How to scan full 126 frames with Epson V500?

A friend wants to scan his family's 126 Instamatic slides but apparently the Epson V500 defaults to cropped

rectangular scans of the square 126 frames. I've Googled around but so far every suggested solution is an

awkward kludge, including manually creating the desired frames for each scan.

 

Has anyone resolved this problem efficiently? Can it be done with the software Epson includes with the V500, or

does VueScan handle this task better?

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<p>every suggested solution is an awkward kludge</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, this is pretty much the "state of the art".</p>

<p>If you delve deeply into the arcana of the ViewScan 'manual', you may, repeat <em>may</em>, find a way to preset the scan size in using the VueScan software for your Epson, or even a way to use the automatic edge sensing to do the job.<br>

Lots of luck. I don't know the Epson software/hardware capabilities.</p>

Ugh... so far my Googling isn't very encouraging. Every suggestion so far indicates this is pretty much a kludge only affair. That's a real oversight. Seems like it'd be relatively simple for Epson or the scanner software programmers to accommodate 126 more efficiently.

 

Reminds me, I have cartons full of my grandparents' 126 Kodachromes in carousels I need to scan. I'm trying to remember whether my old Minolta Dimage Scan Dual handles those without cropping or jumping through hoops. I know I scanned a few about 10 years ago.

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<p>I'm trying to remember whether my old Minolta Dimage Scan Dual handles those without cropping or jumping through hoops.</p>

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<p>I'm guessing not -- unless you can find a special 126 carrier. Mine came with 135 film and 135 mounted slide carriers. </p>

I am able to do this with my V500 in "Professional" mode by unchecking the "Thumbnail" box just below the preview button and selecting the area to be scanned. Unfortunately, it allows only one slide at a time to be scanned this way. I tried it just now, and it works as I said.

 

I have scanned film strips using the same technique, and scanning multiple frames on a film strip, and cropping to individual frames after scanning.

Thanks, Jack, sounds like that's the only way to do it. That's pretty much the consensus of most similar questions.

 

Sarah, I'm probably disremembering how my old Minolta scanner works. It's been several years since I tried scanning 126 slides.

<p>Three of the last four updates for Vuescan addressed automatic cropping. It actually works rather well now and should be up to the task. At least it works decently on my HP flatbed scanner when I'm laying negs and slides directly on the glass. It wasn't working that great before version 9.85 or so.</p>

 

<p>Just found some old 126 film strips and this was helpful. Let me add a few details. As Jack Fisher noted, one needs to delineate each frame manually. These are 30+ year old photos that initially were not of super high quality, so I am not worried about perfectly exact framing or film curl. This could work for mounted slides also.</p>

<p>I am using a V500 photo with the Epson software (updated to 3.74A) in "professional" mode. My 126 strips contain four frames. I made a cardboard strip 3.5" wide and 12" long and attached it with masking tape to the left edge of the bed. I attached a strip of heavy paper as long as four frames to the right edge with just enough overlap to cover the sprocket edges. This helps to keep the film (convex side down) from popping up over the ledge of the cardboard.</p>

<p>I set and locked the image size to 28x28mm. After the preview, a marquee frame of that size appears next to the images. Drag it to the first frame and align. Then duplicate the frame, move it and repeat. Delete any unwanted and then select All before scanning. I tried using VueScan, but I could not get the dizzying number of options to work for me within a reasonable period of time.</p>

<p>I prefer this method to scanning the whole strip and cropping individual frames since not every frame is worth keeping and I can have serially numbered keepers without having to rename the files.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The settings:</p><div></div>

<p>WOW! I'm new at this, although I've had my Epson V500 for a couple of years. Not only was I able to get this method to work on the 126 negatives, but I used it successfully on some 40 year old 110 and some 50 year old Minolta 16. The quality of the negatives isn't the greatest, but these are pictures I never thought I'd see again. Thanks for the help.</p>

<p>Another way I sometimes scan a srip of negatives (for example a strip with four or more images on it) - I will frame and scan the entire strip. Then when viewing the strip in Photoshop, I will crop and save one image at a time. It is a bit time consuming; but I believe it is better than framing and scanning one image at a time.</p>