Film scanning workflow help

[hyunyu]

Could someone please outline the workflow employed in scanning 35mm

negatives with a film scanner? I just got a Minolta Scan Dual III,

and would appreciate an overview of steps used to achieve good result

scans. Such as what adjustments are done through the scanner driver,

and what are done through Photoshop (version 7), etc.

 

Thanks very much in advance!

[ellis_vener_photography]

Since Yu asked,

 

for best quality scan the negative a full optical resolution and use Adobe RGB (1998)

as the color space for the scanner. Scan at the full bit depth the scanner is capable of.

Open upo the scan in PS 7 and check the histogram (Image > Histogram) to make

sure the iamge isn't clipping on either the low end or the high end. Use Adobe RGB

(1998) as your workspace in Photoshop. Hopefully you are also using an accurately

profiled & calibrated monitor as well.

[mendel_leisk]

Are your neg's. black and white or color. Either case, Vuescan's worth looking into.

[dale_strumpell]

http://www.scantips.com/

 

has a lot of good introductory information.

[rayliguori]

One of my least favorite aspects of the digital workflow is removing dust specks and scratches from my images in Photoshop. You can save countless hours if you keep a dust free work environment. Before you set up the scanner, make sure that the workspace is well dusted. While you are at it, vacuum up the floor around your computer. Keep some sort of cover over your scanner when not in use.

 

Before you scan, use a little squeezable blower (like the ones for removing dust from a camera lense) on the slide or negative. To keep dust from getting on in the first place, keep the original in its container until you are ready to scan. If you use a light box, make sure you dust it off before you put your slides on it.

 

Finally, when handling negatives, hold it at the edges. Or better yet, buy those disposable white cotton gloves that they sell in better photo stores.

[chip]

Hyum,

 

The workflow you use depends on the software you use and how the images will be used, output and archived. Give us details and so we can make suggestions.

 

HTH

[hyunyu]

Chip, and others:

 

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I've got a Minolta Scan Dual III scanner, and Photoshop 7. I have (like everyone else) boxfulls of 35mm negatives that I'd like to go through and digitize (not every single one of them, but the keepers). My plan is to scan at the highest optical setting and save them in TIFF or PNG or even PSD--some sort of non-lossy format, and then work from there. A few of them will be printed for the home display or given to the relatives/friends, but the majority of them will be archived on the computer. And hard drive space is really not an issue--storage is cheap (I have over 500GB on my home systems, with nightly backups to different computers, and with room to add more).

 

I guess my main question is, should all the adjustments--noise reduction, grain smoothing, color corrections, etc.--be done at the scanner level, or afterwards in Photoshop? Photoshop seems to offer more control, but I also understand that it can only work with what the scanner hands off, and thus is working with 2nd-hand output (whereas the scanner reads straight from the negatives). I did a few test scans at the highest optical setting with Kodak Gold 400 negatives, and was really surprised to see how grainy the picture looked at 100% crop.

 

Thanks again.

[chip]

Hi Hyun,

 

Well it sounds like you are headed in the right direction. The software that comes with the scanner, does it have a plug-in for Photoshop is it just an external TWAIN program? What I would do is scan at the highest NATIVE res. and bit depth the scanner offers and save it as a LZW TIFF file. TIFF is pretty much the standard and looks like it will continue to be for a long time given the designed in ah, "flexibility" for the format.

 

You are correct, IF possible correct as much as you can using the scanner driver software. This can give you the best dynamic range and lowest noise scans. Save all scans from some event or thing your shot during a session and burn a CD-R with the fresh exposure corrected scans from the scanner software.

 

Then using PS with Adobe RGB for your color space, pick the good ones and set white point, black point, color correct, retouch (dust etc.), and save in Adobe RGB color space as LZW TIFF, document and archive to CD-R. When you know how an image will be used, web, Inkjet, CMYK/offset press or say a digital minilab like a Noritsu or Frontier resize using the appropriate ppi setting and final pixel count for final output size and lastly sharpen using your favorite technique. Document the resulting files and how they were used and burn yet another CD-R with these images.

 

HTH

 

 

 

 

 

Kodak's Gold 400 is a grainy film to start with and CCD scanners seem to bring out the grain more than drum scanners do.

[hyunyu]

Hi Chip,

 

Thanks for the great posting. The scanner driver works as a plug-in for Photoshop--that is, you can, from within Photoshop, choose to import from the scanner. The Scan Dual III has a native optical resolution of 2820dpi, and at that resolution a 35mm negative yields an approx. 10-megapixel image.

 

I especially appreciate the idea of saving different versions of the image depending on the output use--I had thought about this, but had stopped at having an original and a "working" copy, but what you outlined--multiple outputs depending on the output device--makes more sense.

 

LZW TIFF--that's compressed TIFF, right? Am I correct in assuming that it's a non-lossy compression?

 

Thanks again!

[santier]

'I guess my main question is, should all the adjustments--noise reduction, grain smoothing, color corrections, etc.--be done at the scanner level, or afterwards in Photoshop?'

 

Chip, I've read posts and sites that suggest the opposite, that adjustments (other than digital ice) should be done in photoshop. That's probably because most scanning software tools aren't as good as photoshop's. From what I gather, the idea is to keep the scan as close to the 'raw' negative and save that as your original then make the adjustments on a copy.

 

In my experience with my Coolscan 4000 I usually turn off all adjustments except for Ice and then scan it into photoshop. While that works fine with slide film, some 400 and 800 speed films look so grainy in the preview that I get the urge to turn on GEM or ROC to fix it pre-scan. But then it will look good in the preview and afterwards in photoshop looks bad (soft, off-color, etc). Like Hyun I'm always surprised at how grainy my scans are and I still haven't found a definitive way to reduce it.

 

Does anyone have suggestions on reducing grain in scans? Are there photoshop plugins available for that?

[greg_miller8]

I agree with Eric in doing all adjusstments except ICE in Photoshop (occasionally a levels change in the scan for extreme images). A decent scanner with a dynamic range of 4.0 or better can handle almost any image without touching the black & white points. The scan is digital so you don't have to worry about 2nd generation, 3rd generation,...

 

As for grain, try out NIK DFine. Its primary purpose is noise reduction and they have a free trial so you can demo it before you buy it.

[lon_williamson]

Here's my workflow, 90 percent of the time:

 

Scan at appropriate bit level/resolution.

 

Crop to get rid of any eddges not truely part of the frame.

 

Do what is necessary to eliminate dust, scratches, and other spots. Always do this before color adjustment because otherwise the dust

and scratches can fool color adjustment algorithms.

 

Adjust color balance and black/white endpoints, converting to 16bit mode first if necessary. For a beginner, this might be auto-levels, auto-contras, and/or auto-color in Photoshop.

 

Fine tune color and contrast to taste. Maybe add a touch of selective

sharpening or whatever, appropriate for a master the use for which is

not yet known.

 

Save master file, 8-bit.

 

Crop and resize for the task at hand.

 

Use grain surgery, GEM, or whatever to eliminate grain to taste.

 

Hoist up a duplicate of the background, sharpen for output media. Most folks say sharpening should be the last step prior to printing, and I

agree with them.

 

Print.