Which of these scanning troubles do you want to overcome? Click on the Digital ICE buttons, and click SCAN!.
Do you want Archive quality scans? Use 4000 DPI. Do you want HDTV quality scans? Use 1500 DPI.Tell your scanner what you're scanning by picking the right format (slide/positive film or negative film).Load up your scanner, and start your scanner software. Here's what I want you to do, RIGHT NOW to get your first slide or negative scan from a regular flatbed scanner: But if you find Digital ICE is good enough, great! But if you want to higher quality scans, you'll need to use more advanced programs to fix your scans. I personally use GIMP or Photoshop to fix my slide and negative scans. In my experience, Digital ICE TAKES away important detail. Grain Reduction: are you getting grainy / noisy negative scans? Grain reduction helps remove grain.Color Restoration: helps with faded or dull colours.Unsharp Mask: gives more depth to the pixels to give you a sharper image (good for blurry slides / negatives).Dust Removal: Digital ICE can't fix dust and scratches on black and white images, so use Dust Removal instead.Digital ICE: will remove dust and scratches.Here's what those fancy Digital ICE buttons mean and do: Lastly, your scanner will want to know if you want to fix dust, scratches and colour. Do You Want To Fix Dust, Scratches, Colour Fade But for now, here's what DPI I recommend for scanning 35mm slides or negatives: 1500 DPI if you want 4圆, HDTV quality (2 mega pixel, 1200 x 1800 digital image) 4000 DPI if you want 24x36, Archive quality (18 mega pixels, 3600 x 5400 digital image). DPI is basically how big you want your digital image to be. Next, your scanner is going to ask you what resolution or DPI you want to scan your slide or negative at. How Big Do You Want Your Scans (Resolution) So, here's a cheat-sheet for all the various names for slides or negatives: 2. Your scanner is probably going to call this something else. It wants to know what TYPE of film I'm scanning?
Here's what my scanner's software looks like: Basically, are you scanning slides, negatives or photos? Once you load up your scanner and open your software, you'll need to let your scanner know what you are scanning. So you can follow along.Įvery scanner needs THREE things from you: 1. All the buzzwords I'm about to throw at you will look familiar. But don't worry if you have a different scanner. In this example, I'm going to use my Epson. Now that you know you don't need to spend thousands of dollars to scan slides or negatives, lets jump into how. How To Use A Regular Flatbed Scanner To Transfer Slides Or Negatives Into Digital Let's get back to scanning your slides and negatives. While my Nikon has Digital ICE Advanced 4.Īnd to be honest, there's not too much of a difference between Digital ICE Standard vs. My Epson has the standard Digital ICE version. Features such as Digital ICE - which removes dust and scratches, and fixes colours. So to compete, they add extra scan features. Scanner manufacturers know that their competitors do the same thing. So if both scanners give you the same 4000 DPI scans, what are you paying for then? And when you compare the scans, pixel to pixel, there's not much of a difference. Both scanners can get you a 4000 DPI slide or negative scan. Here's the funny thing: both scanners do the SAME thing. I use a regular Epson V500 in this example. Let's get you your first slide or negative scan! Why You Don't Need An Expensive Scannerįirst, I want to tell you that you don't need some expensive scanner. If you don't learn and use the tips I'm about to show you, you might waste time trying to figuring out what all those technical buttons mean.
Your regular flatbed scanner will do the job, too. You don't need an expensive film scanner. In this article you're going to see how you can start transferring your slides or negatives into digital right away using.