Half frame scanning: speed up and automate

[blee1996]

Hi, I like half frame, especially the cameras are very cute (Ricoh Auto Half, Canon Dial 35) and I enjoy shooting with them. However, it is always a shore to scan them. I have two scanners: a flatbed Epson V700, and a Nikon Coolscan V ED. And I'm using their native scanning software: Epson Scan and Nikon Scan. Neither seem to have any options for half frame.

In Epson V700 and Epson Scan Professional mode, I do custom frame size, and then copy paste the frame line, and move to each individual frame. This takes 48 times (4x6x2) of manual labor.

On Nikon Coolscan V with Nikon Scan, there is no choice other than scan 6 frames of 35mm for each stripe. Maybe I can experiment with some open source software and scripts to batch split them in half.

What is your best practice in scanning half frame? Thanks!

 

[Cholentpot]

I've found best practice is to shoot shorter rolls with half-frame. I really just get annoyed at having to scan nearly 80 frames.

 

[blee1996]

There are 76 frames staring at me on the light table right now!

 

[koraks]

In Epson V700 and Epson Scan Professional mode, I do custom frame size, and then copy paste the frame line, and move to each individual frame. This takes 48 times (4x6x2) of manual labor.

Can't you just scan the whole platen in one go and then crop out each image separately afterwards? Usually it's a little quicker/easier to use the select tool in Photoshop/Gimp than in the Epson scan software.

 

[brbo]

Your workflow with Epson flatbed doesn't seem too bad.

For Nikon V, and if paying for Vuescan is not too much of an expense, I would:
- raw scan entire "36" frames
- split individual frames into 2 files, I'd write an ImageMagic script for that, but I bet there are other tools to do that that might be easier to use
- again use Vuescan to batch invert (and auto-adjust if you want) 72 individual files

Alternatively, Vuescan also supports saving and using scanning profiles, so you could have a "left frame" and "right frame" profile. You'd load a strip of film and first scan it with "left frame" profile, then load "right frame" profile and scan the strip again. You would end up with 12 inverted and auto-adjusted frames.

But maybe you are only looking for a way to split the full frame into 2 files if Nikon Scan isn't thrown off with the unexposed part of film in the middle of the frame and you are happy with the "average" adjustments it makes for both frames?

 

[Les Sarile]

Fiddly but works very well using the film holder. With this tiny film, you really need the resolution of the Coolscan.

110-3 by Les DMess, on Flickr

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I don;t know if this might help. But can;t you setup and/or save settings by some combination of Target size and then Preview >save that would give you back all the manual frame lines?

 

[Brad Deputy]

With the Plustek and Silver fast, I can scan 2 frames at a time, then prepare each exposure and press the scan button, even if the first one is already scanning, and it queues it up automatically. With black and white, I can scan almost as fast as whole frames.

Color? Ugh. I've scanned 81 before (Olympus EE cameras have a very short distance from roll to shutter so you can really pack them in!). I stick with 24 exposure, or 18 when I roll my own.

 

[Steve@f8]

With the Plustek and Silver fast, I can scan 2 frames at a time, then prepare each exposure and press the scan button, even if the first one is already scanning, and it queues it up automatically. With black and white, I can scan almost as fast as whole frames.

Color? Ugh. I've scanned 81 before (Olympus EE cameras have a very short distance from roll to shutter so you can really pack them in!). I stick with 24 exposure, or 18 when I roll my own.

Using the same setup as you the supplied negative holder crops two half frames side by side (shot with a Pen FT), ie I loose part of the negative from each end of the two half frames. There are two solutions that I use: scan each 1/2 frame individually and knit the two back together in Photoshop (if it’s diptych that I wish to preserve, as shot), or secondly, camera-scan using the Lomo DigitalLIZ. The latter doesn’t have inter-negative plastic spacer bars.

 

[Les Sarile]

Hi, I like half frame, especially the cameras are very cute (Ricoh Auto Half, Canon Dial 35) and I enjoy shooting with them. However, it is always a shore to scan them. I have two scanners: a flatbed Epson V700, and a Nikon Coolscan V ED. And I'm using their native scanning software: Epson Scan and Nikon Scan. Neither seem to have any options for half frame.

In Epson V700 and Epson Scan Professional mode, I do custom frame size, and then copy paste the frame line, and move to each individual frame. This takes 48 times (4x6x2) of manual labor.

On Nikon Coolscan V with Nikon Scan, there is no choice other than scan 6 frames of 35mm for each stripe. Maybe I can experiment with some open source software and scripts to batch split them in half.

What is your best practice in scanning half frame? Thanks!

Please ignore my previous response above as I somehow conflated 110 and half frame films . . .

I have the Coolscan V as well using Nikonscan. If you can scan any film with either the Coolscan or Epson flatbed, always default to the Coolscan.

Here is a scan of two half frames taken with my Olympus FT and scanned as one using the Coolscan . . .

Kodak TMAX 100 by Les DMess, on Flickr

 

[blee1996]

A quick report on my progress with a roll of 135-36 B&W film:

• I did the Coolscan V with Nikon Scan: 6x 35mm frames on one strip, automated runs for 7 stripes
• I (chatGPT) wrote a short Python script that go through the entire directory, split every TIF evenly in half, and save both

Overall it was easy and fast, with minimal labor. I will try color negative and color slides in the future.

 

[koraks]

Smart!

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Mind sharing that python script even though I don't know what that is?

I run half frame through my Nikon twice. Once for the first half, once for the second half. Just use the cropping tool. I use Vuescan and it works pretty well. Your way is much nicer though. I have to rename the first half before I run the second so Vuescan puts them in the right order or it is a mess if I forget. Plus it takes twice as long obviously...

 

[Brad Deputy]

Using the same setup as you the supplied negative holder crops two half frames side by side (shot with a Pen FT), ie I loose part of the negative from each end of the two half frames. There are two solutions that I use: scan each 1/2 frame individually and knit the two back together in Photoshop (if it’s diptych that I wish to preserve, as shot), or secondly, camera-scan using the Lomo DigitalLIZ. The latter doesn’t have inter-negative plastic spacer bars.

Yep, I notice that, but it's a miniscule amount. If I want the details of one shot, I'll slide the negative tray a smidge and rescan.

 

[blee1996]

Mind sharing that python script even though I don't know what that is?

I run half frame through my Nikon twice. Once for the first half, once for the second half. Just use the cropping tool. I use Vuescan and it works pretty well. Your way is much nicer though. I have to rename the first half before I run the second so Vuescan puts them in the right order or it is a mess if I forget. Plus it takes twice as long obviously...

Yes I can drop you a DM, since I'm not sure if this forum allows attaching Python code into the normal discussion threads.

 

[blee1996]

I used the following instruction for chatGPT4 in order to generate the python code:

You are an expert Python developer. Write a python program to achieve the following

1) There is a file folder named “temp”, which had many .tif image files.
2) Create a subfolder named “final” within “temp”
3) Read one .tif image file, split into equal left half and right half
4) Save the left half image into a new file, by appending letter L to the end of the original file name, and save it into the subfolder “final”
5) Save the right half image into a new file, by appending letter R to the end of the original file name, and save it into the subfolder “final”
6) Iterate steps 3-5 for every .tif image file within the folder “temp”
7) Print out on screen progress of each file

 

[braxus]

Scanning that many frames each was one reason I abandoned 1/2 frame to begin with. And on my Primefilm XAs, I can scan individual frames, allowing me to adjust each frame. But spending an entire day doing almost an 80 roll, for rez that is basically half, I gave up on it. I still have a Canon half frame camera, but it needs repair, and Im not rushing to get it done. I had to scan at 10,000 dpi just to end up with a 6000x 4000 file size.

 

[Lee Rust]

I use an old Beseler Negatrans to feed my uncut 35mm half-frame filmstrips through a DSLR copy stand setup. The Negatrans is secured to the lightbox underneath so it can't shift around.

As the film feeds into the carrier, dust it off with a few squirts of air, turn the Negatrans dial to position the next image in the viewfinder, check focus & exposure... then click... each picture only takes ten to fifteen seconds. I never need more than 20 minutes or so to digitize 75 frames.

If you can't find a Negatrans, here's a gadget that looks like it would be a big help... https://www.negative.supply/shop-all/basic-film-carrier-35