This HOWTO is about scanning negatives using an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo, JASC Paint Shop Pro 8.10 and some LEGO bricks. If you have a different scanner, software or even the same as described here, your milage will definitely vary. Suggestions are welcome, but don’t blame me if this doesn’t work for you.
This article was rewritten in November 2009 and again in February 2010, in order to reflect the new technique I devised for scanning colour negative films.
Scanning the Negatives (Digitizing)
Epson film holder, showing the bow in the negative.
The Epson Perfection 2400 Photo is a great flatbed scanner, with a maximum resolution of 2400 dpi. Translated, this is the equivalent of a 7,7 megapixel digital camera. It takes about 9 minutes to scan a film strip of six frames at maximum optical resolution. One serious flaw though is the negative holder. It works, but not great. The problem is that the negative is not held tight in the holder and especially curly brands like Kodak bow so much that sometimes it just pops out.
I’ve tried various solutions, like placing a piece of matt glass on top of the negative to press it down. This works most of the time, but finding a piece thick enough to have sufficient weight to press (again mostly Kodak) negatives down is nigh impossible. It seems that when negatives become warm, like from the overhead lamp, they bow even more. Another problem with the glass method is that tiny defects show up in the scans.
I even tried making a film holder out of wood, so that I can use a larger piece of glass to flatten the negative.
Enter LEGO. Probably due to using the same base dimensions, it turns out that widthwise a negative fits exactly between the studs of two plates placed four studs apart. Place a plate on top and the negative is firmly held in place. Same goes lengthwise for strips of four and six exposures. The LEGO holder does raise the height of the negative above the scanner glass from 1mm to 3mm. Testing has shown that this is not a problem and the focus remains the same. In fact, it looks like the focus is better with the LEGO holder.
What is a problem when using LEGO plates to hold the negative in place is that it does not cover the ratchet holes, which causes ghosting on the edges of the scanned frame. The solution is to use the door rail plates (4510 & 32028).
To do the actual scanning, I use the “acquire” function of Paint Shop Pro, which automatically opens the Epson scanning software. Again I have tried different software, like VueScan and SilverFast. In my opinion the Epson software works best, as all one basically wants to do is digitize the negatives; the actual manipulation and correcting being done in a graphics application.
Testing has shown that adjusting the histogram within the Epson software does affect the quality of the scan. It is therefore important to select, trim out the unexposed border and adjust the RGB histograms individually for each frame. Place the histogram sliders so clipping just doesn’t occure. Apparently the scanner will now make more of an effort to find green and blue colours. (This procedure is necessary for 24-bit manipulation, but I’m unsure if it is required for 48-bit images.)
Film holder built with LEGO bricks.
The LEGO holder placed on the scanner glass.
Comparison of focus between Epson and LEGO holders.
Removing the Colour Cast
The automatic colour cast removal features of VueScan and SilverFast work... if you select the correct film... sometimes. Problem is that very few of the films I use are listed. (Perhaps they are, but under different names.)
The Epson scanning software uses histogram adjustments to remove the colour cast by severely clipping the ends. This works, provided the photograph contains enough colour variation. Often enough the results are not very good. Turn it off
There are various methods for removing the colour cast, of which adjusting the black and white points seem to be the most common. This method works, provided the image contains pure blacks and pure whites. It is also rather cumbersome to implement, unless the software used can automatically identify the darkest and the lightest pixel. Post-processing is always required.
Instructions:
- Scan at 2400 dpi as Positive Film. Remember to turn off automatic correction and adjust the histogram;
- Rotate, mirror and crop the desired frame. I use a crop ratio of 3/2 (or 1.5);
- Select Adjust » Negative Image;
- Select Adjust » Brightness and Contrast » Histogram Adjustment... (or Ctrl+Shift+H) and set the red, green and blue channels to:
| Red | Green | Blue | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Output: | Max: | 255 | 255 | 255 |
| Min: | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Clipping: | Low: | — | — | — |
| High: | — | — | — | |
| Clipping %: | Low: | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| High: | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.001 | |
| Gamma: | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | |
| Midtones: | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
- Select Adjust » Color Balance » Fade Correction... and set the value to 90;
- Select Adjust » Color Balance » Automatic Color Balance... and set the temperature to 5500°K and uncheck the “Remove color cast” option;
- Select Adjust » Hue and Saturation » Automatic Saturation Enhancement... and set both values to Normal.
There you have it! An amazingly simple method to convert scanned negatives into decent images.
Histogram adjustment in Paint Shop Pro 8.10
Transformation of a negative into a decent positive.