 Scott Rower |
Advice for 35mm film negative scanning I'm looking for any advice you all might be able to give me when it comes to getting my 35mm negatives scanned into digital images. What is a resonable rate? Recommendations on places to go? Thanks in advance.
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Paul Tobeck |
I guess I need a couple of questions answered first: How many negs do you need scanned? Whats your end use for the images (archiving, web, large prints)? How much are willing to spend on this project? I could just say "$5 a scan at XXX Lab" but that doen't help you if your needs differ from what they provide.
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Scott Rower |
I plan on scanning about 50 - 100 negatives and would like to have good enough quality to print 11 x 14's. That's the hope but if I don't think I will be able to afford it. I looked online at all the generic photo labs (like in Target, Walmart, CVS) and none listed anything about negative scanning. If they do have it, do you know the extent of quality that comes out of their scanned images? Thank you for taking the time.
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Paul Tobeck |
It's much cheaper to get the Photo CD with developed pictures than it is to have individual negs scanned later. A lot of places wont do negatives because of the color correction problems inherent with the orange mask. The place I used to use was Dale Labs in FL. They charge $15 a scan for a 36mb file, which would be good enough for a great 11x14 or a decent 16x20. If you plan on continuing to shoot film, you may want to invest in a dedicted film scanner and do it yourself. Just make sure that you look at one with Digital ICE (Auto dust removal) and something like Silverfast built in to handle the orange mask issue. Some good choices would be the upper-line Nikon Coolscans and the KM Dimage 5400. I've heard some good things about the Epson 4990 flatbed also, but have never used one. I invested in a film scanner for the same reason as you, but bought a lower end model without Digital ICE or Silverfast. BIG mistake! It takes me 10-15 minutes to setup and scan 1 image, then another 20-30 minutes to spot and color correct it. Negative scans are also inherently noisier than slide scans, so I also had to add a noise removal step to my workflow, which is another 10-15 minutes per image. My aspirations of scanning that binder full of negatives quickly evaporated! I became very selective about what images were getting scanned. You might want to cherry pick the images you HAVE to have scanned for enlargement and send those out, then look into scanning the rest yourself. It's the difference between spending $1500 for someone else to do it, or $500 and your time.
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Amy JACKSON |
I have had many negatives scanned at "Ritz" Camera. Some locations have better equipment and can scan at a higher resolution. They charge $5.00 for the first roll and $4.00 for each additional roll. I went to a professional lab and paid $3.50 for a single negative scan also, they could scan at a very high resolution!
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Scott Rower |
Thank you all for your advice, I went to Ritz camera today and dropped some rolls off to see how they come out (both normal and high resolution).
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