[nico]

No, I don't scan every frame I shot, it would take too much time even though i don't usually shoot more than an average roll per week; I do a preview scan only of the ones looking interesting from the contact sheets. Then, I definitely scan the ones I really like and save them as .tiff files.
After scanning each roll I archive it with the contact sheets.

 

[Colman]

I tend to scan the lot, feeding them through the Coolscan V as I work during the day. But I have a job that sits me in front of the machine for hours so it's not actually taking me any extra time.

 

[Tom A]

I shoot fairly large volume of film (10-12/week) so scanning each neg would take way to much time.
I process and cut into 6 frame strips and file in negfiles and go over them with a loupe. Mark the ones that look interesting and scan those. Usually end up being 5-6 negs/page. These are scanned into LR 2 and minor correction for contrast. i still shoot for "wet" darkroom and the contrast is slightly different for screen versus darkroom.
Once scanned, the negatives are filed in binders with the usual notes (film, developer, camera body, lens and date). I do go back and look at older files and as they get more "historic" my opinion on what is an interesting neg tend to change and occasionally added to my LR 2 files.

 

[Chris101]

I put my film into the sheets (Printfile) as well, and then scan that on a flatbed at 600 dpi. This makes a 'contact' scan with each frame being about 800 pixels wide - big enough to get a good look at the content. I keep these 'contacts' so that I can then decide which frames I want to scan at high resolution on a different scanner.

 

[40oz]

I scan everything at my scanner's max setting. I "proof" them on my PC. A few times a year I go back through them just looking. I find some pretty nice shots I didn't see the first time through, or ones that now mean something. I copy the good ones into another folder. Each roll gets its own folder with an included folder for edited shots, as well as notes of exposure and development, camera, and film.

I also use the scans as educational material, just to see what I'm doing right and what I'm not. A tendency to under-expose is obvious when perusing back a few years, but not always obvious when just looking at the ones I chose to "keep" and wet-print. And before I take a camera to a particular bar or club, I try to look at what I got from the last trip there. Really handy for figuring out how to take home more usable shots in poor lighting.