Scanning negatives PLEASE HELP

[Marni]

Hi All, its been awhile but I have a dumb question so here goes

I just purchased an Epson 3170 scanner and I need to scan my daughters wedding negatives to put them on a CD so her new mother in law can take the CD to a lab to get prints made. She lives in Canada and cannot see the proofs so the photographer is giving me the negatives to do this. My question is this . . .

When I scanned one of the negatives I saved it to a folder on my desktop and when I opened to take a look, it was there but it was a negative not the picture, here is the dumb part ...... is that what I am supposed to see? and when I drag them to a CD when they are all done will she be able to take the CD I make for her to a lab and get prints? I will scan them at 2400 DPI and save them as .tif files, is this correct? I imagine she will want to get enlargements as much as 8x10.

I also wanted to know how I would go about making a CD for her so she can see the actual pictures like on a Kodak CD. Would I use the invert feature in Photoshop and then put them on a contact sheet?

Thank you soooooooooo much for answering my stupid question, maybe I am not getting something and making dumb assumptions. This is all new to me and I have never scanned negatives before so I don't know what to expect.
Thanks
Marni

[Doug Nelson]

I moved your message here to the I/O forum where it should get the attention it deserves.

[Imhotep]

I am only a beginer but, you should be able to set your scanner to Negative and get a positive scan so you won't have to invert in photoshop hopefully someone can help with the rest of your question

[Keith]

I have a different scanner (HP) but there is a setting I have to switch in the scanner software to indicate I am scanning a negative. It gives me a positive image that I can then do with as I please.

I would be willing to bet yours is the same way. The manual is probably on a CD instead of a hard copy (I hate that) but it should tell you exactly what you need to do.

[T Paul]

I have an Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner. The first time I tried to scan a negative, I had the same results. For me, the Epson 2450 comes with a transparency unit built into the lid of the scanner that you need to use when scanning transparencies and negatives. Check out your user’s manual. I had to remove the reflective document mat from the lid (just slides out). Then connect a cable from the lid into the main scanner bed to activate the light in the lid. Then I just selected negatives or transparencies from the scanner’s image type option list (option only shows up once the transparency unit is activated), and scanned in my negatives using one of the film holders. Also read your manual about using the film holders as they need to be placed correctly on the scanner bed. Hopefully this will get you going in the right direction.

Try one or more of these solutions:


Make sure the accessory interface connector is connected to the scanner.

Make sure Document Type is set to the appropriate setting for your film type in the Home Mode or Professional Mode.

Make sure the reflective document mat is removed when you scan transparent materials.

Make sure the film is set correctly in the film holder, and that the film holder is properly positioned on the document table.

For more info click here (Epson Web Site)


Best of Luck

~T

[T Paul]

As for the rest of your questions....

Well I'm going to leave those to someone else, but I will provide some quick thoughts.

In short, the lab should be able to work with the images you save on a CD, and a .tif is usually a good universal format to use. If you know where she plans to take them, you could always call and ask them what format they prefer. Note I’ve read that a dedicated film scanner will yield higher quality results over the Epson flatbed scanner, but the Epson results should be quite good. You may want to look into the cost of having your local lab scan the negatives with a dedicated film scanner.

As for the CD, if you have Photoshop and want to create something that she can view quick and easy you have two options. Under automate you can create printable contact sheets showing thumbnails of the images in a selected folder and subfolders and you can also create a web photo gallery. You could then always burn the main images to the CD for the lab and create a separate folder for the web site so when she activated the file it would launch the web site and images on her screen for easy viewing. Now this may sound complicated but no worries as PhotoShop (depending on what version you have) will do everything for you. All you do is tell it were to get the files by selecting a folder and you can modify the layout of the gallery page by going through the various options. Once you have selected everything, PhotoShop will create the web page for you and save all the necessary files to your selected designation. When saving the web page to the CD be sure that all the files and folders are kept together as they were created otherwise the page will not load correctly. I suggest that you create a folder called “gallery” and have Photoshop save everything there. Then all you have to do is copy that folder and all its contents to the CD and it should run fine. The one glitch is that it won’t be auto running. She will have to put in the CD, click on the gallery folder, and click the .htm file to launch the web page.

Geesh…said more that I planned to. Well this are just some ideas, hopefully others will chime in.

~T

[Marni]

Thanks to everyone, one more question to you all. I finally got the film to scan positive so that's good but I am noticing that the files are huge 19 mg each when I save them as a .tif file. I am really afraid that if I save them as a .jpg the quality will suffer when she goes to enlarge them. I hope the lab will be able to take such large photo's or doesn't that make any difference to them.

I am thinking I might have to save the files twice, once for the CD for enlargements and again for another CD for the thumbnails suggested in Photoshop contact sheet so she can see the pictures. I am sure that when she goes to view them on the screen they will bog down her computer. Any other suggestions?

Thanks
Marni

[IAG]

I'm sure Marni has sent the CD weeks ago but just in case someone digs this up in search...

jpg format at no compression (that would be 12 in photoshop or photoelements) is a suitable format to send to a printer.


*All major photo stock agencies use the jpg format for sending and receiving files.

Cheers,
Ian

Thanks to everyone, one more question to you all. I finally got the film to scan positive so that's good but I am noticing that the files are huge 19 mg each when I save them as a .tif file. I am really afraid that if I save them as a .jpg the quality will suffer when she goes to enlarge them. I hope the lab will be able to take such large photo's or doesn't that make any difference to them.

I am thinking I might have to save the files twice, once for the CD for enlargements and again for another CD for the thumbnails suggested in Photoshop contact sheet so she can see the pictures. I am sure that when she goes to view them on the screen they will bog down her computer. Any other suggestions?

Thanks
Marni