For most people today, it is much more convenient to store their photo archive in digital form. After all, sometimes it is so difficult to find the necessary frames on films, especially if they are stored in a box gathering dust on the mezzanine. The advantage of digitizing will be more extensive editing, processing and retouching of photos. Correctly scanned frames from film are not inferior in quality to pictures taken with professional digital cameras.
Necessary
- - film scanner (with slide adapter);
- - darkroom.
Instructions
Step 1
Digitizing film is also called scanning. There are several options for how you can do this. Today, many have good flatbed scanners in their homes that are equipped with a slide adapter. This method gives an average result, but if you just need to post pictures on the Internet, then it will do. You can hand over the films to the darkroom, where they will be digitized on special equipment. Here a lot depends on the laboratory itself, as well as on what scan quality and recording format you choose. The result can range from professional quality to about the same as you can get at home on a tablet. For those who want to get the perfect quality, you need to scan the film using specialized equipment.
Step 2
A flatbed scanner with a slide adapter comes with a special frame, into which the film is loaded, and an additional lamp in the lid, which is necessary for illuminating the slides. The advantages of this method include its simplicity and availability. The disadvantages are the relatively low image quality. When digitizing, light passes through several scanner glasses and layers of air. Even if there is not a speck of dust, these obstacles still scatter the light. As a result, the picture gets a little blurry. The image comes out not too contrasty, the color rendition is often lame. The low optical density of tablets does not allow to work out the dark areas of the frame. Frames often have a weak hold on the film, not aligning it, causing focus to be lost at the edges of the frame. After such a scan, you will not be able to print photos of high quality; the method is also not very suitable for further image processing.
Step 3
Photo labs also provide film scanning services. In most cases, the offered quality leaves much to be desired, since the process is automated as much as possible. The operator simply inserts the film into the machine, it automatically determines the frame boundaries and color balance (very mistaken in cases where there are errors in the exposure on the film). Scanning is most often done in one approach and not too thoroughly. The advantage of the method lies in its low cost. The quality of the images is sufficient for publishing on the Internet and printing photographs, the size of which is no more than 10 by 15.
Step 4
Some photographic laboratories have good and properly configured professional equipment with which you can get really high quality images. There you can order digitization using specialized scanners. This is the best option in terms of quality, but the cost of digitizing each frame is very high. The best and most expensive are drum scanners, digitizing on a pseudo-drum will cost a little less. A closed scanner designed specifically for film will also give very good results, for the price this option is much cheaper.
