Slide, Negative Film, Photo Scanning: FREE Scanning Tips, Tricks, and Secrets

Now we’re getting the the meat and potatoes of scanning.  Let’s find out how we can get a high-quality, professional scan from your home scanner.  To recap, I’ve scanned a slide with an Epson V500 Photo scanner, and with the same slide scanned it with a Nikon 9000 ED Film scanner.  Here’s what I got:

So, what I’m going to show you is how to get as close a scan to the Nikon scan from your own home scanner.

Five years ago I bought a top of the line Microtek photo scanner.  Cost me close to $2000.  Funny thing now is, your own scanner, you bought today for $200, has even better scanning capabilities than my Microtek did.  But that’s technology for you.  Anyway, my point is that the hardware from your home scanner is good enough.  Whats not so good is the software they use.  You see, they need to license good scanning software like SilverFast, and Digital Ice technology.  The more expensive scanner you buy, the better software they offer.    It costs them a lot to license, which in turn they make you pay.  Of course, the higher price also means better hardware, but if you’re just doing your own family slides or photos, who cares that your scanner doesn’t have a 16-bit A/D converter.  It’s only the hard core graphic designers who care for those specs.  You still can get a decent image, and here’s how.

Here’s a screen shot of my colour adjustments with the Epson (yours could be a bit different, but that won’t be a problem, as you’ll see soon):

What I suggest in regards to adjusting your settings (colour, Digital Ice, etc) is DO NOT USE THIS.  Don’t even bother clicking on any buttons.  In fact, get as a natural scan as possible.  Your scanner is capable of picking up the pixels, but when it comes to colour correction, dust removal, etc, it’s useless.  But don’t worry.  I’ll show you how to do the “post processing” yourself.  It’s faster and the quality you get will be better than what your home scanner will give you.

So, you scanned your slide, photo, negative with the scanner’s “natural” settings; meaning, you didn’t use any of the adjustments they have setup for you.  You just scanned the original “as is”.

Now, let’s fix up that scan with some free but pwerful software called Gimp.  Gimp is an open source version of Photoshop.  It’s not as powerful as Photoshop, however it does get the job done.  Did I say it’s free?

Get Gimp here:  http://www.gimp.org/.

So let’s see how to adjust the colour and dust removal.  Load up Gimp, and open your scans.

Now that your image is open, head to Colors tab –> Auto –> Equalize.

After that, Colours tab –> Levels … and you get this:

See the black triangle/scoller (circled in red)?  Move that over to the right to darken your image.   Next, lets get rid of the dust/scratches:

Filters –> Enhance –> Despeckle.
And change the setting to about what I have here:

Hit Ok, and here’s your result:

And there you go.  It’s pretty close, and I used a really old/faded slide.  You’ll see if you have kept your originals in good condition, then you’d get better results.

Here, compare for yourself:

So, that’s it.  If you have any questions, you can always email me — Konrad, info@scancanada.ca.

If you want some real expertise, and want a pro to scan your originals, visit us at www.scancanada.ca and digitalcalgary.com.

Thanks for your time,
K.