print scanner or negative scanner?

[charr5]

Hey guys,
I've got tons of prints I'd like to scan onto the computer, what would you guys recommend I get? I used to have a HP flatbed scanner ( broken now). I kept all of my old negs. Would it be easier to get a negative scanner or another flatbed? Any recommendations?
Thanks all.
Christopher

[DaveG]

charr5 wrote:
Hey guys,
I've got tons of prints I'd like to scan onto the computer, what would you guys recommend I get? I used to have a HP flatbed scanner ( broken now). I kept all of my old negs. Would it be easier to get a negative scanner or another flatbed? Any recommendations?
Thanks all.
Christopher
You can get a flatbed scanner for next to nothing and that will let you scan all of your prints. The choices are almost unlimited and very cheap.

But if you want better quality then you will need a dedicated neg/slide scanner. For $500 or less you can get very good ones that will give you pretty much all that the negative or transparency has to offer. By going directly from neg/transparency to digital without having the intermediate proof print made and scanned, you've skipped a "generation" - that is you aren't making a scan of a scan - and the results will be better.

Minolta, Canon and Nikon make very good neg scanners of varying cost, so you'd need to look into it more.

Although you didn't mention it, if you have negs larger than 35 mm you might want to look into a flatbed scanner like the Epson 3200. It has a very nice negative/transparency scanning capability for medium format and larger negs, although it is only OK for 35 mm. But it is affordable if you do have these MF/LF images.

[scottbergerphoto]

I use the Nikon Coolscan IV. It's really very good and the software it comes with is also quite good. It comes with Digital ICE for removing imperfections in the negative and old film restoration.
Scott

[ChrisNardone]

I second what Scott recommended. Everything I read says that Digital ICE is the performance point to shot for in a film scanner. If youwant quality images a film scanner is the way to go.
If you want cheap, get a flatbed. My Epson Perfection flatbed scans negative too. Obviously not to the level a film scanner does, but it does pretty good for the price; and the majority of the time I use it as a flatbed anyway.

[John_T]

Check out the Canon Canoscan 9900F too. I've gotten spectacular results with mine. It is an A4 flatbed scanner with masks for strip film, slides and larger format film. A film strip scanner is faster but is single use.

[Jesper]

A flatbed scanner is cheaper and scanning prints is probably easier than scanning negatives or slides, but the quality of the scanned images will be much lower than when you use a film scanner.

As the other posters already noted, a print is a copy of the original negative. It's always better to scan the original (the negative) instead of a copy. The scanned image of a print is less sharp than a scanned negative. Also, prints have much less dynamic range than negatives, i.e. the difference between the darkest and lightest areas on a print is much less than on a negative. For example, I have a photo of a mill here. It was printed badly by the shop so that the sky is almost white and the mill looks very dark. I could scan the print, but it would be almost impossible to get the sky blue and the mill a bit lighter. I scanned the negative and with some careful settings of my film scanner I was able to get a nice blue sky and correctly lighted mill on it.

I'm using a Minolta Scan Dual III film scanner.

[design crusader]

I would have to say that I have never seen a film scanner that performed well. The process of scanning negatives has lacked the robust software needed to render an image correctly -- less grain and higher color accuracy. If you are looking to scan from film, your best bet would be to shoot slides, and then use your original slides (not duplicates) and scan them into a dedicated slide scanner such as the Polaroid SprintScan 4000.

Transparencies are always your best bet, so if you can shoot slides, or medium, or even large format and then scan them into a dedicated slide scanner you are going to get better results, but if you have a flatbed with a transparency adapter, you can get pretty good results (better than the results of using reflective media or print).

Otherwise, a good flatbed (such as previously mentioned EPSON Perfection) for scanning reflective media is your next best bet.

I would steer clear of scanning negatives.

[kafene]

design crusader wrote:
Transparencies are always your best bet, so if you can shoot slides, or medium, or even large format and then scan them into a dedicated slide scanner you are going to get better results, but if you have a flatbed with a transparency adapter, you can get pretty good results (better than the results of using reflective media or print).

I would have to recommend the film scanner. I agree with you Design cursader, regarding the quality of a film scanner. It's good, but not great, but I think it's BETTER than scanning a print made FROM a film on a dedicated film scanner. I also have a bunch of prints and I'll end up just flatbedding mine :) The pictures are just old snapshots so I'm not looking for the best image quality as I am about getting them archive so I can digitally organize them.

His issue is that he's ALREADY got the film for his prints. Unless I'm reading his post incorrectly, I don't think he's considering it for future projects but for film he already has shot and wants to digitally archive.

On the other hand, if you're not looking for the best quality for archive and just want to scan them just to archive and look at later, than a cheap flatbed would be less costly and easier to work with. That is again, if you're not looking for the best quality, "best" being subjective and with relation to how much money you want to spend.

kafene.

[scottbergerphoto]

design crusader wrote:
I would have to say that I have never seen a film scanner that performed well. The process of scanning negatives has lacked the robust software needed to render an image correctly -- less grain and higher color accuracy. If you are looking to scan from film, your best bet would be to shoot slides, and then use your original slides (not duplicates) and scan them into a dedicated slide scanner such as the Polaroid SprintScan 4000.

Transparencies are always your best bet, so if you can shoot slides, or medium, or even large format and then scan them into a dedicated slide scanner you are going to get better results, but if you have a flatbed with a transparency adapter, you can get pretty good results (better than the results of using reflective media or print).

Otherwise, a good flatbed (such as previously mentioned EPSON Perfection) for scanning reflective media is your next best bet.

I would steer clear of scanning negatives.

The Nikon Coolscan IV scans slides and film AND has Digital ICE.
Scott

[ashforth]

I have an Epson photo flatbed with slide/negative holders and a Canon US4000 film scanner. There is no comparison- the film scanner produces much better results. My only complaint with the US4000 is that it's very slow- particularly when using the dust removal option at high resolution, but the results are worth the wait.

Herb

[design crusader]

Just wanted to clarify that I was pointing out a difference in scanning film negatives as compared to scanning film transparencies or slides. I have not been impressed with any dedicated slide scanners software capability to properly render an image from a film negative; however, dedicated slide scanners are far superior to flatbed scanners when scanning slides or transparencies. I understand that if Charr5 only has film negatives and prints that transparencies or slides are not an option, and at that point I would recommend a quality flatbed scanner to scan the prints.

[charr5]

Hey guys,
Thanks for the advice. My situation is this. I shot film for years and recently started to shoot digital this past year. I have many prints from film and still have the negs of them as well. I'd like to start putting them on the computer. I had a HP flatbed scanner, which is now unoperational.
I'm used to using a flatbed scanner- very simple-
But I'm not familiar with the Neg scan process. Is it alot more involved? What are the differences in price?
Obviously there are different view on which is better.
Thanks for your advice already and I'd appreciate any more words of wisdom.
Christopher

[Webster]

While the high-end film scanners do a wonderful job on scanning color film, they do not do so well on Black&White - especially the Plus-X/Tri-X type of B&W film. I had a Nikon Coolscan 4000 film scanner and an Epson Photo 2450 flatbed, and I would often use the flatbed when the Coolscan just could not handle the film. When I went digital I kept the Epson and gave the Coolscan to my son (who's a film fanatic).