Choosing a film scanner: useful information. Budget slide scanners: what are these birds and where do they live? What are film scanners?

Digitization studio "World of Numbers" provides services of professional digitization of photographic films, slides and negatives, photo scanning in Moscow! There are promotions and discounts! Large selection of scanning options: for digitizing films from 1200dpi to 4000dpi, for scanning photographs from 300dpi to 4000dpi. Individual selection is possible.

Benefits of digitization in Mir Tsifry studio

Technologies for eliminating scratches and dust, electronic retouching;
Additional processing in Photoshop: color correction, cropping, positioning;
Range of scanning resolutions from 300dpi to 4000dpi;
Professional scanners for digitizing films and slides, scanning photos;
Recording on any medium;
Quantity discounts: 5-20%.

Digitization of films and slides (negatives, transparencies)

Included in cost:

Technologies Digital ICE, GEM, ROC - removal of scratches and dust, hardware color correction;
Post-processing: manual correction, cropping, image rotation to the correct position Promotion! ;

Digitization of photographic films and slides price:
Service	up to 6 films / 200 frames	up to 15 films / 500 frames	up to 30 films / 1000 frames	over 30 films / 1000 frames
Scanning 4000dpi
	420 rub/film	400 rub/film	380 rub/film	340 rub/film
frames	18 rub/frame	17 rub/frame	16 rub/frame	14 rub/frame
Scanning 3200dpi
Film per roll (24 frames or more)	380 rub/film	360 rub/film	340 rub/film	300 rub/film
frames	16 rub/frame	15 rub/frame	14 rub/frame	12.5 rub/frame
Scanning 2400dpi
Film per roll (24 frames or more)	330 rub/film	310 rub/film	290 rub/film	260 rub/film
frames	14 rub/frame	13 rub/frame	12.5 rub/frame	11 rub/frame
Scanning 1200dpi
Film per roll (24 frames or more)	240 rub/film	230 rub/film	215 rub/film	190 rub/film
frames	10 rub/frame	9.5 rub/frame	9 rub/frame	8 rub/frame

Digitization of wide format films and slides (4×5, 5×5, 5×6, 6×9)
1200dpi	30rub/frame
2400dpi	50rub/frame
4000dpi	60rub/frame

Notes:

The minimum order for scanning slides and photographic films is 500 rubles;
Film less than 24 frames, as well as cut film are calculated frame by frame;
Do not take the slides out of the frame, scanning slides taken out of the frame + 50% to the price list.

An example of digitizing a negative
on the left, enhancement technologies are disabled, on the right, hardware enhancements are applied (relevant for color films)

P.S. Visit our Digitization Gallery to see the work.

P.P.S. Examples of cropping and digitizing slides and negatives.

Photo scanning

Included in cost:

Elimination of scratches, dust (digital ICE);
Frame cropping, reversal Promotion! ;
Automatic color correction, plus manual fine-tuning in Photoshop Action! ;
Burning to CD/DVD, cloud, customer media.

Digitization of documents, digitization of photos price:
Scan Resolution / Service	Photo size
Scan Resolution / Service	up to 10x15	starting from 10x15 to A4
300dpi (document scanning, text digitization)	8 rub/photo	15 rub/photo
600dpi (digitizing books)	10 rub/photo	20 rub/photo
1200dpi (for creating slideshows)	15 rub/photo	25 rub/photo
2400dpi (for subsequent retouching)	18 rub/photo	35 rub/photo
4000dpi (for small size photos)	22 rub/photo	40 rub/photo
Text recognising	20 rub/page

Discounts for digitizing photos:
200-499 photos	500-999 photos	over 1000 photos

Notes:

The minimum order for scanning photos is 500 rubles;
If necessary, remove photos from the album or scan photos without taking out + 30% to the price list.

Scanning photographs, digitizing film, slides and negatives are not the only ones. Here you can order text scanning, digitization of books with subsequent recognition and saving in text format. Scanning and processing photos - after digitizing photos, we can retouch the photo, perform restoration, colorize.

Scanning film and negatives

Digitization is carried out on a film scanner, which allows you to scan film at a resolution of 4000 dpi. It is a professional machine for high resolution film digitizing and high performance. An example of scanning a negative without enhancement and with enhancement (removal of scratches and dust, electronic retouching - color restoration, sharpening) you can see a little higher “digitalICE and digitalGEM technologies”. Note that these technologies do not work when digitizing old black-and-white negatives; when scanning film in color, the technologies are relevant. Scanning film - the result exceeds the wildest expectations! Call!

We offer slide digitization and negative film scanning at 1200dpi, 2400dpi and 4000dpi. Example.

Scanning old photos

Additional services after digitization: frame cropping, photo rotation and color correction. When scanning photographic films and digitizing old photographs, a frame is always formed around the digital copy, since the scanned area is always larger than the original image. Also, when scanning, the picture may be upside down. After digitizing photos, color correction is relevant, since the scanning of photos occurs with a slight light - a minus of all flatbed scanners. All these shortcomings can be eliminated! Examples.

Digitizing slides and negatives

You can easily find a studio that will scan photos and digitize film, as well as scan slides. With large volumes of photographic materials in the studio, scanning will be done much faster and better than you can, and for sure you will receive a discount for the volume. What you should pay attention to:

Prices should be justified, the larger the volume, the cheaper it should be to digitize films and scan photos.

Deadlines - the studio should keep you informed on the deadlines, it is also possible to take the finished materials in parts.

Quality - contact a studio with professional equipment, and also pay attention to the list of digitization services, the more there are, the better the studio works.

Digitizing film at home

While a studio can digitize film professionally and save you time, you can try scanning film yourself. Pros of digitizing slides and negatives at home:

Possibility to choose what frames you need. Digitization of photographic films in the studio involves all the resulting frames.

Private shots, if you don't want anyone else to see them.

Purchase a scanner to scan slides and film. The more expensive the scanner, the better the digitization of film and slides. You can purchase a flatbed scanner with a slide module, the price varies between 3000-10000 rubles. You can also purchase a professional film scanner with electronic retouching, scratch and dust removal technologies. Such a device will cost 45,000 rubles and more. What you should pay attention to:

Speed. Some scanners digitize film at breakneck speed. Be prepared that this may affect the quality of film scanning.

Quality. It is desirable that the scanner supports a resolution of 4000 dots per inch (dpi) for scanning a slide. This setting allows you to digitize the negative in 32x48 quality.

Compatibility. Professional scanners connect via 1394 protocol, make sure your computer has one.

Flatbed scanner. You can digitize film using a conventional scanner for digitizing text and scanning books. Minuses this method consist in a small resolution of scanning a slide, the scanner has limitations in brightness, the film is digitized through glass, there are no special "chips" to improve the image. In this way, it is impossible to achieve the same quality of digitizing slides and films as in specialized studios.

Photographing a slide. What you need: a screen, a slide projector and a camera stand. Capture the image on the screen with digital camera, achieve optimum sharpness. The next step is to edit the photo in Photoshop.

Summarize. The cost of digitizing photographic films in the studio and the subsequent processing of photographs is quite adequate today. But the result may pleasantly surprise you! Consider whether it is better for you to trust the professionals of film digitizing and scanning slides or to conduct experiments at home. Pay attention to which studio you are going to entrust digitization. Some companies may lose or damage materials, and the saddest thing is that they are not responsible for this. 93 votes, score: 4,67 out of 5)

Ordinary scanners are not designed to scan slides and negatives due to insufficient illumination. However, there is a trick that will allow you to do this with a small amount of cardboard. Having built a cunning design, you can redirect the luminous flux and achieve the desired result.

If your archive is full of old negatives that you would like to convert to digital format, you have the opportunity to scan them. But a simple scan will not work for these purposes. In order for everything to work out, you need a powerful light source, which should be behind the negative or a multi-functional scanner.

Of course, you can buy a special film scanner, but if you already have a regular flatbed scanner, you can get by with it. You can use a regular cardboard reflector to scan film or slide. It will capture the light emitted by the scanner and reflect it with reverse side slide. Such a reflector will make it possible to scan film and slides as normal documents.

To make a reflector, we need the following materials:
A4 sheet of thick cardboard with a silver side
Pencil
Scissors
Scotch
Ruler

Instruction

Step 1: On the non-silver side of the cardstock, print or draw the following template.

Step 2: Cut out the template and fold it over so that the silver side is facing in.

Step 3: Connect the template into a triangle. It should resemble a wedge. This will leave one side open. The shiny part must be inside.

Step 4: Next you need to glue the corners of the reflector. After the glue has dried, the device is ready for use.

Let's start using our reflector. Place film or slide on the scanner glass. Place a reflector on top. For best results, align one side of the slide with the center of the reflector. You do not need to close the scanner cover. You can start scanning. If the result is uneven lighting in the picture, you can try to put a thin sheet of tissue paper between the negative and the reflector. The paper will scatter the light and prevent the scanner from capturing space behind the film.

Having achieved a satisfactory result, we need to crop the image along the outline of the slide, since the scanner scans the entire glass, and we only need a small frame. Cropping can be done in any graphics editor. To get the clearest image, you need to scan at a high resolution. It is recommended to use 1200 DPI.

After scanning, you will need to carry out small photo manipulations with the image. If you scanned a negative, you will have to invert the colors. This can be done even in Microsoft Paint, so there should be no difficulty. You can also do a little image processing in any graphic editor. It is recommended to increase the brightness or contrast.

If dust gets on the negative during scanning, it can be removed with a soft lens brush or cosmetic brush. To remove blemishes or scratches, you can use the Healing Brush tool. For this you can use free programs, such as GIMP or Paint.net. They are available for free download and are easy to find on the Internet.

This image shows (from left to right) a direct scan, an inverted scan, and the final image after removing scratches and dust. The whole job took no more than 10 minutes.

May 14, 2012 Odnokrylov Vladimir 2

Many of us probably have old photographic films - color and black and white, and maybe even slides. What to do if you want to show your friends in in social networks photos from my first matinee in kindergarten? You can contact a photo lab, or you can buy a slide scanner and translate all your family photo archive to digital format yourself. Read about what slide scanners are and how much they can cost in our today's review.

Little has changed in film and negative scanning in recent years—despite technical progress, it still requires either a special adapter for flatbed scanners or a dedicated standalone device.

The layman will ask the question - why do I need this very slide adapter, and, moreover, a separate solution? The answer is simple: the difference between the process of scanning the same finished photo from a slide is not only in size. An additional problem is that the printed original can be easily illuminated with a flatbed scanner carriage, but the attitude towards film originals is completely different - they need to be seen through.

The second problem is the range of perception of opacity densities by the scanning heads of scanners. As a rule, household "tablet" has a small range.

The third difficulty is the supply of originals, because the images on the slides are quite small, and the film, as a rule, is also bent due to storage in reels, so the question automatically arises about the correct positioning of the original and the quality of the pressure so that the result is in focus and does not have geometric distortion.

At least two problems - the supply of materials and illumination - are solved by slide adapters, and the corresponding resolution and optical range, as a rule, provide separate solutions.

“Why should I scan films,” an inquisitive consumer will ask, “if I have digital camera?" The answer is simple - there are many old photographs taken at a time when even color film was a novelty and unprecedented luxury. Of course, they can be printed in the "old-fashioned" way, but usually the quality of slides and films does not improve at all with time - dust , scratches and much more greatly worsens their condition.And digital processing allows you to eliminate artifacts of this kind and print photos on modern devices.

As for the companies that today produce independent devices for scanning film originals, there are, in fact, few of them - these are either companies such as Konica, who have been dealing with any devices related to photography or processing of printed originals for a long time, and producing ultra-expensive solutions for photo labs, or "newcomers" as brands ion audio And Plustec, which have recently entered the market and are actively using new technologies in search of the optimal price / quality ratio.

Scanning films and slides up to 5000 rubles

The budget range of any devices is exactly what makes the bulk of sales, and the explanation for this is quite simple: if a consumer buys a device for the first time, he is unlikely to be able to take and give 10,000-20,000 rubles for an item, in frequent use or general need which he is not sure. On this moment in Russia, however, as in many other countries, the percentage of professionals who do not spare any money for working tools is quite small.

Therefore, inexpensive slide scanners are the way to go for those who simply want to save old slides from family celebrations, restore lost photo albums from negatives, or restore old fairy tales from film projectors. Of course, such devices are far from photo labs in terms of quality, but the requirements for printouts of 10x15 cm are also small, and most of the consumer photo printouts are in this format.

Such relatively inexpensive "workhorses" are divided into two classes - independent devices that scan films to flash drives, and USB devices that are connected to a PC and controlled by it. Of course, the division is conditional - most standalone slide scanners have the ability to connect to a PC.

USB slide scanners

As a rule, inexpensive USB film scanners do not have their own screen and are generally quite simplified - in fact, all configuration is carried out in proprietary or specialized software. We have summarized in the table the most popular representatives of this segment.

Name	ION PICS2PC	ION SLIDES2PC EXPRESS	ION SLIDES2PCMK3	Plustek SmartPhoto F50
Matrix type	CMOS
Connection interface	USB 2.0
Nutrition	USB
Color depth, bit	48			24
Resolution (optical), dpi	1800
	3600
	5.1 Mpx (2592x1680)
Light source	White LED
Color balance	Machine
exposition	Machine
Scanning 35mm negatives	Yes
35mm slide scan	Yes
	Yes	No
	Yes	No
	Yes	No
	No
Weight, g	1200	370	660	310
Dimensions, mm	220x208x147	105x170x85	83x153x83	104x155x100
		Frames for film and slides, brush for cleaning optics	Slide frame, slide and roll film feeders, lens cleaning brush	Frame for film and slides
Peculiarities	Two operating modes	plug and play		Quick Preview
	5000	2600 rubles	2900 rubles	3600 rubles

In general, we can note the prevalence of brand products ION AUDIO. As expected, each device, regardless of price, comes with appropriate frames for placing film originals.

ION SLIDES2PC EXPRESS with frames for film originals

Despite the similarity of the matrices used - each has an optical resolution of 1800x1800 dpi, the capabilities of the devices are slightly different - for example, you can pay extra for fast slide feed mechanisms in ION SLIDES2PCMK3. This will significantly increase the processing speed: it is much easier to put the slides right in the frames and quickly change them, there are fewer problems with sorting already processed slides and you do not need to disassemble the slide frame many times.

ION SLIDES2PCMK3

And in ION PICS2PC you can, moreover, scan photos using the included frames in three sizes (9x13, 10x15 and 13x18 cm), and the device itself is housed in a fairly compact case.

ION PICS2PC

To change the operating mode, you need to move both switches on the body to the Photo Scanner or Film Scanner position - to scan photographs or film originals, respectively. The selected mode with the correct position of the switches is highlighted by a green LED.

ION PICS2PC in photo scan mode ION PICS2PC in film scanning mode

Compared to the ION series, the slide scanner Plustec it does not look so bright - the price is higher with equal opportunities, besides, the reduced bit depth of color reproduction will certainly make itself felt when editing full-color images.

Plustek SmartPhoto F50

True, the price is generally at the level of conventional flatbed scanners. However, as mentioned earlier, slide scanners have a wider dynamic range, and a flatbed scanner also requires a slide adapter.

Standalone slide scanners

Technically, stand-alone slide scanners do not differ much from USB scanners: a screen is added, simple controls and the ability to connect a drive - as a rule, an SD card reader is used. Why are such devices in demand? The answer is very simple: not all people have the time / opportunity / desire to deal with a PC, and a device of this kind allows you to do even without a laptop. The consumer simply takes his slides/negatives, puts them in the machine and gets the output pictures, most often in JPEG format, which can then be viewed on any device compatible with a memory card or edited if a computer is available.

At the moment, the following devices are sold in Russia:

Name	ION PICS2SD	IONFILM2SDMK2
Matrix type	CMOS
Connection interface	USB 2.0	USB 2.0 and TV Out
Nutrition	Power adapter
Inner memory	16 MB	No
Screen	2.36" LCD	2.5" LCD
card reader	SD/MMC/MS/MS-PRO	SD/SDHC up to 8 GB
Color depth, bit	48
Resolution (optical), dpi	1800
Resolution (interpolated), dpi	3600
Received Image Resolution	5.1 Mpx (2592 x 1680)
Light source	White LED
Color balance	Machine
exposition	Machine
Saved Image Format	JPEG
Scanning 35mm negatives	Yes
35mm slide scan	Yes
Photo scanning 3x5 inches (9x13 cm)	Yes	No
Photo scanning 4x6 inches (10x15 cm)	Yes	No
Photo scanning 5x7 inches (13x18 cm)	Yes	No
Photo scanning 6x8 inches (15x20 cm)	No
Weight, g	1200	400
Dimensions, mm	220x208x147	75x75x150
Additional accessories included	Frames for film, slides, photos 9x13, 10x15 and 13x18	Slide frame, slide and roll film feeders, lens cleaning brush, 2 GB SD card
Peculiarities	Two operating modes	Plug "n" Play, work with iPad Camera Connection Kit
Average market price for April 2012	5500 rubles	3700 rubles

In fact, competitors ION PICS2SD And IONFILM2SDMK2 absent - the specific purpose of the device and the price range affect. The capabilities of the devices are close to their USB counterparts, the price of independence from a PC was an increased cost - the difference amounted to 1000 rubles, which is quite justified in the absence of a PC.

ION PICS2SD

However, nothing prevents you from connecting them to a PC, but IONFILM2SDMK2 can transfer data to . Given the active promotion of devices in recent years in Russia, we can say that this feature will be quite in demand.

IONFILM2SDMK2

Additionally IONFILM2SDMK2 has a composite TV output, which makes it possible to simultaneously show slides on the screen of virtually any TV. True, it is better not to dream about the advantages of a Full HD LCD screen here - the low resolution of the analog input will have a rather strong effect. There are many possibilities for using the TV output - for example, the author of these lines thought about the possibility of showing children old Soviet filmstrips, displaying them directly on the TV screen, and using a film feed adapter for pulling.

ION FILM2SDMK2 with roll film feed adapter

In addition, when switching the original mode, we have the opportunity to get a positive from a negative original even at the preview stage. For example, this is how we got the cat from the negative film (we rotated the image using the built-in control).

Scanned frame Original

Then we scanned the slide.

Scanned slide Original

However, ION PICS2SD has a similar "chip", in addition to extended control compared to a fellow.

ION PICS2SD with frame for film originals

The SD card slot for both devices is on the back.

SD card reader in ION PICS2SD SD card reader in ION FILM2SDMK2

Scanning films and slides from 5000 rubles

What awaits us in the price range above 5000 rubles? Devices with an extrapolated, and closer to tens of thousands per device, optical resolution of 7200 dpi are already starting here. As the resolution and dynamic range increase, so does the price, and by no means in a linear progression. As an example, we took the characteristics of several devices of different price segments and summarized them in a table to clearly show the ratio of features and price.

Name	Plustek OpticFilm 7600i AI	Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV	Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED	Imacon Flextight X5
Matrix type	CCD	Three-way CCD sensor	Dual band CCD sensor	Tri-band CCD sensor from Kodac
Connection interface	USB 2.0	USB 2.0	USB 2.0	FireWire, LPT
Nutrition	Power adapter
Dynamic Range	3,5	4,8		4,9
Screen	No
Color depth, bit	48
Resolution (optical), dpi	3250	3200	4000	8000
Resolution (interpolated), dpi	7200	No
Light source	White LED	Three-wave cold cathode fluorescent lamp	RGB LEDs and IR emitter	Diffuser lamp
Color balance	Machine	Automatic / manual
exposition	Machine	Automatic / manual
Scanning 35mm negatives	Yes
35mm slide scan	Yes
Scanning slides 100x280 mm	No			Yes
Photo scanning 3x5 inches (9x13 cm)	No
Photo scanning 4x6 inches (10x15 cm)	No
Photo scanning 5x7 inches (13x18 cm)	No
Photo scanning 6x8 inches (15x20 cm)	No
Weight, g	1600	1500	3000	20500
Dimensions, mm	120x119x272	145x100x325	96x172x315	230x390x650
Additional accessories included	Film/slide holders, color calibration samples	Frames for slides and roll film	Auto feeder, frame set	Autofeeder, special frame set
Peculiarities	iSRD function to remove scratches and dust	RGB filter, digital noise reduction	Color channel sampling capability, quick preview, IR scan mode, improved algorithm for processing images from color negative films	Scanning of large format slides, A4 reflector, active sensor cooling on Pelte tubes, light condenser
Average market price for April 2012	18000	30000	110000	800000

Of course, the quality of scans from a device for 3-5 thousand rubles will never reach the same Nikon Super Cool Scan 5000, but the capabilities of budget slide scanners have never been compared to professional devices - any comparison would be simply inappropriate.

Nikon Super Cool Scan 5000

Devices of this level will never become mass solutions for the simple reason that the cost of really high-quality solutions is available only to photo studios, and it is much cheaper for an average person to contact these laboratories than to buy such a device at home - it simply cannot pay for itself.

Conclusion

In relation to the price, we can say that in the budget range it is still worth paying attention to products. ION AUDIO- Their slide scanners are very compact and well made, and slightly more expensive solutions are also autonomous. In general, with approximately the same solution matrix from ION have a wide range of ergonomic additions, which allows you to choose a device for yourself at an extremely low price, and even with the ability to do without a computer at all.

However, the low resolution of the matrices of budget slide scanners imposes its limitations, and if you are interested in a professional level of slide processing, then either very impressive expenses will be required, or you will have to contact specialized photo labs.

In our opinion, the best device of the brand ION AUDIO in terms of "price/opportunity" ratio, at the moment it is IONFILM2SDMK2. It does not know how to scan photos, but the difference in price compared to ION PICS2SD allows you to additionally purchase an inexpensive flatbed scanner for this purpose, and autonomy, along with the ability to work both with a PC and TV, and with iPad(via a special adapter) are quite remarkable. And previewing images on the built-in screen, combined with adjustment options such as rotation and flip, slightly improves the efficiency of working with this device. In general, due to the budget price and interesting features, this product can be considered as a good gift.

All about digital photography

If your archive is full of old negatives that you would like to convert to digital format, you have the opportunity to scan them. But a simple scan will not work for these purposes.

In order for everything to work out, you need a powerful light source, which should be behind the negative or a multi-functional scanner.

Of course, you can buy a special film scanner, but if you already have a regular flatbed scanner, you can get by with it.

You can use a regular cardboard reflector to scan film or slide. It will capture the light emitted by the scanner and reflect it off the back of the slide. Such a reflector will make it possible to scan film and slides as normal documents.

To make a reflector, we need the following materials:

A4 sheet of thick cardboard with a silver side
Pencil
Scissors
Scotch
Ruler

Instruction

Step 1: On the non-silver side of the cardstock, print or draw the following template.

Step 2: Cut out the template and fold it over so that the silver side is facing in.

Step 3: Connect the template into a triangle. It should resemble a wedge. This will leave one side open. The shiny part must be inside.

The best Film scanners rating: photos, specifications, prices, reviews

The paper will scatter the light and prevent the scanner from capturing space behind the film.

If dust gets on the negative during scanning, it can be removed with a soft lens brush or cosmetic brush. To remove blemishes or scratches, you can use the Healing Brush tool.

To do this, you can use free programs such as GIMP or Paint.net. They are available for free download and are easy to find on the Internet.

This image shows (from left to right) a direct scan, an inverted scan, and the final image after removing scratches and dust. The whole job took no more than 10 minutes.

Source: n-foto.ru

Copying materials without an active hyperlink to www.takefoto.ru is prohibited.

1 step

Scanner with slide module

I’ll make a reservation right away that it’s normal to scan a film only on a scanner with a slide module.

The slide module is a device inside the scanner cover, consisting of a special plate and some other elements. If you just put the film on the scanner glass, the result will be terrible, everything will be blown out and ruined. In addition, the scanner must have a real (not to be confused with interpolated resolution) optical resolution of at least 2400dPi, and preferably 4800dPi.

2 step

You need to prepare the film. Cut it into pieces of 6 frames each. Before this, it is advisable to rinse the film with plain water. Wipe the scanner glass with glass cleaner, otherwise every speck of dust will be visible in the photo. Detach the slide module plate and attach the film to it.

Budget slide scanners: what are these birds and where do they live?

For a tight hold, use small plates around the edges. Attach the slide module to the scanner cover and lower the cover.

3 step

Soft. As a program for scanning film, you can use the software from the scanner kit. VueScan is also good at this task. You can download it from the resource This utility supports most scanners and has many settings. The scanning process itself is not much different from scanning photos. You need to select the media type Slide\Film, scan resolution, and where to save the file. Choose BMP or TIFF for the generated file format, if you choose JPEG, you will lose the quality of the picture. Batch mode allows you to scan several slides at the same time. It is better to process the resulting image in graphic editors, such as Photoshop. Source akak.ru

On a weak PC, high-resolution scanning can take quite a long time.
Do not use multifunction devices (MFPs) to digitize film.
You can scan both negatives and positives.

Back

How to make a slide module for a scanner

When I wrote about a homemade shoe dryer, I, of course, wanted to post a photo of this miracle. But when I ordered to print "all the resulting" pictures on film, stupid operators did not understand the whole genius of this device and left it unprinted. The second time I did not want to go to them. Then I thought about making a slide module for my Umax Astra 4700 scanner. Well, don't buy it for fifty dollars, really!
The most obvious way: put the film on the glass and shine a lamp on top through white paper for uniformity - did not give anything. Could not find the desired brightness and so on.

Overview of film scanners

Although, theoretically, this is probably possible.
An attempt to force the scanner driver into film scanning mode resulted in it turning off the lamp (this is good) and shouting that it cannot be positioned (this is bad). Probably, there is some kind of calibration scale on the native slide module ... Well, to hell with it.
An Internet search gave a description of the construction of two mirrors. That's what I decided to do. But everything turned out to be somewhat different, as described. In general, for fun, I post how it was.
You will need:
- two mirrors approximately 60 * 60 mm (deviations in any direction are possible, affecting the result);
- a box from a 5-inch CD;
- glue for plastics and glass (preferably cyanoacrylic - second);
- a hacksaw, or a jigsaw, or a knife, in general, something with which you can cut a box from a CD.

Ideally, you will also need a piece of glass, but if the box is not scratched, it will do. Although the quality will certainly be worse.

We take the cover from the CD and cut off two corners from it (right-angled triangles with sides of about 3 cm). This will be a measure of 90 degrees, under which you need to glue the mirrors. We glue mirrors to them with a reflective surface inward to make a house. When it dries, put this house on what is left of the lid (so that the mirrors look down) and glue it by the lower ribs.
You get something like this design. I tried to photograph it with a webcam from different angles, but it still didn’t turn out very well. (click to enlarge)

How to use what you got

The main thing is patience. Wait until the glue dries so as not to crap the scanner glass :)))

Put emulsion film on the scanner. We put the house on top so that the mirrors look down, and the film is shifted to its edge and lies parallel to the junction of the mirrors (see pictures).

And we put the house ALONG the movement of the carriage - this is the main know-how. From above we cover all this with an opaque box - it can increase the contrast of the image. Again, see the picture.

It is useful to paint the inside of the box with black paint - all for contrast.
And ... full speed ahead! Resolution - 1200-2400.

The result will be approximately the same horror as in the picture on the right.

Do not despair - this is what we have achieved. Load it into Microsoft Photo Editor (it's in the MS Office installer, in the Office Tools branch) or something smarter. Make a negative out of this image. I ended up with an average picture in which the colors are already distinguishable, but there is a lot of blue. The Photo Editor has a Balance function that allows you to change the brightness of both the entire picture and each color component individually. With its help, you need to remove the blue, you can add red. And we get what we see in the left picture. And all the scratches on it are from the cover of the CD (use glass, comrades!).
It, of course, is not a fountain, but for some purposes it will fit very well.

Good luck!

For letters

Scanning negatives

Comrades (or whatever is fashionable today), gentlemen of the forum.

I decided to convert the family photo archive into digital format.
There are just too many negatives! Since the 80s of the last century. Taking into account the fact that my father was engaged in photography (true still b-w). I have been photographing and printing photos since I was 6 years old.

The best scanners according to customer reviews

In short, a lot has accumulated.

My old scanner does not support this feature. I took a Mustek scanner - BearPaw 2448TA Plus for testing.
When scanning at a resolution of 1200 dpi, everything is fine, but the speed is not satisfactory, it takes 10 minutes to process 4 negatives, not counting the cropping time. Especially not satisfied with the quality and resolution.
When scanning at high resolution, various quirks appear, either black photos, or white, or one of the RGB components. Moreover, there are no regularities (reboots of programs and drivers, memory occupancy, etc.)!

Maybe someone faced such a problem?

I am ready to buy a new scanner for scanning negatives (only negatives are possible - specialized).
Maybe someone works on this profile in photo labs.

Due to financial situation, please do not offer photo scanners for more than $300.

To convert negatives or slides into digital format, a special device is used - a film scanner. It differs from a conventional scanner in that it is designed to process small transparent images that have a high resolution. Although many are supplied with special modules that allow you to scan slides, the resulting product is of poor quality.

Only CCD (CCD) scanning elements can provide the required high resolution images. Therefore, all film scanners are built using them. Some models have one line of CCDs. In this case, digitization requires a three-fold pass prolongs the scan, but does not affect its result. Basically, a film scanner has a CCD, and the image is digitized in one pass. Some models use a multiple pass to reduce errors in the final image.

An important parameter that you should pay attention to when choosing a scanner is the optical resolution. The width of the most common film is 35 mm, and the image itself is even smaller. Therefore, the optical resolution must be at least 2400 dpi (dots per inch). There are scanners that provide 4800 and 5400 dpi. And although the current level of technology makes it possible to achieve even greater values, this is impractical - the grain size of even a fine-grained film will be much larger than a pixel.

Particular attention should be paid to the dynamic range or optical density. The higher the value of this setting, the better the negative scanner can render halftones and smooth color transitions. For high-quality film processing, the value should be in the range from 3.2 D to 3.6 D. It makes no sense to purchase models with a higher optical density, since the vast majority of films have just such values.

The quality of digitization is also affected by the bit depth of the representation of light, which characterizes the color rendering. A modern film scanner may have a 42 or 48 bit color representation, but processing in this format is only used internally by the scanner and serves to reduce the "noise" of the conversion. The final image has a standard for computer technology 24-bit color encoding.

The slide scanner in most cases is connected to a computer via a USB interface. More expensive models can connect via SCSI-2 and (FireWire). In this case, quite often there is a board with this controller in the kit.

A film scanner almost always has to improve the image. These are Digital ICE, which allows you to remove dust and scratches from the image without affecting the main image, and Digital GEM, which allows you to eliminate graininess, and Digital ROC, which allows you to restore colors in faded photographs, etc. Quite often, all these tools are combined in one package Digital ICE4 Advanced. The use of these technologies significantly prolongs the scan, but the result is excellent. For similar transformations in Photoshop, it will take much more time, and the result is by no means guaranteed.