Fake out Epson scanner to scan without negative carrier?

[billorg]

Does anyone know how to fake out an Epson Perfection scanner (mine is a V550) so that you can lay a negative down with non reflective glass over it and scan without a error demanding that you use the negative carrier?

[Robin Smith]

Use a thin sheet of black paper cut to size and use as a mask? I think you may need a corner cut off so the scanner can calibrate.

[Glenn McCreery]

I tried this on my Microtek i700 scanner, which should work about the same as your V550. I used sheet of white sheet of paper on top of the negative, because I think you want the light to reflect off the background and back through the negative. Also, lay the negative emulsion side down. I had a color 35mm negative handy, so I tried that. It works, although the scan is rather dark, probably because the scanner adjusts for white balance outside the negative area. Here is one frame adjusted for brightness. Perhaps using a gray sheet of paper would work better, or as Robin suggests, a black mask, but still with a white background behind the negative? It's easy to try, so experiment.

I use a DSLR to "scan" 35mm slides and negatives, which works a whole lot better as far as resolution and tonal range are concerned. My scanner has a transparency lid, but the DSLR approach still works much better.

[conrad_hoffman]

Do you have a negative holder to look at? On my old 4990, which doesn't look like the newer ones, I remember a row of small holes on one end of the holder that were necessary for the thing to calibrate itself.

[NAwlins Contrarian]

I'm also interested in the basic issue because I have an old Epson 3200 (about three generations older than your V550), and I'd like to be able to scan 4x4 cm frames from 127 film.

That said, two points:

(1) Film height is an issue. AFAIK in film mode, the scanner focuses to the height of film in am one of he Epson film carriers. So if you put the film directly on the scanner glass, the scan may be out of focus. One option might be to put a thin piece of glass between the film and the scanner glass. Another option might be if the scanner software has a mode intended for scanning regular transparencies, like were used decades ago on overhead projectors, and which (being much larger than anything other than the largest photographic film) presumably would sit right on the glass.

(2) The suggestion, "I used sheet of white sheet of paper on top of the negative, because I think you want the light to reflect off the background and back through the negative," is wrong, and fundamentally misunderstands how film scanning on a flatbed is supposed to work. Your V550, my 3200, and others among these sorts of scanners do not illuminate the film the same way they illuminate documents. You remove a cover in the top, which lets a second light source in the transparency unit backlight the film. The lack of a transparency unit is why most flatbed scanners do such a terrible job scanning film.

[Glenn McCreery]

On 5/26/2023 at 9:42 PM, NAwlins Contrarian said:

I'm also interested in the basic issue because I have an old Epson 3200 (about three generations older than your V550), and I'd like to be able to scan 4x4 cm frames from 127 film.

 

(2) The suggestion, "I used sheet of white sheet of paper on top of the negative, because I think you want the light to reflect off the background and back through the negative," is wrong, and fundamentally misunderstands how film scanning on a flatbed is supposed to work.

You misunderstand my intent. Of course you are right about using an illuminated scanner cover is the best approach for transparencies. I was doing an experiment to see how well or poorly a reflective scan of a negative would look. Often, doing a simple experiment answers questions that endless bloviation as to what is correct does not. Try the experiment yourself and see what the results looks like.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Glenn McCreery