Digital contact sheet

[traveler_101]

Confession: I hate scanning but I do it anyway on an Epson V600. However, I have been thinking now of first making a digital contact sheet with my m43 camera in order to determine which negatives are worth scanning. Anyone try this method? If so does anyone know an online programme to convert a negative image into a positive one?

 

[Alan9940]

Confession: I hate scanning but I do it anyway on an Epson V600. However, I have been thinking now of first making a digital contact sheet with my m43 camera in order to determine which negatives are worth scanning. Anyone try this method? If so does anyone know an online programme to convert a negative image into a positive one?

I scan a set of negatives in PrintFile sleeves on my flatbed scanner, print, then file this along with the negatives. That said, if using a camera for this process it depends... For B&W negatives, you could simply reverse the curve in PS. Color negs are a bit more difficult because you need to remove the orange cast. There is quite a bit of info online for doing this manually. If you want/need something more automated, take a look at NegativeLabPro or ColorPerfect.

 

[radiant]

I have and there is discussion about it here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/super-easy-digital-contact-sheet-of-film.175532/

TL;DR: works extremely well. I stopped making real contact sheets completely.

 

[grat]

There's a new plugin for Darktable (open source equivalent to Lightroom) called negadoctor... seems to work pretty well for color negatives.

 

[traveler_101]

I scan a set of negatives in PrintFile sleeves on my flatbed scanner, print, then file this along with the negatives. That said, if using a camera for this process it depends... For B&W negatives, you could simply reverse the curve in PS. Color negs are a bit more difficult because you need to remove the orange cast. There is quite a bit of info online for doing this manually. If you want/need something more automated, take a look at NegativeLabPro or ColorPerfect.

My Epson V600 does not scan a whole page when set to film negatives. It simply won't read it. Perhaps I am doing something wrong?

There's a new plugin for Darktable (open source equivalent to Lightroom) called negadoctor... seems to work pretty well for color negatives.

Downloaded Darktable but did not find any indication of how to turn negatives into images. Btw, I don't shoot colour film. All I am looking for is a way to convert b&w. Thanks for all responses.

 

[Alan9940]

My Epson V600 does not scan a whole page when set to film negatives. It simply won't read it. Perhaps I am doing something wrong?

Probably not, but I don't know anything about these later Epson flatbeds. I use a very old Epson Expression 1680 that can easily scan an 8x10" area on the glass; I scan 8x10 negs with it all the time.

 

[Pieter12]

My Epson V600 does not scan a whole page when set to film negatives. It simply won't read it. Perhaps I am doing something wrong?



Downloaded Darktable but did not find any indication of how to turn negatives into images. Btw, I don't shoot colour film. All I am looking for is a way to convert b&w. Thanks for all responses.

I regularly scan PrintFile pages with my Epson V600 so I can make contact sheets that to choose the negatives to print in the darkroom. There are 2 ways to do this. One is to scan in sections using the film setting in Epson Scan and assemble into a single page in PhotoShop (remember to make an initial scan leaving about 1/4" clear of the top edge so the scanner will calibrate. You can move the sheet closer to the top edge after this initial preview scan). Or you can place a letter-size light box on top of the negative sheet and scan the entire page normally. You then have to invert the image in PhotoShop.

 

[Jim Jones]

My Epson P800 will scan 8x10 negatives, but I believe it has a wider light source than the V600 for scanning transparencies. It takes half an hour to scan a B&W 8x10 at 3200 DPI and 16 bit. I'm considering using a light box and DSLR instead.

 

[MattKing]

Downloaded Darktable but did not find any indication of how to turn negatives into images.

I think someone has developed what is essentially a "plug in" for that purpose. The software is on my list of "hmmm?"

 

[grat]

I think someone has developed what is essentially a "plug in" for that purpose. The software is on my list of "hmmm?"

Correct. In lighttable ("Library" in lightroom) mode, you can organize, rate, cull, etc., your photos. If you open an image into Darkroom ("Develop") mode, you get a library of plugins over on the right side, organized into useful groups-- but not all "modules" (plugins) are active by default. If you search for "Invert", there's a basic invert, and in the newest version, if you search for "negadoctor", you'll find the color-oriented inversion tool.

 

[shutterfinger]

My Epson P800 will scan 8x10 negatives, but I believe it has a wider light source than the V600 for scanning transparencies. It takes half an hour to scan a B&W 8x10 at 3200 DPI and 16 bit. I'm considering using a light box and DSLR instead.

I use a V700 on Windows 10. EpsonScan/Silverfast SE 8 takes 25 minutes to scan 8x10 at 2400dpi with he internet connected to the computer, 12 minutes with the internet disabled.

 

[MattKing]

I use a V700 on Windows 10. EpsonScan/Silverfast SE 8 takes 25 minutes to scan 8x10 at 2400dpi with he internet connected to the computer, 12 minutes with the internet disabled.

That is because the Russians are monitoring your scans .

 

[traveler_101]

Correct. In lighttable ("Library" in lightroom) mode, you can organize, rate, cull, etc., your photos. If you open an image into Darkroom ("Develop") mode, you get a library of plugins over on the right side, organized into useful groups-- but not all "modules" (plugins) are active by default. If you search for "Invert", there's a basic invert, and in the newest version, if you search for "negadoctor", you'll find the color-oriented inversion tool.

Thank you I managed my way around darktable, finally, and produced the image. Seems ok though the top half of it is somewhat out of focus - probably did not get my camera parallel to the light table.Will try again. Thanks for everyone's help.