Scan photos or negatives?

[Shoff]

I know the best would be to scan the negatives but, I don't have a film scanner. What I do have is my Epson 4870. So the question really is.... Using my 4870 would it be better to scan the photos of the negatives?

[Markendorf]

In absolute terms, the right answer will be NO.
Negative allways have more, Dynamic range, "resolution" etc.., that any photo paper.

But, if you don't have a smart color savvy app like SilverFast (I'm not sure if have one for your scanner, I have for my 3200) to put on track your negatives you will made some effort to get acceptable color.

Keep in mind that is a very context dependable, I mean, if you will scan dark subjects with many details in shadows or evem, many details in highlights, well... there are no questions that neg will get better results.
But if the subjects are don't have such kind of needs, the marjory of commercial prints would be well reproduzed with photopaper scans.

Hope this help, regards,

Adriano

[Shoff]

I do have Silverfast SE. It came with the scanner. So I should use the negative? It's a picture I took while on vacation.

[Markendorf]

Well, I didn't see any image, should I?

Adriano

[BigAl]

Why don't you try scanning the photo and the negative and compare the results for yourself? Just remember to scan the negative at a high enough resolution so that both images have an equivalent number of pixels to do the comparison.