One of the questions that I am quite often asked is the following:

Which is better to scan, film negatives or prints?

It is always best to scan the original negatives, provided that they are in good shape and the colors have not faded. The reasons for this are explained below.

To begin with, you have to realize that a photograph is merely a copy of the original, processed negative. In most cases, a copy is never as good as the original. Typically, photographs are printed out at 240-300 dpi when done at your local photo lab. That means that a 4×6 print is, at most, 1200×1800 dpi. This is why prints are typically scanned at 300 dpi as scanning at a higher resolution does not bring out any further detail other than what is on the original print. The only time that scanning a photograph at 600 dpi, or greater, would be if the original was either very small or if it is going to be edited at a later date.

The size of a typical 35mm negative is 24mm x 36mm or, roughly, 1.0in x 1.5in. This means that the film was essentially scanned at 1200 dpi in order to produce the 4×6 print in the above example.

Most 35mm film negatives are capable of being scanned at up to 4000 dpi. This is especially true for the slower speed films (100, 200). When scanning negatives the general rule of thumb is the higher the resolution, the greater the detail.

For example, a negative scanned at a lower resolution of 2000 dpi may not be able to clearly display the time on a clock in the background or the fine print on a paper or sign when the photograph is blown up. By simply rescanning the same image at 4000 dpi you are providing 4x the resolution of the original scan. This type of resolution can display these details much more easily and clearly, especially when a larger print is be made.

Another reason for choosing to scan the film negatives instead of the photographic print is that the original film contains much more contrast and detail as compared to a photographic print. This is because prints tend to fade over time due to exposure to sunlight, etc. Negatives, if they have been stored in a dry place, are much more immune to this behavior.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Negative scanning is a term that is used to refer to the scanning of both photo negatives, most typically those on 35mm film, and also, of film slides. Scanning negatives or film produces a more quality print at a higher resolution, since scanning a print would produce a lower quality, second generation copy of the image.

Think of the difference in quality between the music on a CD purchased at a store and the music on a tape made from that same CD, and it is easy to see why scanning negatives and film slides is the preferred method of the professionals when it comes to obtaining prints from these mediums.

Make sure to always organize your negatives by group, and use your scanner’s batch mode to scan each negative by category both before and after scanning. You can still name each scan individually if you want to, but the batch scan feature eliminates the absolute necessity of this step.

You should also take care to make sure to use a scanner with Kodak’s Digital ICE photo restoring software. You can also use a special film cleaner and compressed air for especially stubborn particulate matter.

Before you start scanning, you should adjust your settings to 3000 DPI. In terms of file formats, we recommend that professional photographers use the TIFF format, and that novices use JPEG, due to the large file sizes of the TIFF format.

You should also compare the difference in negative resolution with Kodak ICE and without, and never, ever, crop your negatives until you have scanned the entire image in.

What Are Some of The Benefits Of Negative Scanning?

First of all, whether we want to admit it or not, most of us have at least one or two dusty boxes sitting in our garage, attic, or basement full of old negatives and slides, and unorganized photos. In short, a treasure trove of memories that no one will ever see. This is where the pros at photo restoration comes into play.

Negative scanning on your own can be tricky, but a professional will have the experience and technical know how necessary to make sure that your precious memories are handled with care. Do not let your family history molder in a cardboard box. Instead, you can preserve it safely, inexpensively, and using the highest caliber equipment and restoration methods at a slide scanning company.

If you are getting ready to scan photos, there are a few things you should know. The process will be much easier if you do a little prep work beforehand. These tips will help you get the desired result from your scanning project.

Choose the Pictures Carefully

Your pictures will scan exactly as they are. If there is a fold on the picture or a scratch on the surface, it will show up in the scan. Sometimes the scanner picks up specifically on these flaws, and they look even worse on the scanned image. For this reason, you need to choose the images carefully.

Find images that are in good condition, and clean any fingerprints with a lint-free cloth before you begin. Also, choose images that have bright colors and sharp contrasts, because sometimes quality is lost when you scan photos on a home flatbed scanner. While you can use enhancing software to brighten up images, you still want to start with the best possible original image.

Choose the Right Resolution

You will need to choose the resolution for your image, whether you are scanning it at home or choosing a scanning service. Remember that scanned images are measured in a unit called “dpi,” which stands for dots per inch. The higher the number, the clearer the image is.

A resolution of 300 dpi is a good choice when scanning at home. You will not get large prints from this size, but you will be able to print standard image sizes up to 5 x 7 and display the images online, without taking up too much of your computer’s memory. If you need a larger image, you may want to burn it onto a CD or hire a scanning service. If you only intend to display the image online, a smaller resolution will suffice.

Choose the Right Format

If you have the option to choose the file format, consider carefully which one you will use. On most scanners, TIFF and JPEG are both offered. TIFF is a better option for archiving an image. These are larger files, which means they give a good quality for printing. JPEG files are slightly compressed. They do print well, but not as well as TIFF files. These files work well for posting images online. Since TIFF files are larger than JPEG files, TIFF files can be converted to JPEG files, but not the other way around.

Consider Asking for Help

Today’s flatbed scanners are quite a bit more effective at scanning photos than their earlier counterparts, but they still have their limits. If you need to scan many pictures, or if you need high resolution images from your print photographs, you will be better off having a scanning company scan them for you. The professional equipment can capture a higher resolution image much more quickly than you can at home. This is a very cost effective option, as most companies charge just a few cents per picture. When you think about the other ways you could spend your time by letting someone else scan photos for you, you will realize that it is money well spent.

If you have boxes and boxes of 35mm slides tucked away in a closet, you’ll be glad to know that you can covert these slides to digital format with a slide converter. Those old slides probably hold years of memories, and you don’t want to just let them sit on a shelf. Most slide projectors weren’t used regularly even forty years ago, when slides were a popular way to present pictures of family events and vacations. Setting up the projector took time, and the slides had to be placed one at a time into the projector carousel. The same holds true today, and that is assuming that the slide projector is still in working condition. Using a slide converter to transfer your slides to a digital format on CD’s or DVD’s is a great way to make your pictures from years past accessible and easy to view.

There are several types of slide converters available, and many of these are under $100. One of the differences between slide converters and slide scanners is the number of slides that can be digitized at one time. Slide converters usually scan one slide at a time, but this is usually done within seconds. Slide scanners can typically digitize about forty slides at one time. If you are purchasing a slide converter, check to see how many slide trays come with the converter. Some slide converters have only one slide tray, and your project can become very tedious. It’s a good idea to purchase extra slide trays so you can set up several sets of slides at once to keep your project moving.

When you are searching for a slide converter, be sure to find out the number of megapixels the converter supports. A pixel is the smallest unit of a digital unit. An image with a greater number of pixels per inch (PPI) will have a better resolution than images with a lower number of PPI. The more megapixels the convertor’s sensors support, the sharper your digital images will be. This is especially important if you plan to make enlarged prints from your digital images.

Some consumers find that the slide converters they purchase do not meet their expectations. Common complaints include software that is difficult to manage, low quality images with poor resolution, and flimsy slide trays that fail to work properly. Extensive slide conversion projects may also be very time-consuming.

Storing film negatives can become a hassle quite quickly, and since today’s photography is turning more and more digital in nature, you may want to find a digital storage option for your negatives and slides. Scanning negatives and turning them into a digital file is entirely possible, but you need the right equipment to do so.

Scanning Negatives at Home with a Flatbed Scanne

If you have a scanner with the right adapter, you can scan negatives and slides at home using a simple flatbed scanner. Keep in mind that simply putting your negatives on a flatbed scanner will not work. Flatbed scanners are designed to scan photos by capturing the reflection of the light shown on them. Because negatives are transparent, this does not work. You need a transparency adapter to scan negatives. The transparency adapter, when used in place of the scanner’s lid, shines light onto the negatives from above, and the sensors can pick up this light and capture a digital image of the print. Without the adapter, a scanned negative or transparency will look like a big black square.

Scanning Negatives at Home with Film Scanners

If you plan on scanning negatives frequently, you may want to purchase a scanner designed to scan film. These scanners give you a better final image, because there is no piece of glass between the negative and the image sensor. Also, the light is more intense with one of these scanners. They also typically have a higher dpi resolution than flatbed scanners.

Another reason film scanners give a better final image has to do with the density of the image. Photographs have a density of approximately 2.0, and negatives have a density of about 3.0. Because flatbed scanners are designed primarily for documents and photographs, they are calibrated closer to the 2.0 range. This means that scanning negatives with a flatbed scanner will result in tonal loss. This is slight, as in a negative the tonal loss occurs mostly in lighter areas, but it does affect the final image quality a bit.

High Resolution Is Key

Regardless of whether you use a flatbed scanner or a film scanner, you will want to scan your negatives at the highest resolution possible. This will make the scanning process take a while, but if you intend to make prints off of the resulting digital photos, you will be glad you took the time to scan the picture at a high resolution.

Professional Help Is Available

While you can scan negatives at home, it takes quite a bit of time, particularly if you scan them at the high resolution necessary for images you wish to eventually print. To save yourself some time, consider sending your negatives away for professional negative scanning services.

Negative scanning companies will scan your images at an extremely high resolution using scanners specifically designed for scanning negatives, giving you high quality digital images that you can use for just about any purpose, from print to web to archival. In fact, the quality from a professionally scanned image placed onto a CD is so good that you do not have to hang on to those negatives any longer. You can dispose of them, using the CD as your record of the images. Hiring a professional to scan your negatives will save you time, and in the long run, it may also save you money, because you will not need to buy special equipment to get the quality images you need.

35mm Slide Scanner

If you are in the art industry at all, you are completely aware of just how important a good 35mm slide scanner can be for business. Whether you are an art student looking to get credit for work or a photographer wanting to get noticed, slides are an integral part of the art experience. With having said that, there’s no good photographer can be without some type of 35mm slide scanner to work with.

Who knows? You may be one of those artists who are completely anti-technology. You like to have your camera in your hand and anything past a cell phone is too much technology for you. Does that ring a bell with you? If so, it is OK that you loathe to deal much with technology. What’s not O.K is not okay is your refusal to get with the times. If you are expecting to have a website or sell your stuff online or be ready to work with your film and slides on the PC at all, the responsibility is on you to select a good 35mm slide scanner.

How Much is Too Much for Photo Negative Scanners?

As far as price is you get what you pay for with a 35mm slide scanner. You can get one for $75, but you can also get one for $3,000. They get higher, too. There are slide scanners out there that are worth $6,000 and more! Naturally, if you barely use the pieces of PC hardware that you have now, a 35mm slide scanner that is worth $6,000 is perhaps not that necessary, or at least not to you.

The more costly pieces of 35mm slide scanner hardware out there are in use by studios and photography faculties, so depending on what you do and how you use technology, the cheaper 35mm slide scanner could be a better concept for your use.

What to search for in a Scanner to scan 35mm slides.

The purpose of slide scanning is to scan slides. This suggests that clearness is a massive issue to take under consideration when selecting 35mm slide scanners. There’s nothing else maddening than not having your personal computer versions of the slides that you made come out as lovely as the first slides or the pieces of art themselves. Selecting a quality 35mm slide scanner can forestall that disappointment from going down to you.

You can get a slide scanner from many places, but some people choose to get them from the Net. The Net is a great resource for all things related to technology, and if you want quality you may have to put in a good search.

Ask help from a technologically-savvy friend if you aren’t too sure what you are doing in your endeavors for purchasing good 35mm slide scanners. A slide scanner with a good return policy is also a great idea, if you can find one.

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If you’re like most people, you have a huge collection of photographs. Photographs are something we all tend to accumulate: we take our own pictures, friends and family give us pictures, and pictures are passed down through the generations. Sometimes these photographs are stored in photo albums, boxes, or drawers. Few storage areas are actually good for photographs, and many of our prized shots fade over time and get torn or bent.

Photo scanning is a great way to preserve your photographs. You will be able to organize all your photographs for viewing and can share them with others. The digital images of your photographs will be stored on CD’s or DVD’s where you can access them at any time. You will be able to print and email as many photographs as you want and can use them for creative projects, such as special DVD’s for anniversaries or birthdays.

Flatbed scanners are the most common scanners used for home photo scanning. Many times the scanning equipment also serves as a copier and a fax machine. Photo scanning on a flatbed scanner is similar to making a copy. You place the photograph face down on the glass plate, close the lid, and then push the button for the scan preview. Make sure both the photograph and the scanner’s glass plate are clean before you begin to scan. Even images of tiny debris and dust will be visible on your digital images. Be particularly careful with heirloom photographs. These are usually fragile, and rough cleaning methods may tear them. It’s also a good idea to wear white cotton gloves while you’re scanning your photos to keep from transferring oils from your hands to the glass plate or photographs.

You will be able to see a preview screen of your photograph before you actually scan it. You’ll be able to tell if you need to adjust the placement of the photograph or if there is dust, hair, or other debris on the photograph or glass plate. Use the color photo setting even if your photograph is black and white. This will give you more options when you’re making the final adjustments to the digital image. The DPI (dots per inch) setting you should use for photo scanning is 300DPI, and settings of up to 600DPI are usually recommended. A higher DPI makes it easier to restore your photographs to high quality images. After you have scanned your photograph, you can use the graphics software program to make adjustments to the coloring and lighting for an enhanced digital image.

About forty years ago, 35mm slides were a favored way to chronicle vacations and special family events. Businesses used slide presentations for instructional and sales purposes. Today, 35mm slide shows have become almost obsolete. Not many people take the time to bring a slide projector out of its storage area, set up their 35mm slides in the projector’s carousel, and then show the slides on a screen. If you’re one of the many people with boxes and cartons of old slides that have accumulated in closets and drawers, you might want to try scanning your 35mm slides. This will free up storage space and give you a quick and easy way to present your old pictures. Scanning 35mm slides will give you high quality pictures and even allows you to make additional prints.

One of the first things you need to do before you begin your project of scanning 35mm slides is to select the slides that you really want to keep. Most people have a very difficult time getting rid of photographs, and this is true of slides, too. Since you’ll be spending both time and money to scan your slides, you’ll need to decide if you really need to keep all of them. Choose the best slides and the ones that have the most sentimental value for you, and you’ll end up with a great collection of pictures to view and share with family and friends.

Scanning 35mm slides is something you can do at home. There are many different models of 35mm slide scanners, ranging in prices from under $100 to well over $1,000. If you’re short on time, consider using a professional photography service for scanning 35mm slides. You can probably find a local photography business or you can use an online photography service. Compare costs of the various businesses, but also consider the reputation and services offered.

If you decide to try your hand at scanning 35mm slides at home, look for a scanner that fits your budget and provides features that you need. Some scanners only allow you to view the scanned prints from the scanner, and other models have software that lets you scan your 35mm slides to your computer and then transfer them to a CD or DVD. You can then view your slides at any time with a computer or DVD player and television. This means you will need much less storage space for your slides, and you can easily carry your slides and show them anywhere. Make sure the scanner software is easy to learn and use.

One of the great things about scanning 35mm slides is that your pictures can be enhanced. You or the photography service professionals can crop the pictures to include only what you want to see, and the colors and brightness of the pictures can be adjusted. Debris that can’t be cleared from the slides and scratches are not a problem. Scanner software fills in the blemished areas with color for a professional-grade picture. No one will suspect that the slide’s image was ever less than perfect!

There are many 35mm slides tucked away in closets, attics, basements, and drawers. Their owners may have inherited the slides from relatives or friends. Or they may have gone to the trouble thirty or forty years ago to have their vacations and family events preserved on slides. Very few people watch “old-fashioned” slide shows today. Slide projectors have become outdated, many are broken, and most people don’t have the time to set up a slide projector and view their old slides.

The solution to this dilemma is to convert slides to a digital formal. Old 35mm slides can be converted to TIFF or JPEG format and stored on CD’s or DVD’s. This allows for convenient viewing on a computer monitor or television. When you convert slides to digital format, the CD’s and DVD’s take up little storage space. You can organize your photographs according to date or subject and find the exact photograph you want at any time. You will also be able to email or print your slide photographs once they are stored on a CD or DVD.

You can convert slides to digital images yourself. One of the least expensive ways to do this is to take a picture of the slide with a digital camera. To hold the camera steady, use a tripod, with the extension bar pointed towards the floor. Attach the camera to the extension bar, place the slide light box underneath the camera, place a slide in the light box, and take the picture. This method has several drawbacks, including the amount of time required to convert slides and the poor quality of some of the digital pictures.

You can also use a slide scanner to convert slides. Scanners come in a variety of styles and prices. A high quality scanner can cost thousands of dollars. There are some less expensive models and the digital images produced by these scanners is very high nowadays. You will certainly be able to print your digital images even with the lower-end scanners. If you want to convert slides without worrying about the dust that inevitably finds its way to slides, you will need a higher priced model that has the capability of covering the dust for a blemish-free image.

Technology today moves at a very fast pace, and it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all the latest advancements. One area that has seen a great deal of improvement is photography. Years ago, there were few options for archiving photographs. Slides were one option. Purchasing a special projector to view the slides was required, and many slides were viewed a few times and then set aside. Countless homes have a large collection of 35mm slides, and most of these slides have been hidden away in boxes, taking up space in closets and other storage areas. Fortunately, you can now convert slides to digital images, giving yourself an easy way to store and view your most treasured slides from years gone by.

When you convert slides to digital images, you will be able to enjoy viewing your slide photographs several different ways. Once your slides are in a digital format, you can transfer the images to a CD or DVD. This allows you to look at your slide photographs on any television with a DVD player or a PC or laptop computer. You can arrange the digital photographs by subject, chronologically, or in any other order you choose.

Digital slide shows are a popular way to present photographs, and these are much easier to set up and view than the old style slides. It’s easy to make special CD’s or DVD’s for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special events, and you can make as many copies as you want. You can print the photographs on your home computer printer, have them printed at a photography center, and send them as attachments to your emails to family and friends.

One of the most popular ways to convert slides to digital images is with a slide scanner. You can find many varieties of scanners online and in retail stores. Be careful not to break your budget when you buy a scanner, but be sure you purchase a scanner that you’ll be pleased with for years to come. You might not need all the “bells and whistles” of the top-of-the-line models, but make sure the scanner has a good software, is easy to operate, and has features that you consider essential. Read reviews of scanners you are interested in to help you make your final decision.

You originally took the pictures for your slides because there were places, people, and events you wanted to remember. You slides were once a great way to bring back memories, but this way of viewing photographs has become outdated. When you convert slides to digital images, you can improve the quality of the photograph with the scanner software and have professional grade photos to add to your collection of pictures. Try to remove as much dust as possible from the slides before scanning them. Remaining dust, other particles, and scratches can be eliminated from your final digital image with the scanner software. You can even brighten colors, which is a big plus when you’re working with faded slides. Converting your slides to digital images is the best way to have quality pictures that will last a lifetime.