Mark Herrick
From:
Bakersfield, CA
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Posted 25 Jun 2000 6:45 pm |
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I have some black and white photos (negatives) that I might be interested in posting on the forum.
A few questions:
1) How difficult is it to scan these negatives?
2) Will I have as much control over exposure, contrast etc. as in traditional B&W photo printing? (Some of the negs are a bit underexposed; dark club, no flash...)
3) Since I don't have scanning equipment and graphics software on my own computer, are there places where I can have this done or do it myself? (Like renting B&W darkroom time; I do have some experience with Photoshop.) Is it expensive?
4) What resolution is recommended to get the best balance of image quality and relatively compact file size? (I imagine I'm talking JPEG, right?)
Thanks for the help. |
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Jerry Gleason
From:
Eugene, Oregon, USA
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Posted 25 Jun 2000 8:11 pm
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As you may already know, most flatbed scanners are not suitable for scanning film of any kind. A dedicated film scanner is needed. The one I have is a Canon FS 2710, which, at a street price of about $500, gives excellent results for Black & White or Color negatives, and color slides. I have extensive darkroom experience, but I feel I am getting better and faster results now with the scanner and Epson printer. It's not very difficult, and you have control you could only dream about in the darkroom.
If you don't want to make the investment in a scanner and software, many custom photo labs offer scanning and digital printing services these days, although they may not let you do it yourself. Check the yellow pages for custom photo finishing labs in your area. That's probably the way to go if you only have a few negatives to scan. If you have as many as 50 - 100, and anticipate doing more in the future, you might consider investing in a film scanner.
Most film scanners, like the one I have, are bundled with all the necessary software for basic image editing. Keep in mind that you generally get what you pay for in a film scanner. Bit depth and dynamic range are important. I would recommend at least a 36 bit scanner with a dynamic range of 3.2 or greater for professional looking results. A scanning resolution of 2700 dpi is adequate to produce a letter size print from most negatives and slides, and yields a file size or about 50 MB, or 25 MB when converted to 24 bit pixel depth. Of course, it can be JPEG compressed to much smaller size on disk (albeit with some quality loss). A much lower scanning resolution (and therefore much smaller file size) is fine for screen display, where you only need a final resolution of 72 dpi at the size you want to display. A typical JPEG for screen display shouldn't need to be bigger than 50 - 100K.
Feel free to e-mail me if I haven't already told you more than you really wanted to know.[This message was edited by Jerry Gleason on 25 June 2000 at 09:34 PM.] |
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