scanning negatives?

i have a flatbed scanner that DOES NOT have a slide/negative input.

would it be possible for me to scan my negatives normally, then just

alter them so they look normal?

You would have to find a way to:

 

* Shut off the lamp in the scanner

* Install a lightsource placed avove the negatives

 

For anytthing transparent (slides, negatives ....) to scan properly the light will have to come from above the transparent object that lies flat on the glas.

 

Therein lies actually another problem: Making the negative lie really flat on the glass. You will need to manufacture some kind of holder for this purpose.

You can put them on the glass and then put a white cardboard on top. Scan and then in photoshop you can invert and then use levels/gray eyedropper to color balance and adjust brightness and contrast.

John's solution sort of works. So does Ake's. I've tried both, and the emphasis is on the "sort of". If your negatives are really thin, white paper or card behind works pretty well, but if they're that thin, they'll require fractional second exposure and a #5 or higher filter in printing. The backlight doesn't require disabling the scanner light, but it does require a diffuser of some kind and a very strong, white, and even light.

 

I've seen an adapter that was supposed to allow scanning medium format strips on any flatbed; it was just a roof-shaped retroreflecting mirror that both held the negative flat and reflected the scan light back through the negative (the hood was wide enough that the negative only took up half the width, so to get clean light from the other half). The reflected light from the front really doesn't have much effect compared to the backlight in this case; my scanner, even in transparency mode, doesn't turn off the main light, just activates the backlight.

 

I think you could make one of the reflective hoods -- you'd need a pair of mirrors as long as the negative you need to scan, and 40% wider, plus a piece of glass (preferably anti-Newton ring) twice the width of your negative and as long as the mirrors -- the only thing really critical is that the angle between the mirrors must be *exactly* ninety degrees. It should be possible to scan even 4x5 this way on a letter or A4 size scanner bed, and likely a lot cheaper to build this kind of hood than to replace your scanner.

 

In use, you'd put the negative under one side of the glass, carefully aligned with the scanner bed (using an edge of the glass for alignment would be a Good Thing), and scan as you usually would, then invert in software (and adjust colors, if it's a color negative, to correct for the orange mask).

Several years ago when I first started fiddling with digital imaging all I had were ordinary flatbeds. The first affordable film scanner (an Olympus, which they never followed up on) had not yet been introduced. Drum scanners were beyond almost anyone's means and high end flatbeds were over $1,000.

 

I saw a tip on the web that worked pretty well. Make a "tent" from white posterboard to provide even reflected illumination. A pyramid or curved shape works. Set it over the film or slide and let'r rip.

 

The results won't be good enough for making decent prints but are usually adequate for small lo-rez web photos.