Scanning Prints--A Question

[Arthur Morris]

A friend of my wants to scan about 1,000 prints of family pix. She has some with negatives, some without.

I have no clue what to tell her.

Is it posible to scan a print and get a decent result?

Is it preferable to scan the negative?

What are her options? (She is willing to buy a scanner.)

She is looking to create decent digital files for most and to make prints of a small number of selected images.

[Roger Clark]

Hello Artie,

Yes, you can scan prints and get decent results, at least enough to make similar sized or slightly larger prints. But the better way to digitize the images is to scan the negatives with a film scanner. Two different scanners are needed to do the job in my opinion. A flatbed scanner can do the prints, and higher end ones are not too bad on negatives, but is below the quality of a dedicated film scanner. As with most equipment, you get what you pay for. A nikon coolscan 5000 is what I have for slides and negatives. I have an epson 4990 for 4x5 transparencies and prints.

Check out www.scantips.com for some good info.

Another option for prints is to copy them with a copy stand setup with a digital camera. That can give superb quality and is much faster than a flatbed scanner!

One problem in scanning prints: if they have the cloth texture, it is very difficult to not digitize that pattern. Glossy or smooth matte prints work best.

Roger

[Paul Lagasi]

Hi Artie...Last year I tried to scan my old photos some dating back 100 years, results were ok with top of the line scanner but I agree with Roger, fastest way is copy stand and photograph your prints. One of the advantages of this is you can repair any minor damage via PS or other software. I rented a Coolscan for a week and scanned all my negs and slides.

I bought this scanner which comes with templates for slides, negs up to 4 x 5

http://www.shopping.hp.com/store/pro...L1957A%2523B1H

with passable results, but takes forever to scan especially when scanning 16 negs or slides at one time, which its capable of doing
Hope this helps

Paul

[Samir Begovic]

My experience with color negative scanning is not very good. After many different setups on some of the best professional scanners we could not get a decent scan. There actually was no option for color negative scanning. After talking to Heidelberg, we found out that these scanners are meant only for slides and prints. We encouraged photographers who had only negative color film to make at least 8x10 high quality prints and send us for scanning. After a while, we did not accept color negatives at all.

[Phil Colla]

One of the problems I have experienced with scanning prints is moire patterns that may arise when the glossy print is lying against the glass of the flatbed scanner. I agree with Paul that a good alternative, and probably faster approach, is to setup a copy stand and photograph them with a sharp lens. Once the copy stand is set up properly and the proper exposure settings are dialed in, its almost an speedy assembly line process, for so many prints that needs to be considered.

Probably the sharpest results would be obtained, for those images with negatives, by scanning the negative with a film scanner. But the downside is, as Samir stated, that the colors can seem strange compared to those obtained by scanning a good slide / positive -- at least that is my experience using Nikon's film scanners on negative films. She might consider sending the negatives out to a scanning service, they do a pretty good job and she trades money for a considerable savings in effort.