Tech: help convert negative to digi image

Subject: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 05:53 AM

Help needed please, should I ask the spotty faced youths at PC World (who are only working there because the can't remember to say "Do you want fries with this"? or should I ask the cat?

No decision to make there then!

I want to take a load of old colour / color negatives and add them to my photo collection on my NEW computer. Is there a way that I can place a negative in the scanner and command it to produce a colour image on the screen (in positive)? Is this built in to new systems?
Do I need to buy software, if so what would you guys recommend?

There may be a few pictures of whelks amongst them.

Regards Skipy

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: s&r
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:03 AM

Most programs have this facility. To get good results you may find you need a slide/negative scanner which has higher resolution than flatbed scanners. The attachments with flatbed scanners will give you an image. Depends how important the pictures are to you.

Stu

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:06 AM

I don't have any experience with this, but a quick check on google did come up with an article on this special scanner which would do what you want...a bit pricey, though, imo: click here.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: s&r
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:21 AM

Nice descriptive article here

Stu

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:23 AM

You can scan the negative as a negative and then invert it. Assuming you are using Windows, the "Paint" program allows you to invert colours, as does "Picture It!" I think both of these are standard parts of Windows these days - certainly Paint is.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:27 AM

Hmm, I'd forgotten about the orange mask problem. Simple programs like the ones I suggested won't get rid of that.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:31 AM

Hardware - you'll need an adapter on your scanner.
Software - Are you using Windows? if so, a free package like the demo version of PaintShop Pro would allow you to manipulate the images. If you're using a Mac or Linux machine, try using Gimp. You shouldn't need to buy any software - there's plenty of free packages that'll do the job. If you wanted to invest in imaging software for Windows, I believe there's a scaled down version of Adobe Photoshop called Photoshop Elements.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 08:06 AM

It transpires that Gimp is available for Windows:
http://www.gimp.org/windows/
and can deal with the orange cast:
http://www.freecolormanagement.com/sane/gimp_negative_scanning.html

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 08:15 AM

Thank you all so much for your help, see, I knew the cat was the way to go - by now I probably not have got passed trying to explain what a "negative" is!

Hours of fun ahead Skipy

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 08:16 AM

I'd get a scanner to handle it. Even a cheaply like my Epson Perfection 1250 comes with attachments to scan negatives.

If you are on Linux, take care with the scanner you choose. Epson were reputed to be good in supporting SANE (Linux Twain) but my scanner is an oddball, I believe sharing a chip with an HP model. Last time I looked (at least a year ago), there was a driver someone developed for the HP machine that stood a chance of working but nothing specifically for my Epson.

Gimp is a nice tool. Definately worth a look at.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST,skipy
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:02 AM

my printer/scanner/photocopier is an Epson CX3200 - just out of the box yesterday, maybe just maybe it will do the job. However I am going to use Gimp.

Skipy

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:13 AM

While most photo programs will invert a scan of a color negative, the simplest way to get to what you want would probably be to just get the negatives printed and scan the prints. I've had some success with scanning negatives and processing the inversions, but getting to a satisfactory color balance (at least satisfactory to me) is often "tedious."

Note that I said simplest - not cheapest!

John.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:34 AM

The standard scanners that you buy in the computer stores aren't up producing quality images from slides. I've tired them and they're piss-poor at best. That device in the link actually is a pretty good value, though I would check around to see what else is out there. In particular, DAK comes up with some nifty stuff, now that he's back in business.

Consider how much it costs to take a single slide and have a print made from it, or to have it scanned. I did the reverse recently--my boss needed some slides made from prints. For five photos it cost $36 for the slides to be made. That was an easy one--photograph the print, make the slide. But when you're doing the scanning of slides one at a time and converting them, it's labor intensive and you can easily run yourself up a $500 to $600 charge (enough to buy the machine) if you convert many slides. And I have tons of them. I'll keep track of this thread, because that kind of slide scanner is precisely the sort of thing I'll need if I plan to use some of my older slides for articles (they're of historic places that have changed a lot over the years, so my photos are quite a resource at this point).

I disagree about using all of the free programs also. Some of them are pretty good for the simple stuff, changing the size of an image (for the web it's a good idea to reduce a 5 meg tiff down to a 50K jpg so it will load quickly). If you're going to start using digital images that are important you need to keep a large stable version that you can work from, and some of those free programs are stumped by the huge amount of information that a photographic tiff file can produce. If you're looking at something to download like PaintShop Pro it's a halfway decent program for around $100 (I haven't priced it lately, but that's what it was going for a few years ago). Macromedia has a photo program in their Dreamweaver suite, Microsoft discontinued theirs (PhotoDraw), and then there's PhotoShop. That's the industry standard, and it's expensive and the learning curve is substantial, but if you're taking your photos seriously, that's the way to go.

If this is hobby photos and it isn't a big deal, the free programs will work. But you might look around and see if there is a way to borrow or rent a good scanner to get the photos into a digital format and consider spending a little something for a photo program. PhotoShop Elements, perhaps.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:42 AM

I would argue that Gimp is a resaonable match for Photoshop in terms of ability, but perhaps not in terms of usability, though I haven't tried the Windows version. Gimp will do the job you want, but it can be confusing and non-intuitive, although I find Photoshop confusing sometimes because I'm less familiar with it. The main thing going for Gimp is its price: free. (Oh, and you get to feel all warm and glowing because you're supporting open source development.)

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 12:15 PM

I can't find it but thought that somewhere on thier website, GIMP did say they were not a Photoshop equivilant. The version (6) of PS I have used certainly does seem to me to have more features but nothing I'd be likely to use. I also find it more intuitave but the GIMP isnt bad once you get to know where bits are.

I'm only an occasional dabbler but have tried several graphics programs that have come on scanner/printer disks and downloads, etc. including paintshop pro. Of the free/cheaper shareware programs, GIMP is easily my favourite and even though it is free, I suspect it could be used professionally.

I think it is a big mistake to consider that as software is free it needs to mean it is substandard. In the web type area, anyone who has played with Apache or used linux/freebsd or maybe used MySQL as a database will know that. Large companies would not be using such software (which is more widely used than MS products) if it was unreliable or performed badly.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 12:15 PM

The above was me...

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 01:02 PM

Free software may or may not be substandard--I use a lot of free programs myself--but if you want a program that really lets you do everything you can possibly think of with an image, in very fine detail, you generally need to buy one. The free programs are limited in their scope and ability. Photoshop Elements is a minimal version for the home user who has a few basic needs of a program for manipulating and resizing photos. It works for most people (but so many of these don't teach you anything about how to do it on your own because they have an AOL-approach and dumb it all down to point-and-click). I have at times used a couple of free programs to accomplish the thing I might have managed in Photoshop. One is better for adjusting the look of the image, another is much better for sizing it, etc.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 06:32 PM

SRS -

As commented previously, for photo work Photoshop Elements really includes ALL of the stuff that you're likely to use in Photoshop itself. If you use it as an "amateur" program, and stick to the canned "fixes," it's quite intuitive and will give you "canned" results. It is capable of overlays, some 30 or so direct choices of screen types - and mods you can make to many of them, a good several dozen or so filters - many editable, dodge and burn, color correction, brightness and contrast adjustment, and can warp/morph to take out bulges (or put them in) to suit nearly any photo need. It also is capable of reading nearly all common file types, and can save to almost any format you're likely to need.

About the only thing that's obviously missing is the ability to work in CMYK color space, and RGB is almost univerally used for photo printers of the kind most of us will ever see.

It is NOT just a cut-down "cheapy" program. It is a "selected part" of the Photoshop system specifically tailored to give you everything you really need for working on photos, and at a very reasonable price. Many professionals who have both will likely use "Elements" for the majority of their photo work - because it does the same job with a lot less effort than the big program.

Unfortunately, perhaps, you're not likely to discover the best ways of doing things just by playing with PE2. If you have a lot of experience with Photoshop - maybe, but only if you've really learned to use Photoshop in a professional manner. The program is intuitive enough for most people to struggle along without really knowing what they're doing; but if you get the book - you'll really be impressed with the program.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 08:02 PM

there are a couple of quite good graphic editors for free that do not take up the space of The Gimp and are easier to use.

Embellish is here and if you want to go up to about the level of Paint Shop Pro or more,
Satori PhotoXL is here.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 08:04 PM

Satori homepage is here

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:38 PM

John, I work with Photoshop and Pagemaker in the context of producing high-quality print documents for the university library where I work. I don't usually do the layout, but I must provide all of the high-desnity images that get used during the layout process. None of the folks who work on these things would consider Photoshop Elements adequate to what they're doing. They're great for home use and small applications, for folks who want to take their digital photos and print them, or to do modifications of photos they scan. But when you're dealing with the high resolution and high density materials required to send large documents to an offset printing press, the Elements program is not the one professionals choose.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 11:15 PM

I have several thousand slides and color negatives from a lifetime of 35mm photography that I have been wading through. (Wish I had cataloged them at the time).
My approach was to buy (check eBay - anywhere from $20-$50) an inexpensive 35mm slide copier (these usually come with instructions on how to get accurate focus) that screws onto the lens of my digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 990 3.3mp) and either point the camera at the sky in daytime or a white card lit by a photoflood lamp in the evening. I have not tried flash, although that should work OK.
You now have a JPG of the slide/neg that is much better than anything a scanner will produce.
I use Photoshop to convert neg to pos but other software described previously may be able to do a satisfactory convert.
Any real gems you find can be printed from the negative.
I think I once read that to get the equivalent of a 35mm negative, you'd need a 25 megapixel digital camera. Anyone have the correct equivalent?

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 05:52 AM

To scan negs and transparencies, you need a scanner that's designed for the job -- sorry! If you use one of those triangular reflecting adapters, you won't get very good results. You can get flatbed scanners with a conventional under-bed lamp for ordinary scans, and a lamp in the lid for negs (+ a film-holder); or you can get a dedicated film/slide only scanner; or you can try High St photo processors to see what they charge to do your scanning for you.

You want to end up with 48 bit colour (16 bit B&W) and a very high resolution, and have the files in a non-lossy format. JPEG, for instance, gives you compressed (smaller) file sizes, but with the loss of some information; TIFF files can be compressed without losing anything. It will take a lot of CD space (and remember CDs may be obsolete in a few years!) and a long time.

Steve

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 10:34 AM

In the past I've used those on-camera devices to make prints from slides. They do work, but you have to be careful to get the right amount of light coming through. Diffuse light with a light reflecting on the white card is a good approach, more consistent than direct window light. (Or use the white card next to a window). For file format, TIFF is generally best, Bitmap is good, PNG is stable and very good but not used quite as universally (though it seems to be the file of choice for Macromedia).

For end-uses, after making and (usually) reducing a copy from your TIFF or PNG or Bitmap, GIF or JPG work. GIF is web-safe and uses just over 200 colors so it's good for stable web images if they're not complex renderings of colorful objects. JPG uses more colors, but depending on the monitor and browser, can display different from screen to screen. It's best to use a TIFF and save a smaller version to the gif or jpg format for web use. Just remember that every time you save a jpg file it does some averaging of the colors at the boundaries of objects in the image and this "lossy" format gradually reduces an image to a dull reflection of the original.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 11:04 PM

SRS -

If you're printing on offset press, you require color separations, and for that one function you can't use Photoshop Elements, since it doesn't allow you to work in, and save, the individual color channels, or to work in CMYK color space as is often needed for offset press work. Other programs will also make it simpler to handle lpi settings and screenings. That's a rather unusual need though, for most of the people here. Even working in "wet lab" film, few people ever make color separation negatives, although it was commonly done in the pre-digital days by those who needed it - and had the extra filters and other equipment necessary.

If you require color separations, you require one of the $600+ programs like Photoshop, and any program I've heard of with that capability will likely include a full range of other imaging capabilities, so there's no need for anything else. For any use other than the separations, Elements includes a very rich set of professional grade tools - if you get past the presets and find how to use them "professionally." The "high resolution and high density" is NOT a problem for Elements.

I'm not as impressed as many with the value of .tif as an "archive" format. The TIFF specification - last time I looked - defines more than a dozen different "flavors," about a half dozen of which are commonly used. Although they're all called .tif, many imaging programs add their own "proprietary tricks," or use uncommon variants, so that other programs often have "difficulties" with the files. "... does not recognize the format used by this file" is far too common when you try to pass .tif files between programs. In principle, it's a portable format - it just doesn't work that way in all cases.

All of the .tif flavors are supposed to be "lossless" if you open, edit, and resave in the "same flavor" format, but several of them do discard some of the pixel information, sometimes quite a lot of the pixel information, in the original conversion from bitmap to tif. Your program may also open the .tif produced elsewhere but save it in its own .tif version, and the conversion can result in some image loss. The LZW compression used is lossless, but the conversion to what gets compressed is not necessarily 100 percent.

The .gif format should never be considered for archiving continuous tone images like photographs. The file records 7 (or is it 8?) separate "color channels." You get to choose which colors, although most programs use their own default set. The standard allows inclusion of a definition of which colors are used, but this information is commonly omitted from the file. The result is that the image is rendered using any of the several "default color spaces" when you view or print, and results are notoriously variable. Brightness and contrast ranges are also highly compressed, with "unnecessary information" simply discarded in the conversion. The compression again is lossless, but the original conversion to .gif throws away a very large amount of the image information. The .gif format is okay (sort of) for line art, and sometimes for scans of printed images in which a crude color separation has already been made, but it is intended for use only where an absolute minimum file size is necessary, and where only a crude image is needed.

Since ANY conversion from one format to another is likely to include some loss of image information, you should normally save an "original" in the format that comes out of whatever device produced the image. For most digital cameras this means .jpg. If you're really interested in keeping all the information you start with, you should NEVER OPEN the original file in ANY program. Make a copy, and work from the copy. For archiving, the only format that reliably records all the pixels, unchanged, and should be openable in any forseeable program, is bitmap. The sheer size, and storage space requirements, may make saving everything as .bmp impractical, so some judgment is required. Note that you may even lose some information in the conversion from an original .jpg to .bmp, so it's well to keep whatever comes out of the machine.

Some high-end cameras allow you to save, in the camera, in "raw bitmap," but most cheaper ones convert the image directly to .jpg before saving. (One of the reasons for the notorious "shutter lag" and poor "cycle time" in digitals.) You may be able to choose, even with cheap cameras, to save as "high resolution" images; but you'll usually still get a .jpg, just with less compression.

A .jpg image does not have to be compressed, and any good editing program should allow you to choose how much compression to apply. Note that an uncompressed .jpg will typically have a file size about 10 percent larger than a bitmap from which you make it, and very few programs allow saving with no compression. If your program doesn't allow you to "Save As .jpg" and choose to get a file size that's at least 80% the size of the matching .bmp, you should get a different program - if you're really concerned about image quality and intend to do much editing in .jpg format (on the copies of your original images).

If you can work with "minimally compressed" .jpg files, for reasonable amounts of editing you may get better results editing directly "in .jpg" than converting to your program's native format and then back to .jpg, if your program allows that. The conversions may cause more loss than the recompression. This is strictly a judgment call, and requires some experience with your own program(s).

John

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 11:39 PM

Sometimes, John, you and I engage in an exchange of information that leaves the original requestor in the dust. I think this is one of those times.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 11:51 PM

Art Thieme scanned in hundreds of his photos from his folkdays and they look really great, fwiw. You may view them here.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 12:20 AM

Agreed SRS -

I think the original question has been answered, although the original requestor may not have figured it out.

Slides are meant to be viewed by transmitted light. Document/Photo scanners look at reflected light. To convert slides to digital, you do need (for best results) to use a slide scanner, or a slide adapter on your document scanner, that passes light through the slide. You can also get adapters for your digital camera, but the light still should come through the slide if you want good results.

For common films, there is enough correlation between the transmitted color and the reflected color to allow reasonable conversion with document scanners, but the small size of the slides means you need to scan at very high resolution, and expect to do a lot of color correction. Don't expect best results.

GUEST above asked about the equivalence of digital pixels to film.

For the common snapshot film cameras, with auto focus and auto exposure, especially as used by most casual snappers, careful use of a 2 or 3 MP digital camera will equal the results obtained with film. Most cheaper cameras use lots of field depth - which means fuzzy focus over a long range, and pretty sloppy central focus, so even though the film "records" a lot of pixels, it's mostly blurs.

Most of the writers/editors of the semi-tech publications that frequently test and review photo equipment currently "opine" that something like 4 or 5 MP cameras are "equal to film," although that assumes comparison to reasonably proficient "pro-am" photographers using good quality cameras (35 mm) with commonly used film and print processes.

Ansel Adams used 8 x 10 inch plates, and achieved 600 (maybe up to 1200) dpi resolution on the plates. At 1200 dpi on 8" x 10" you need about 115 MP - if you think you need to match him. Multipy by 6 or 8 if you want to do it in full color, depending on how you intend to print.

To decide what "MP" number is equivalent to film, you have to agree on "who's film." Most people will not see a difference between what they snap with their new 4 or 5 MP digital and what they might snap with their trusty old 35 mm SLR, assuming similar care in taking both shots.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 01:05 PM

A slide coppier, as sugested by a prievious Guest is a good and cheap way to coppy your mono negs. and tranys. but a film scaner is by far the best route. Try www.ffordes.com for good second hand scaners or www.datamind.co.uk for a mind boggeling true optical resolution of 7200 ppi at at an even more mind boggeling £170 complete with Silver Fast SE6. As for manipulation softwear, Adobe of some form, LE, 4,5,6,7, whatever you can get, is by far the best. No question. No argument.

Subject: RE: Tech: help convert negative to digi image
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 02:08 PM

The film scanner, as stated by Auldtimer, is the best way to go to get the best quality out of your negatives.
Nikon offers 4000dpi in their Coolscan V-Ed for $600 (at large dealers) and it is good value. It has a slide mount adapter. A bonus for doctors and lab people is an adapter that will take standard medical glass slides.

I started with one of those little triangular gadgets and only got frustrated by the loss of details.
Color matching in conversion is damn difficult.Tried that too and was not happy with results.

I don't know anything about the new all-in-ones coming out now, but suspect that they will give you a good, but not best, print.