What methods do you use for digitizing film photos

[250swb]

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3 hours ago, BWColor said:

This thread has been quite educational.  I just started the purchasing of equipment and planning to scan decades of negatives that predates the introduction of the Coolscans.  I’ll be using Negative Supply kit for 35mm and MF with an A7CR/Tamron 90mm Macro for color images.  I’m waiting to get the Negative Supply kit.  So far, I’ve been using the Valoi 35Easy and playing with PixelShift, which has some color benefit and smooths out grain.  I’m waiting for a Novaflex Contax/Leica-M adapter and Contax extension tubes to use with my Leica M11 Monochrom & Contax/Zeiss 100mm f/2.0 Makro Planar.  This will be my B&W setup and I won’t rely upon PixelShift.

I now realize how important it is to be able to generate a contact sheet.  All of my negatives are already in negative pages..  Is it better to use a larger light table and digital camera, or an Epson flatbed to make the contact sheets?

I think if you are going to digitise a lot of negatives any software intervention should be avoided, so if for some reason you are finding pixel shift is smoothing natural grain don't do it or you'll never truly represent the negative. Only make changes in post processing from the unadulterated master copy. But surely something is going wrong if pixel shift is doing this. And there is a tendency to over complicate digitising with a camera so why not just copy everything with your Sony, I've never heard of having two outfits, one for colour and one for B&W, what's the benefit?  Your master copies should all be made in RAW, then for editing made into an RGB TIFF whether they are B&W or colour.

Edited April 5 by 250swb

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[BWColor]

2 hours ago, 250swb said:

I think if you are going to digitise a lot of negatives any software intervention should be avoided, so if for some reason you are finding pixel shift is smoothing natural grain don't do it or you'll never truly represent the negative. Only make changes in post processing from the unadulterated master copy. But surely something is going wrong if pixel shift is doing this. And there is a tendency to over complicate digitising with a camera so why not just copy everything with your Sony, I've never heard of having two outfits, one for colour and one for B&W, what's the benefit?  Your master copies should all be made in RAW, then for editing made into an RGB TIFF whether they are B&W or colour.

All good points.  I believe that having a good contact sheet will be key to what I want to do.  I want to only copy the images worth copying.  I doubt that I will use pixelshift with most images for reasons of time and storage requirements.  Regarding using my monochrom for B&W, I will only maintain this if it proves to be superior to using the A7CR.  The investment was minimal since I already owned the lens, camera and will own the Negative Supply light source and negative holders.  So, my main concern at this point is obtaining a useable contact sheet.  

[250swb]

24 minutes ago, BWColor said:

All good points.  I believe that having a good contact sheet will be key to what I want to do.  I want to only copy the images worth copying.  I doubt that I will use pixelshift with most images for reasons of time and storage requirements.  Regarding using my monochrom for B&W, I will only maintain this if it proves to be superior to using the A7CR.  The investment was minimal since I already owned the lens, camera and will own the Negative Supply light source and negative holders.  So, my main concern at this point is obtaining a useable contact sheet.  

I use an Epson V700 for my contact sheets. Set on a low-ish resolution for speed it's still possible to tell if the composition is correct and the image is sharp, I then go through the images and mark the ones to scan with my Z7 on the negative file sheet. It doesn't take too long and saves time in avoiding camera scanning too many negatives.

[BWColor]

10 hours ago, 250swb said:

I use an Epson V700 for my contact sheets. Set on a low-ish resolution for speed it's still possible to tell if the composition is correct and the image is sharp, I then go through the images and mark the ones to scan with my Z7 on the negative file sheet. It doesn't take too long and saves time in avoiding camera scanning too many negatives.

Do you scan half a page at a time and then stitch them together.  If I remember correctly my V700 won’t quite scan a full sheet of 36 exposure 35mm.

[250swb]

9 hours ago, BWColor said:

Do you scan half a page at a time and then stitch them together.  If I remember correctly my V700 won’t quite scan a full sheet of 36 exposure 35mm.

You scan four rows then another two rows, but they all go into the same folder you've created for that film (folder number, name, date) so there is no stitching, you just have a folder of thirty six (or more) separate JPEGS that you can browse like a contact sheet in Bridge. In Bridge you can add tags. Find one you like and open it in Lightroom or Photoshop to check for composition and sharpness. Then when you scan at full resolution create another folder inside your Contact Sheet folder called something like, 'Scans', or 'Edits' where you put your master scans.

These now need inverting into positives, best to use some add-on software like Filmomat Smart Convert (or Negative Lab Pro if using Lightroom), save these as RGB TIFF files. From these you edit for contrast, brightness, dodge and burn, etc. and all you do is add a suffix to the end of each edited version with something like 'v1' for version 1, or whatever when you save it. So all within one master folder for each film you have your contact sheet and your master scans, also your master scans and edits all keep a common file number for neatness, but with an added suffix to differentiate it from a previous edited version of the same image. Keep your master edits in RGB TIFF format because it keeps more information and change the colour space (sRGB for making a JPEG, Greyscale, etc.) if necessary for the web etc. But it's important to remember that the B&W photos you see in books or on gallery walls are almost never ever Greyscale, they will be neutral, warm, or cool tone depending on the subtle effect you want, and RGB allows you to do this during editing or is something you may come back to later.

That's a workflow and organisational suggestion to keep track of each film, but some people will have different ideas. But it keeps everything you've done in one place and in the order you've created it. For editing overall I use Photoshop, but within this as a plugin use the DxO Nik Suite for the major adjustments in B&W or colour, it's very powerful but with an easy interface and some presets that can be used as starting points.

[BWColor]

8 hours ago, 250swb said:

You scan four rows then another two rows, but they all go into the same folder you've created for that film (folder number, name, date) so there is no stitching, you just have a folder of thirty six (or more) separate JPEGS that you can browse like a contact sheet in Bridge. In Bridge you can add tags. Find one you like and open it in Lightroom or Photoshop to check for composition and sharpness. Then when you scan at full resolution create another folder inside your Contact Sheet folder called something like, 'Scans', or 'Edits' where you put your master scans.

These now need inverting into positives, best to use some add-on software like Filmomat Smart Convert (or Negative Lab Pro if using Lightroom), save these as RGB TIFF files. From these you edit for contrast, brightness, dodge and burn, etc. and all you do is add a suffix to the end of each edited version with something like 'v1' for version 1, or whatever when you save it. So all within one master folder for each film you have your contact sheet and your master scans, also your master scans and edits all keep a common file number for neatness, but with an added suffix to differentiate it from a previous edited version of the same image. Keep your master edits in RGB TIFF format because it keeps more information and change the colour space (sRGB for making a JPEG, Greyscale, etc.) if necessary for the web etc. But it's important to remember that the B&W photos you see in books or on gallery walls are almost never ever Greyscale, they will be neutral, warm, or cool tone depending on the subtle effect you want, and RGB allows you to do this during editing or is something you may come back to later.

That's a workflow and organisational suggestion to keep track of each film, but some people will have different ideas. But it keeps everything you've done in one place and in the order you've created it. For editing overall I use Photoshop, but within this as a plugin use the DxO Nik Suite for the major adjustments in B&W or colour, it's very powerful but with an easy interface and some presets that can be used as starting points.

Thank You for your detailed response.  It really helped me to know how I want to make contact sheets.

[AntoC]

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