Converting colour negatives to positive

link

Aero, JohnX, Thks, I'll check them out.

Greg

I read something to night that VueScan can scan a Tiff or Jpeg file as though it was coming from a scanner and would then apply it's colour correction arthrograms to the picture, that's what I want to follow up on tomorrow.

Greg

An update, I bought VueScan pro and have spent the day learning how to use it This is a nice piece of software and I've managed to get reasonable results from the camera RAW files but there is a lot of noise in the picture and still a long way to go before I'd say it's the answer.

Greg

gregmoll the Canon FS4000 Film Scanner is a top quality scanner and was originally over £500. I have one of these and have run it with Widows XP and now Vista. I use Viewscan software to run the scanner. However, the Canon FS4000 only has USB1 and SCSI connections. I use USB1 but it is very slow scanning.

I have an "Ion" scanner that can handle negatives or slides and work stand alone or via USB. It just scans the images and dumps them to an SD card. Resolution seems good, plus it can plug into a TV and display images as a slideshow. It takes a couple of seconds per image.

Hi Mat,
I've been looking at your scanner, I presume it's this one link. I have also found a virtually identical scanner with a larger LCD screen link.

Using this type of scanner will probably meet my needs for old family photos, would you mind emailing me an un-retouched example of a scan from a colour negative with an orange film base so that I can get an idea of the quality.

I have PM'd you my email address

Thanks,
Greg

If you find a good deal on one of these scanners without an LCD screen, don't dismiss it. The screen is useful only if you don't use a computer or if you want to do your scanning away from a computer. The image appears on your computer screen, and at higher resolution than the LCD can muster.

Al

Yes, that looks like mine. Mine's dark grey rather than silver though.

Here are a few unretouched scans:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/PICT0005.jpg
From a not especially good 1980s/early 90s negative, scanned in for the subject matter as this ship left European waters long ago.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/PICT0052.jpg
From the mid 1990s - somewhere in there is my Great-Grandfather's grave

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/PICT0053.jpg
Another not-especially wonderful shot - scanned in so I could work out the location with a view to going back later this year and getting some better photos. It's the dam at Llyn Clywedog in Mid Wales

I've posted links as I haven't done anything to these photos other than upload them, so they're a bit big.

Matt
Thanks a lot, they are better than I expected. I see the file size is only 86k, is that due to Photobucket or is that the actual output size from the scanner. The colour will have to be touched up if it's a keeper or for distribution to family members.

For bulk scanning as a digital record I think it will do, if one comes across a special photo it can be scanned on the Canon 8400F.

Aero,
Good point I was not aware that the picture would appear on the comp screen.

Greg

The first one came out at 961k, I think Photobucket may be trimming them as they all seem to be around the 800-900k mark as fresh JPGs. I'm not sure they'd be suitable for printing large format but for archiving/uploading/printing normal size they seem ok.