FILM GOES DIGITAL - SCANNING SIMPLIFIED

[Originally published in the Spring 2012 issue of LIGHT AND TRUTH]

Cover photo by Elizabeth Messina for 2012 Ruche lookbook.

Welcome to the post-digital era. Everywhere you look, you see people turning back to analogue: music listeners purchasing vinyl instead of tracks on iTunes, guitarist using vintage tube amps to get that "sound" they're looking for, readers fanning through paperbacks in the park rather than their compact kindles, and hipsters toting 120 toy film cameras instead of digital point-and-shoots. We want more than immediacy and convenience. We desire a tactile connection with reality. We've had our fill of binary data. We choose substance! Film is no longer seen as the way of the past - it's a classically relevant tool for the photographer with an astute eye and adventurous will. The digital revolution is over; an analog revival has begun! 

That's not to say that digital isn't here to stay in a powerful way. Our society is just growing out of our digital adolescence and into a realization that digital has many virtues but cannot replace the connection we all have with the tactile and the handmade. This evolution has resulted in the digital world's paying tribute to analogue with popular Smartphone Apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic, which merge the aesthetic of analogue with the convenience of digital. The market has spoken and the consumer loves it! Hollywood has also been successfully going hybrid - or "figital" - for quite some time, with artists shooting film, transferring to digital for CGI effects and mastering, and then back to print for projection and archiving. Seven of the ten films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this year were shot on film! The figital method is preferred by nearly all the top major motion pictures today because it is simply the best.

Most film photographers today are going figital as well. They love their film cameras and emulsions (some even process their own black and white and color), but they cannot deny the convenience of Photoshop and the ease of sharing their photos with all their friends on sites like Flickr, Tumbler and Facebook. More and more photographers, whether film or digital, are even beginning to print their photos again and make real photographs! The idea of a strict analogue or digital approach to photography is beginning to pass away. Now, the question isn't if you go digital... it's how you go digital.

Film photographers need to bring their photos into the digital world. If you aren't having a professional lab scan your photos after processing, you basically have two choices: either do it yourself from the original film, or from your handprint. Either way, you want to bring your photo into the digital world without compromising the fidelity of your analogue medium.

It is easy to ruin a photo in scanning! That's how digital capture actually got an edge over film for the consumer. But digital capture has never been better than film; people's film just started to look like crap! Many competing 1 hour, 30 minute or even (I cringe as I say it) "15 minute" labs out there were just pushing peoples film through, carelessly ruining their images in scanning. Most are out of business now. Of the few real labs remaining, most are now producing beautiful digital images from their clients' film. These labs use highly efficient but also highly expensive roll scanners like the Noritsu or Fuji Frontier for their clients' film. Each frame is still hand-corrected in scanning as one would for a digital raw file, but the process is highly automated and streamlined.

Still, there are many photographers who either aren't close enough to one of these excellent labs to use them on a regular basis, or they just wish to do it all themselves. If this is you, one of the most affordable and simple solutions would be to get your own good-quality consumer film scanner with enough control features to produce digital images that won't let you down.

The most versatile option is a good flatbed scanner like the Epson V750 or V700. The virtue of these machines over dedicated film scanners is that you can scan negatives, slides or prints all on the same machine. This option could never replace a good lab for a professional, but it's such a cheap option there's no reason why every film shooter shouldn't have one at their disposal. Whether were scanning super-high resolution from 120 or 4x5, scanning instant prints for online sharing, or making a digital file from a darkroom print, we couldn't do it without our inexpensive, yet powerfully versatile at-home flatbed scanner.

VIRTUES OF THE EPSON V750/V700

The V750/V700 can be most useful with the right accessories and software. It's especially excellent when you're in a pinch, for example if you're needing to make a high-resolution scan for a client at the last minute, or if you process your own film and need a quick digital contact sheet to instantly proof an important photo shoot. These machines also offer great versatility. When using the Silverfast software that came with our V750 we can choose from different profiles for scanning almost any film imaginable, from Kodachrome to Portra. Those profiles are also customizable so that you can scan paper negatives or Fuji FP-100C Instant Negatives with little trouble.

FAULTS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE EPSON V750/V700

But be warned: scanning on the V750/V700 can be SLOW! Scanning all your film on a flatbed scanner will afford you plenty of time for coffee breaks and updating your highly important Facebook account, but in the end you'll have no time left for shooting! If you'll be scanning 20 rolls of high-resolution for a client, then you'd be better off paying the lab to do your scanning - that is, unless your time is worth less than minimum wage to you. The roll film carriers for the V750/V700 are slow to load and no matter what software you use each image needs to be corrected by hand and then, when finally ready to scan, you'll have to wait for each image to scan out before you can start on your next set of images.

Scanning 35mm can also be a challenge. Keeping the film perfectly flat is critical and the carrier Epson made for 35mm is very ineffective at this job. We try to wet-mount everything we scan, which really improves film flatness, but once again, that takes time.

HOW TO SCAN USING THE EPSON V750/V700

If you have a V750 or V700 or similar scanner the next question you will have is, "How do I get that great scan?" First, you'll need to have the right accessories and software. I mentioned Silverfast above as the software we prefer. It's the most advanced and efficient of the software options we've tried. It came free with our V750 but it's not too expensive to purchase separately if you didn't get it with yours. We have a basic workflow we use in Silverfast, but there are also many tutorials on scanning effectively on Silverfast's website. The main accessories you'll require will depend on what format you're working with. If you're shooting roll film, you should have the standard carriers for 35mm and 120 that came with your scanner. The standard wet mount carrier provided by Epson is also good to have because it will allow you to get the sharpest, dust free scan possible. A wet mount carrier is a must if you're shooting anything larger than medium format. But if you want the best results possible, we recommend checking out the accessories made by Doug Fisher at betterscanning.com.

Once you have your film and accessory in place, you'll be ready to scan. To set up your scanner and learn how to use your specific carrier, refer to your owner's manual or whatever information you have from the manufacturer. Be sure that you have a clean environment for scanning. Because dust will be your biggest enemy here, a dust-free work area and tools to clean your film will be of great value!

After your software has launched, select the type of original you're scanning from. You can also save frame-set presets in Silverfast so that in the future, if you'll be scanning the same format, mounted in the same carrier, with the same basic settings, you can save some time. Once everything is set correctly you'll want to click on the "Frame" tab in Silverfast to set the parameters for how each image is scanned. (We'll be describing the setting options as they're named in the Silverfast user interface from here on, but whatever software you use should have similar options.)

Now you're ready to perform the pre-scan. After the pre-scan is made you'll see a low-resolution version of the images you've mounted. Use the frame selection tool to select your first image. Then you'll want to set your DPI to 300 and the output dimensions to the size you'd like your final scan to be. Check to make sure your "Scan Type" is set to "48 Bit Color.' 

We'll assume you're scanning negative stock for this section. Pick the film type you're scanning in the "Film Type and Exposure" window. Feel free to experiment with different film profiles and use the one you like best. Now, select the expert mode button in the same window to get the RGB histogram which shows where your shadow and highlight points are for each color channel. Silverfast calls this the "Expansion" section. "Auto-tolerance" will be selected in this section - unselect it. If it isn't, select it and then unselect it. Now, make sure your highlights and shadows are not clipping on each channel by moving the vertical lines on the right and left of each color histogram. It's very important not to lose any highlight or shadow information that's contained in your film exposure! Your contrast is controlled by your film preset and can be adjusted in curves during or after the scan. Controlling the tolerance of each color channel is where you'll do most of your color management for your highlights and shadows.

Once your color looks close to what you want it to be, go ahead and adjust your exposure. After doing this you should be basically ready to scan. 

There are a million different settings on the left (in Silverfast) that you can use to fine-tune your image if you're scanning straight to 24-bit JPG, but we've found that the fastest way to go is to simply scan 48-bit TIFF and edit the scanned image using software you're more familiar with later to get the look you want.

If you're scanning multiple images in Silverfast, just "option-click" and drag your selection to the next exposure on your film. Go through the same film type "Expansion" tolerance and exposure settings you went through for the first frame. Once that image is ready to scan, move on to the remaining frames. After you've selected and adjusted your settings for all of the images you'll be scanning, press "SCAN" Save and name your images using whatever specifications you prefer. That's it! Now you can edit the images further in a program like Photoshop and save them out as standard 24-Bit Color files. There are many, many other powerful settings like "Digital-Ice" and "Selective-Color," but we don't generally use those. You can refer to Silverfast's website for tutorials on how to use these.

DIGITAL CONTACT PRINTS

Digital contact prints are a great way to see your images quickly and easily. This is a great example of how a digital tool can be used as a modern substitution for a commonly used analogue process. All you'll need is your wet mount carrier, another piece of glass and some tape. Just sandwich your negatives between the glass (inside or loose from their negative sleeving) and scan them all as one frame. You'll be able to quickly evaluate your exposures and composition to choose which images you want to take a closer look at. If you scan loose negatives you may even be able to check and compare sharpness to some extent.

GOT THE SCANS? MAKE A PRINT!

Today, with the figital workflow, you can easily shoot film and still have all the conveniences of digital images. But one thing you should never forget is that it isn't a photograph until you have a print. Photographic prints from digital files are what make this whole process worthwhile. That's why finding a pro lab you can trust should be your first priority as a photographer; not only will they save you time, having a print on photographic paper is impossible without one. These labs bring the figital workflow to completion with true archival photographic prints that'll last a lifetime.

It all begins with the scan! As I mentioned before, we generally prefer to have most of our film scanned either by our lab - Richard Photo Lab - or in studio on our Fuji Frontier, but scanning your own film at home doesn't need to be prohibitively complicated or expensive. With an eager spirit, a creative eye and a little time, you can enjoy the beauty of film with the endless possibilities of a figital workflow and never look back!

References:

TwinLensLife.com

BetterScanning.com

RichardPhotoLab.com

Silverfast.com

DigitalSilverImaging.com