Scan-tastic!
Tuesday 16 December 2008 at 3:42 pm. Used tags: coolscan, film, photography, scanning, silverfastThose who have been tracking my recent twitterings will know I recently purchased a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED film (slide and negative) scanner. I did this not only to save cost on having the negatives scanned by the Pro Lab, but also to give me full control of the output and quality of the scans produced.
In the week since the scanner arrived I confess to having the odd tantrum as I just couldn't get anywhere near the quality of scans I wanted. The simple truth was that I had a LOT to learn about film scanning and a steep learning curve ensued. To make matters worse the negatives I first picked up introduced two common problems:
- Large graining of high-speed films (Ilford HP5+ 400).
- Scratched and damaged negatives.
Since that time I can't tell you how much I have learnt, not only about the functional operation of the scanner, but factors such as grain aliasing, q-factor, lpi & dpi, etc.
Large graining
I believe myself to have a reasonably good understanding of grain structure and how the chemicals in both B&W and colour films react at different film speeds. Nothing however prepared me for the result of my first scanned negative, to describe the result as 'grainy' would be a massive understatement!
It seems that with high resolution scanners such as the 5000 ED this is a common problem, and although Silverfast provides a wide range of filters to help tackle the problem I was left constantly disappointed. In addition the scratch and dust removal system (iSRD) was ludicrously unhelpful.
After consultation with fellow photographers on photo.net I arrived at some settings that for the moment I can live with, namely enabling the GANE® filter (low) and off-setting the scanner focus by 0.2 to soften the grain. I still have a LOT more experimentation to do in this regard and will look to post updates soon.
It's worth noting that finer grain of films such as Kodak Tri-X and Ilford Delta should be much more suitable, and that Ilford HP5+ may benefit slightly from being developed with Illford's own Ilfotec DDX developer, something I can check when I starting developing again.
Scratched and damaged negatives
Upon examining the negatives with a loupe I was horrified to discover a large amount of scratches, assumedly caused by the scanning process at the Pro lab. It did however introduce me to this common problem found with old negatives that I would sooner or later need to overcome, especially given my plans to scan my belated father's back-catalog.
I started initially experimenting with the various filters and options for automatic dust and scratch removal. However I was left disappointed with the softening that occurred, and astonished that iSRD could get it so wrong - on one occasion removing half the label from a bottle of wine!
In the end I've decided that use of (my now favorite) GANE® filter together with some manual retouching is the only option to retain the detail and sharpness of the image. To illustrate a Kodak Gold 200 negative taken in Sorrento of a Wedding shows a large amount of scratches especially up close; after retouching the final image looks remarkably improved especially given closer examination.
Conclusion
Film scanning can provide some excellent results, but be prepared to spend lots of both time and money in the process, otherwise you might as well not bother!
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