Scanning

With two rolls of Kodak Tri-X all developed and now dry, it was time to get down to some scanning.

As I have blogged about this before, this is a bit of a re-cap; getting everything clean is the first and major step, after that it is relatively simple.

My scanner is an Epson V850 Pro and instead of using the bundled Epson Software, I use SilverFast.

Step One clean and mount the film and scanner plate

Select Pre-Scan, at this point it does a basic scan
SilverFast and Frames

  • Select Frames, Find Frames and select the appropriate film holder, in this case Filmstrip 35mm

SilverFast 35mm Film Settings

  • I then select my resolution 6400 ppi for film and then select the film Vendor, film type and ISO.  Most common makes are there from Ilford, Fuji and Kodak.
  • Then its a tweak to the Midtones to make the files a little flatter and easier to working on post production, I use +5.
  • Select Copy settings to all frames

Now for the time consuming part.

  • Zoom into the first frame and adjust the frame to capture all the image
  • Tweak the histogram if necessary
  • Go to next frame and repeat

Once all frames are done I then select batch scan and have it uniquely number each file and place them in a watch folder.
Lightroom auto import
Its then over to Lightroom where I configure Auto Import. I have found the the default developer settings I use for my Nikon DSLR are a good starting point and I have Lightroom add the current date to the scans filename.
I now go off and have a cup of coffee and leave the computer to do its stuff, the scanner putting the images into the watch folder and then Lightroom automatically importing them, adding some developer settings and meta data and adding them to my main Catalogue image store.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.