how to scan and process black and white neagtives

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Pat Lamb
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p.1 #1 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

My mom passed away last June and my brothers and sister and I have been cleaning out her house to ready it for sale. We found some rolls of Tri-X negatives in a box in the basement that must be from the late 50's. I've got a Canon CanoScan 4400F but I haven't scanned negatives before. I've scanned and processed (in Photoshop CS3) some of the rolls, you can see my efforts so far here. Would anyone have any suggestions on how to get the best results?

Thanks much for your time.

Pat

Feb 12, 2008 at 01:45 AM

christo™
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p.1 #2 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

It really depends on your budget for time and equipment, and how well preserved the negatives are. For B&W, fundamental quality is all about D-max in the scanning equipment. Making a project reasonable such that you can do a good job on a ton of film is also a matter about having efficient equipment and software that makes life easier.

For speed and decent software for 35mm film, the best scanner I have is the Nikon Coolscan 8000 ED with the roll adapter, but that's kinda pricey and likely not worth it unless you found dozens or hundreds of rolls of film. The roll adapter is also not useful unless your mom ordered her developer to not cut the film into strips (not likely, but you said "rolls).) I bought one after my wife died and I decided my kids were going to have those hundreds of rolls of C-30 I shot beforehand preserved forever.

In my experience the CanoScan units are pretty lame in comparison to even the mid range Epson Perfection scanners. Don't get me wrong, the CanoScan line has a heck of a value per dollar, and I have two for general use, but for flatbed image scanning I use an Epson Perfection that costs 3-4 times as much, but comes with much better software and a fundamentally higher dmax. Definitely makes a quality difference. The scanner is at my office and I plain forget the model number.

The Digital ICE software really works for film with issues -- hand removing the blemishes in PS takes more than one lifetime if you are processing a lot of film.

I quickly looked at your images, and it appears to me that the film for some of them is in really good shape considering the age, and it might be worth using higher end equipment. Gotta love that old B&W film -- I am often amazed by how well it has lasted. I recently helped a buddy get going digitizing some 40's era home movie film that was stored in an uninsulated attic for the last 40 years. I expected half of it to turn into powder upon handling, but most of it is feeding through a projector fine and the image quality is unbelievable, considering. This is 8mm color film as in i before your parent's (grandparent's?) Super 8.

Some of the images have issues either with the original photographs having motion blur and bad camera handling, or your negatives are sliding around in the flatbed during scanning. Actually, it looks like some of both. Another benefit of the higher end flatbed scanners and dedicated film scanners is that they come with decent frames to hold the negatives while scanning, and you can easily frame-up and scan multiple images at once. That saves a lot of time in addition to eliminating issues with film sliding around.

Finally, a number of those images would defintely look better if they had some sharpening applied. Keep the original scans around too, but consider looking into sharpening techniques.

If you have dozens to hundreds of rolls of film, I'd consider finding a dedicated film scanner. If a couple-few dozen, maybe a higher d-max flatbed like the mid-range (high end consumer) Epson Perfection series. If just a few rolls, and no use for a nice flatbed scanner, then consider just paying someone else with the higher end equipment to do it. On the other hand, if the film has deteriorated to the point where a higher dmax isn't getting you anything, it's a waste of money spending a lot on a scanner except for speed. Digitizing a film collection can take FOREVER.

Edited by christo™ on Feb 12, 2008 at 12:43 AM GMT (Reason: removed faulty model number references)

Edited on Feb 12, 2008 at 06:43 AM

Feb 12, 2008 at 02:36 AM

Pat Lamb
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p.1 #3 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

Thanks for the post.

They are rolls, but only about a dozen. They were actually rolls, wrapped around a cardboard center with paper backing. I got the Canon after upgrading to Windows Vista and discovering that my old scanner wouldn't work - no drivers. I was pretty frustrated (scan a lot of documents to PDF), so I did a quick search of the web and bought the Canon. Paid less than $100 for it.

The blur in the images is from camera motion. I think they may have been from shortly after my dad got the camera. Most of the photos are of my sister (the oldest) and my older brother as infants and toddlers.

I hadn’t thought about trying any sharpening. I was worried about the effect it would have on the grain of the film.

All in all, it sounds like for the relatively few rolls I have, i would probably be better to have the negatives professionally scanned. I don't want to spend lots of money on a good enough scanner and the time it would take to develop skill with the software would be just too much.

Any suggestions for a good scanning service?

Thanks again.

Pat

Feb 12, 2008 at 02:49 AM

christo™
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p.1 #4 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

Well, for a dozen rolls, it's hardly worth getting a dedicated film scanner, that's for sure. As I remember it, the CoolScan was around $1500, and the roll adapter was another couple-few hundred bucks. The main reason I got the CoolScan in the first place is that I'd realized I was going to want to digitize some day back in the 1990's and started ordering my hand-rolled-from-bulk 40 frame film rolls developed without cutting into strips. Much of that film was Fuji Velvia, which has a high density.

Freakin' OS upgrades suck for scanners. I had a spendy HP flatbed scanner I bought in 1996, and HP decided to charge $200 for the software upgrade for XP. Between the fact that the old one was SCSI with FireWire being out, and the newer scanners having film capabilities, I ended up parking the pig and buying a new scanner -- guess what I bought first -- a $99 CanoScan because I needed something fast for paperwork!

Epson is really good about supplying updated drivers for free. I've moved dozens of bits of Epson hardware between three major OS upgrades over the years without once paying for a driver upgrade, but for scanner software packages it sucks because you only get the driver -- The OCR, PDF generation, and DigitalICE software is not downloadable! I gave up a few years ago, and I just keep a couple older boxes around permanently fixed in older OS'es without ever patching or changing anything and the partition saved off to my RAID just so my old printer and scanner software works somewhere.

Anyway, I checked into things a little more and had to stop by my office since I last posted anyway. The Epson scanner I have is the Perfection 4870 Photo. 4800x9600 and rated 3.8 D-Max. The resolution isn't anything special today (your $99 CanoScan is the same), but one pays for D-Max getting over 3.4, that's for sure.

The closest thing to the 4870 in the current Epson line-up is the Perfection V700. The V700 boosts the d-max to 4.0 and offers a mechanical step interpolation to boost the res to 6400 x 9600. If that works anything like the mechanical interpolation on the CoolScan, it takes an extra lifetime to scan things and IMO isn't worth it. The street price on the V700 is around $500 -- I remember paying about $400 for the 4870 on a good deal.

However, in looking at the current Epson lineup, I see they have the Perfection 4490 with 3.4 d-max rating, 4800x9600 dpi optical, digital ICE, and negative holders for $149 list including current $30 rebate. Rated d-max of 3.4 and digital ICE bundled is a heck of a deal for that! For another $50 you can get the V500 which boosts the resolution to 6400 dpi and has an LED light source. Wow, photo scanners have improved price-performance dramatically in a couple years. I see a V500 may be in my future.

I looked up your Canon scanner, and see it is rated at a 3.4 d-max. I take all the consumer scanner d-max ratings with a grain of salt, not as bad as vacuum cleaner horsepower ratings, but in the same class. For some reason drum scanners with the same d-max ratings always seem to have noticeably better actual range.

On the other hand, old film snap shots, even silver process B&W isn't likely to justify the bucks for a 4.0 dmax scanner. Again, my desires are driven in large part by relatively new Fuji Velvia film.

Film grain is a matter of taste. My personal taste is that film grain is a limitation of the technology, and one thing I like about DigitalICE is that it wipes out film grain well. I'm sure that is offensive heresy for some of the people here, and I can truly understand the nostalgic desire to have it come through -- but, you can always add back in film grain after sharpening using Photoshop. (Whoo, I bet that is heresy too...)

In summary, unless you want a better flatbed scanner for future / other stuff, what I'd do is scan all the negatives on your CanoScan, decide on some frames that are most precious and for which the negatives seem best exposed and preserved, and try out a service with a drum scanner for those and see if you get noticeably better results -- only you and your siblings can make the value judgements involved there. I'm afraid I can't help you with the service unless you live around Minneapolis as I use a local service bureau for the limited scanning work I do where I can't handle it (large prints.)

Edited on Feb 12, 2008 at 06:38 AM

Feb 12, 2008 at 06:31 AM

papageno
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p.1 #5 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

You are making way too much of this. Take them to costco and have them scanned to disk. It's very reasonable.

Then bring them into PS and work them over as you would any other shot. I have a dim recollection that ICE doesn't work on B&W film, so you may spend some time sharpening your retouching skills removing dust and scratches.

FWIW, printing B&W works better if you are using printer profiles. Another trick is to make everything duotones in PS, as in slightly brown.....but it's extra work.....and you can't print duotone files commercially (as far as I know).

Feb 12, 2008 at 07:06 PM

freespirit
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p.1 #6 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

papageno wrote:
You are making way too much of this. Take them to costco and have them scanned to disk. It's very reasonable.

Then bring them into PS and work them over as you would any other shot. I have a dim recollection that ICE doesn't work on B&W film, so you may spend some time sharpening your retouching skills removing dust and scratches.

FWIW, printing B&W works better if you are using printer profiles. Another trick is to make everything duotones in PS, as in slightly brown.....but it's extra work.....and you can't print duotone files commercially (as far as I know).

Nothing wrong with this approach but I would be careful to check that they understand these are precious negatives that cannot be replaced. Some photo clubs members may have done this as an exercise and be more careful

Edited on Feb 13, 2008 at 08:00 PM

Feb 13, 2008 at 07:59 PM

HerbChong
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p.1 #7 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

D-max ratings on scanners are a straight translation of the number of bits of resolution per color channel. they give no indication of the total brightness range that they can resolve. the same number of bits in two different scanners means the same D-max, but if the better scanner spreads these bits over a greater brightness range, then they will get better final results.

Herb....

christo™ wrote:
I looked up your Canon scanner, and see it is rated at a 3.4 d-max. I take all the consumer scanner d-max ratings with a grain of salt, not as bad as vacuum cleaner horsepower ratings, but in the same class. For some reason drum scanners with the same d-max ratings always seem to have noticeably better actual range.

Feb 13, 2008 at 09:40 PM

papageno
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p.1 #8 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

Some photo clubs members may have done this as an exercise and be more careful

Feb 14, 2008 at 05:40 PM

freespirit
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p.1 #9 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

papageno wrote:
Some photo clubs members may have done this as an exercise and be more careful

?

Sorry Papageno - my bad phrasing - what I meant to say was find a person who takes care of your negatives

Feb 14, 2008 at 06:14 PM

jray
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p.1 #10 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

HerbChong wrote:
D-max ratings on scanners are a straight translation of the number of bits of resolution per color channel. they give no indication of the total brightness range that they can resolve. the same number of bits in two different scanners means the same D-max...

Sorry, but this is an incorrect definition. In simple terms, the bits per color specification is the number of different values each color 'can' represent and the Dmax value relates to the darkest area a scanner (or other such device) can measure and still obtain additional detail, ie its dynamic range.

Feb 14, 2008 at 09:05 PM

christo™
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p.1 #11 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

The Dmax is just like density in film, logarithmic power of 10 instead of power of 2 like f-stops.

It is a property of the sensor, is purely a whitepoint vs blackpoint thing, and has nothing to do with bits resolution per color channel except that in older days, cheap scanners would only render 8 bit per color per pixel images and that limited the Dmax (but then their sensors sucked too.)

Dmax is for real, just that in the consumer scanners, I believe they stretch the truth a bit.

Feb 14, 2008 at 10:07 PM

jray
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p.1 #12 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

Pat, some of your images appear to have areas that are close to being blown out yet still have discernible detail. If the shadows are open and contain detail, you might be able to get some very decent scans to work with.

To get the most out of both ends of a negative's dynamic range in a single scan you're probably going to want a device with as high a Dmax rating as possible. Only 1 flatbed scanner comes to mind under $1000.00. The Epson V700 and its big brother, the V750(I have a 700). Epson says they have a Dmax rating of 4, but I would put it closer to 3.4-3.5. A Nikon Coolscan 9000 should come somewhat closer to a Dmax of 4. My friend's 'just noticeably' out-performs my 700 on a single scan.

Another way to get the more usable dynamic range from your negatives is by lowering the noise floor through performing multiple pass scans with software such as VueScan or Silverfast AI. This might allow the use of less expensive scanners while still producing acceptable results.

And last but not least, scan two separate passes where one is overexposed to get the shadows (2-4 stops), and the other is exposed to get the highlights a bit before they blow out. Then use PS to combine the two using HDR techniques.

I've used a combination of the last two techniques in the past (a few years ago

) with decent results.

Feb 14, 2008 at 10:37 PM

Pat Lamb
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p.1 #13 · how to scan and process black and white neagtives

jray, thanks for the ideas! I think the HDR process is probably best for me, my equipment and skill set with CS3. I've processed some landscape shots with HDR but had never considered it for this purpose.

I'll also look into scanning services offered locally. I work in Madison, Wisconsin and there's a decent camera shop that offers scanning services. I'll take a roll in and see what they can do.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and time responding to my post. I've been a member of this board for some time and have always valued the sincere advice given here. It's what makes this place special.

Thanks again and I'll let you know when I have everything posted!

Feb 17, 2008 at 05:08 PM


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