Film only development with scans

[srider]

For a laugh I'm thinking of trying out my friends old Olympus OM10. Partly to see how much I've learned using digital SLRs over the last 3-4 years. Thing is, I'm not interested in getting prints, just scans on a CD.

Does anywhere do a film development+scanning service cutting out the prints?

[ehasler]

You could try Fuji www.fujilab.co.uk/index.asp

I use them for slide processing, and have been very happy with the results so far.

[beano500]

I've used Fuji and Lab35 - neither cheap, and have reservations about both on CD - but pertty good

[gravymaster]

Hi mate.
Interesting. Ive just nicked my dads old mamiya slr and Im doing the same! Will compare results

I think snappy snaps do from neg to cd.

Cheers,

Matt

[DustyC]

Jessops and boots do CDs as an extra to prints.

Infact probably all places do.

Perhaps you could do a deal with one of them for not wanting the prints.

[pdV6]

DustyC said:

Jessops and boots do CDs as an extra to prints. Infact probably all places do. Perhaps you could do a deal with one of them for not wanting the prints.

I suppose it depends whether they scan the prints or the negs...

[DustyC]

Jessops do the negs I believe. I think there must be an option on the developing machines to save images and chuck em on a disk.

[anonymous-user]

Most (especially high street) developers these days use digital mini labs. In these, the negs are developed then digitally scanned. The scanned image can be dumped to CD or, more usually it's passed through to a unit that generates the image by firing a laser onto the silver halide paper before it's fixed through the usual chemistry process.

This is how Jessops/Boots/Etc on the high street, can produce chemistry prints of digital images - the file just gets dropped into the process instead of a scanned neg.

So, theoretically the vast majority of developers have the ability to do this, but it's going to come down to how helpful they are. It's unlikely that someone like Boots is going to be botherd. But, either a quiet Jessops or more likely an independent lab rather than a high street chain will be able to sort you out a lower price.

[DustyC]

I have found that in my local Jessops it all comes down to what member of sales staff you talk to. One of the best was the developing bloke who actually came to talk to me about TVRs when i collected my films.

Now how did he guess I owned one?

[beano500]

...and not just stalking TVR owners?

[trackdemon]

I've just purchased a negative scanner from Ebay for a very reasonable price. I now only have my film processed (36 = £3.99 instead of £6.99) and scan the negs. Much cheaper and means you can digitize your old photo's to a higher standard than flatbed scanning your old prints. I'll be scanning my first set of negs tonight, so hopefully the quality will be up to scratch! I'll post a couple of the results here....

[pdV6]

trackdemon said:

I've just purchased a negative scanner from Ebay for a very reasonable price. I'll post a couple of the results here....

I'd be very interested in the results you get; I bought a neg/slide scanning unit for my HP flatbed scanner (basically a replcement lid including lightbox & neg holder) & the results are a little disappointing to say the least.

[ehasler]

pdV6 said:

I'd be very interested in the results you get; I bought a neg/slide scanning unit for my HP flatbed scanner (basically a replcement lid including lightbox & neg holder) & the results are a little disappointing to say the least.

In what way?

To get the best results, you really need a dedicated film scanner (although some of the newer flatbeds are getting close, e.g., the new Epson 4870), but even with these you will still need to tweak the images in Photoshop to boost contrast and get it looking how you like.

Even with a decent Nikon film scanner, it still takes a moment or two in PS for me to be happy with my slide scans, and this is after a fair bit of time reading up on scanning and colour correction, along with many hours of frustration and poor results!

Also, scanning negatives is less straight forward than slides, and will probably need a bit of playing around to get decent results, so it's certainly worth persisting with if you don't get great results straight out the box.

[pdV6]

ehasler said:

Even with a decent Nikon film scanner, it still takes a moment or two in PS for me to be happy with my slide scans, and this is after a fair bit of time reading up on scanning and colour correction, along with many hours of frustration and poor results! Also, scanning negatives is less straight forward than slides, and will probably need a bit of playing around to get decent results, so it's certainly worth persisting with if you don't get great results straight out the box.

Fair enough - I'm a bit of a numpty when it comes to things photographic.

The few slides I've done with it so far look for all the world like you've taken a thumbnail image and simply done a digital zoom on it Probably me not knowing how to drive the equipment/software properly I guess.

[ehasler]

I was too, and it took me ages to finally get to a stage where I was happy with the results. My scans used to come out looking really flat, with colours that just didn't match what was on the original slide. I was hoping that with a decent scanner, you'd just hit the button and 30 seconds later you'd get an amazing scan which looked exactly like the original slide, so was disappointed when this didn't happen!

Once you start getting used to tweaking the images to get it looking how you want, it does get easier.

There are some good books out there though which may help, so may be worth looking out for one, or some on-line tutorials.

[DustyC]

ehasler said:

I was too, and it took me ages to finally get to a stage where I was happy with the results. My scans used to come out looking really flat, with colours that just didn't match what was on the original slide. I was hoping that with a decent scanner, you'd just hit the button and 30 seconds later you'd get an amazing scan which looked exactly like the original slide, so was disappointed when this didn't happen! Once you start getting used to tweaking the images to get it looking how you want, it does get easier.

Glad Im not the only one.
I have always been against tweaking the images but it seems like you are all doing it.

How about this one (below). All I have done to it in PS Elements is;
1. Auto Levels (brings colours and contrast to a closer level to original).
2. Despeckle
3. Sharpen more.

But yet it still doesnt have the clout of the original. What would you suggest?

[ehasler]

I think you will always need to tweak the image, and it isn't really cheatinng, as boosting contrast, removing dust marks etc... is all stuff that people would do in a dark room anyway.
I don't tend to use Auto anything in PS, as I've found that I get better results doing it manually, but this was only after reading up on it in "Real Life Photoshop", which is a great book for learning how to use it for working with photos.

[DustyC]

Is it worth try to get hold of PhotoShop or should I just stick with Elements? I have PSP8 too which is a bit more useful for drawings rather than photo editing.

Does the crop tool work properly in PS? It doesent in elements.

[ehasler]

I've never really used Elements, and haven't used the crop tool that much in PS, but it's always worked when I've used it!

I got my copy cheap on ebay (well, not cheap cheap as it was an original sealed copy, but less than Adobe wanted for it!), and the main reason I got it was because all the tutorials and decent books I saw were focussed on PS proper rather than Elements or PSP, so I figured it may cost more to start with, but I'd learn how to use it a lot more quickly and easily.

So for this reason, I'd say that it is worth getting PS, but then again, if you can do everything you need to do in Elements, then there's no reason to upgrade just for the sake of it.