Are these results good for scanned 35mm negative film?

[Albert Wiersch]

I bought a Canon 8000F to scan my negatives. This is an example of the
results I get:
http://www.wiersch.com/jpg/UTABusinessBuilding.jpg

Question:
The above is a full scan of a 10 year old 35mm negative taken with Kodak
Gold 200 film. It was taken by a Canon Rebel with a "kit lens". I scanned
the negative with my Canon 8000F with the unsharp filter and FARE set to
"soft".

1. Is this a reasonable quality scan?
2. Is the amount of grain and detail reasonable under the given
circumstances?
3. Because of the limitations of the film and the lower quality lens used to
take the photograph, is it true that I would not get a much better scan
using a more expensive or dedicated film scanner?

Aside from the slow speed of negative scanning, and an occasional problem
when the Canon software does not properly recognize the negatives when doing
a batch scan (the 8000F can scan up to 12 negatives at a time), I'm
satisfied with the scanner so far. But I am curious as to the results I'm
getting.

Please comment if you are experienced with scanning 35mm film negatives.

Thank you!

 

[David C Miers]

I would have to say all in all, it is doing a pretty good job. I'm not at
all sure what FARE is though. I took the liberty of putting it into an
editor to see what could be done with it and to be able to examine it blown
up. The noise wasn't bad at all and for the most part was quite good. I
would have like to have seen it saved as a tiff and I would suggest you save
your files as tiffs at least for editing. Running a jpeg artifact romoval
tool on this image helped considerably.

 

[Albert Wiersch]

I think FARE is like Digital ICE - uses infrared to remove dust and
scratches from film scans.

I'm glad you think it is doing a good job. I am saving these images as JPG
for storage but at a lower compression than the image I posted. The image I
posted was compressed more to get the file down to 1.3MB for people looking
at it over the Internet. I don't plan on doing much editing to these photos
so I think JPG is best for my purposes.

I did not know that JPG artifact removal tools existed.

 

[Jon Bell]

I bought a Canon 8000F to scan my negatives. This is an example of the
results I get:
http://www.wiersch.com/jpg/UTABusinessBuilding.jpg

Question:
The above is a full scan of a 10 year old 35mm negative taken with Kodak
Gold 200 film. It was taken by a Canon Rebel with a "kit lens". I scanned
the negative with my Canon 8000F with the unsharp filter and FARE set to
"soft".

1. Is this a reasonable quality scan?
2. Is the amount of grain and detail reasonable under the given
circumstances?

I've scanned a fair amount of Kodak 200 negative film myself (mostly Royal
Gold, not plain Gold) with a Nikon LS-40, and the grain in the sky is
about what I would expect. The sharpness of the scanner looks comparable
to my Nikon, or perhaps a little bit worse, but improving the sharpness
wouldn't gain you anything with this film anyway. You're probably limited
by the camera lens also, as I am by the stock lens on my Pentax K1000.

It looks like some of the highlights are blanking out, so you might try
playing with the settings on the scanning software and see if you can
bring them out a bit better, perhaps by reducing the exposure a bit or by
raising the "white point". (I have no idea how Canon's software works.)

Similarly some of the shadows look like they're completely submerged, so
you might look at similar adjustments at the other end of the brightness
scale.

With my Nikon, and VueScan software, I can capture the complete range of
brightness levels on the film. Because negatives have a wide exposure
latitude, this means I can usually get significant detail in both
highlights and shadows, at the cost of making the overall image come out a
bit "flat"; but that can be fixed in Photoshop easily enough.

Also, you might play around with whatever color-balance adjustments your
scanning software has. Your image has a bit of a yellowish/greenish
cast. But this is difficult to get right automatically.

 

[ggull]

. Running a jpeg artifact romoval
tool on this image helped considerably.

Hmm... I hadn't realized these were around (though I'd often thought it
wasn't an insoluble problem).

Any recommendations? a quick google only showed up Paint Shop Pro.

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

Hmm... I hadn't realized these were around (though I'd often thought it
wasn't an insoluble problem).

Any recommendations? a quick google only showed up Paint Shop Pro.

NeatImage also does a good job at this. There may be more dedicated
solutions around, but I never felt the need to look any further.

Bart

 

[ggull]

NeatImage also does a good job at this. There may be more dedicated
solutions around, but I never felt the need to look any further.

Thanks. I've downloaded the manual and demo and will test it out.

 

[David C Miers]

I'm using PSP 7 for the jpeg artifact removal as well as grain, scratch, and
smoothing of images. For me it beats my trial version of neat image,
photoshop 7, including the polaroid plugin hands down. It's only downfall
is not being able to use 16 bit images and overall it's slower then
photoshop. Howeverit is not slower then the copy of neat image I
downloaded. Often times I just use it for noise and continue to photoshop
for fine tuning of color etc. My biggest complaint with scanners is noise
and in that regard I thought his results of the Canon 8000F were quite good
assuming he had not worked on it at all. Yes, some of the highlights were
blown out, but it was nothing that couldn't be corrected in an image editor.
I compared it to my epson 2400 which has the same resolution as the Canon he
is using. Actually I notice more noise and dust etc from using a dedicated
film scanner then I do on a flatbed. However usually the color range is not
as good.

 

[Leonard Evens]

I bought a Canon 8000F to scan my negatives. This is an example of the
results I get:
http://www.wiersch.com/jpg/UTABusinessBuilding.jpg

Question:
The above is a full scan of a 10 year old 35mm negative taken with Kodak
Gold 200 film. It was taken by a Canon Rebel with a "kit lens". I scanned
the negative with my Canon 8000F with the unsharp filter and FARE set to
"soft".

1. Is this a reasonable quality scan?
No!

2. Is the amount of grain and detail reasonable under the given
circumstances?
3. Because of the limitations of the film and the lower quality lens used to
take the photograph, is it true that I would not get a much better scan
using a more expensive or dedicated film scanner?

Aside from the slow speed of negative scanning, and an occasional problem
when the Canon software does not properly recognize the negatives when doing
a batch scan (the 8000F can scan up to 12 negatives at a time), I'm
satisfied with the scanner so far. But I am curious as to the results I'm
getting.

Please comment if you are experienced with scanning 35mm film negatives.

Thank you!

 

[David C Miers]

No!

Hmmm, bear in mind it's only a 2400 dpi flatbed with the uncorrected results
displayed.

 

[Albert Wiersch]

No!

Can you elaborate on that? What's wrong with the scan? How "bad" is it? How
much better could it get considering the source? What is your experience
scanning negatives? What equipment do you use?

Thank you,
Albert

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

I bought a Canon 8000F to scan my negatives. This is an example of the
results I get:
http://www.wiersch.com/jpg/UTABusinessBuilding.jpg

Question:
The above is a full scan of a 10 year old 35mm negative taken with Kodak
Gold 200 film. It was taken by a Canon Rebel with a "kit lens". I scanned
the negative with my Canon 8000F with the unsharp filter and FARE set to
"soft".

1. Is this a reasonable quality scan?

Well it could certainly be improved. The shadows and highlights are
clipped and the overall gamma doesn't look right, as well as a slight
yellow tint.

2. Is the amount of grain and detail reasonable under the given
circumstances?

Under the circumstances - a 2400ppi flatbed scan of a 35mm negative -
they look very reasonable.

3. Because of the limitations of the film and the lower quality lens used to
take the photograph, is it true that I would not get a much better scan
using a more expensive or dedicated film scanner?

That is partly true. You will get a little more out of a better
flatbed, probably not enough to justify the cost though, and not because
of the limitations of the film, camera and lens. You can expect to get
a lot more, even with that film and equipment, using a dedicated film
scanner. I would expect much more detail (probably enough to clearly
discern the lettering under the STOP sign, its legible only because you
know what it is) and a lot less colour fringing (eg. the right edge of
the speed limit sign and the left edge of the foreground bike wheels). I
bet that fringing isn't there on the original slide if you look at it
with a loupe or project it - and it shouldn't be there on the scan
either!

Aside from the slow speed of negative scanning, and an occasional problem
when the Canon software does not properly recognize the negatives when doing
a batch scan (the 8000F can scan up to 12 negatives at a time),

I bet the Canon scans 12 negatives in less time than it takes a Nikon
LS-5000 or Minolta Elite 5400 to do it!

I'm
satisfied with the scanner so far. But I am curious as to the results I'm
getting.

Now isn't that the problem with curiosity? There you were quite happy
until that little monster call curiosity called by. And now? ;-)

 

[Albert Wiersch]

Well it could certainly be improved. The shadows and highlights are
clipped and the overall gamma doesn't look right, as well as a slight
yellow tint.

Thanks. I had not taken much notice of the blowouts and lack of shadow
detail. I didn't notice any yellow tint either.

That is partly true. You will get a little more out of a better
flatbed, probably not enough to justify the cost though, and not because
of the limitations of the film, camera and lens. You can expect to get
a lot more, even with that film and equipment, using a dedicated film
scanner. I would expect much more detail (probably enough to clearly
discern the lettering under the STOP sign, its legible only because you
know what it is) and a lot less colour fringing (eg. the right edge of
the speed limit sign and the left edge of the foreground bike wheels). I
bet that fringing isn't there on the original slide if you look at it
with a loupe or project it - and it shouldn't be there on the scan
either!

Don't have a loupe but I wish I did. I wonder if the lettering under the
STOP sign can really be made clear though, as I was using a "kit-lens".

I bet the Canon scans 12 negatives in less time than it takes a Nikon
LS-5000 or Minolta Elite 5400 to do it!

Can't imagine it being any slower!

Now isn't that the problem with curiosity? There you were quite happy
until that little monster call curiosity called by. And now? ;-)

I'm still relatively happy. I understand I'm not getting the absolute best
images. I don't really need the best images. It would be nice, but I realize
that I would be a happier person if I didn't always try to or have to have
the best! Though I wish I had bought the 9900F now because it can do up to
24 negatives at a time.

These are old photos I'm scanning and they look good enough. I'll be happy
to have them all scanned into the computer.

Albert

 

[ggull]

I'm using PSP 7 for the jpeg artifact removal as well as grain, scratch, and
smoothing of images. For me it beats my trial version of neat image,
photoshop 7, including the polaroid plugin hands down.

<snip>
I was specifically interested in the possibility of a tool that would target
jpeg artifacts. I've played around with general smoothing filters in
Photoshop, but it seems like one should be able to do better if one knows
the problem is due to jpeg compression, e.g. loss of terms in the cosine
transform.

I did check out Neat Image a bit, but it looks like a steep learning curve;
there's also nothing specifically about jpeg artifact removal, so I suspect
the mention on the web site's first page is just on the basis of its being a
noise reduction tool (and you could maybe target 1-pixel and 8-pixel
frequencies).

PSP, otoh, sounds like they do have an algorithm based specifically on the
workings of jpeg.

I'm mainly interested in the context of trying to tweak a bit more out of
images on the web, where a physical original (or an uncompressed / higher
resolution / less compressed file) isn't available.

 

[David C Miers]

PSP, otoh, sounds like they do have an algorithm based specifically on the
workings of jpeg.

I mainly only deal with TIFF files so I'm no expert on this feature of PSP,
but it is there. It has 4 strength settings and amount of "crisp" variable
from 1-100. The documentation specifies that the data has been lost and
what PSP does is only a guess. It cannot actually reclaim the data. I've
noted it does help in some cases and not in others. In the situation of the
file submitted to begin with with this thread it did help some in my
opinion. I am primarily pleased with PSP because of it's ability to
eliminate grain, dust, and scratchs without significant loss of image detail
without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. It's also great for
removing or changing color casts.

 

[ggull]

I mainly only deal with TIFF files so I'm no expert on this feature of PSP,
but it is there. It has 4 strength settings and amount of "crisp" variable
from 1-100. The documentation specifies that the data has been lost and
what PSP does is only a guess. It cannot actually reclaim the data. I've
noted it does help in some cases and not in others. In the situation of the
file submitted to begin with with this thread it did help some in my
opinion. I am primarily pleased with PSP because of it's ability to
eliminate grain, dust, and scratchs without significant loss of image detail
without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. It's also great for
removing or changing color casts.

Sounds like PSP is worth investigating. At 10% the cost of PS, it's a good
deal even if you just use it for a few specific purposes.

(In theory, what I'd do if I were writing a utility to correct jpeg
artifacts would be to note that the 'lost data' has a specific form, e.g.
missing terms in the cosine transform of each 8x8 box [and I think terms
with fewer bits in the coefficient], then add those terms back in and adjust
the coefficients to optimize some overall criterion such as smooth gradient
in the sky, or a straight line, or...? Seems like it would need some user
input to specify what the image 'should' look like. But the artifacts are
regular and obvious, so it should be possible to do something beyond generic
smearing.)

 

[Leonard Evens]

Can you elaborate on that? What's wrong with the scan? How "bad" is it? How
much better could it get considering the source? What is your experience
scanning negatives? What equipment do you use?

A scanner like the Nikon 400ED will do much better.

 

[pioe[rmv]]

http://www.wiersch.com/jpg/UTABusinessBuilding.jpg

1. Is this a reasonable quality scan?

No.

It is way below what could be achieved with a dedicated film scanner.

The details are smeared out, in a film scanner they would have been
sharply resolved. Even the very cheapest of film scanners would have
surpassed your scan here.

Please do not take umbrage at my words, I want to be honest with you: A
flatbed scanner cannot possibly give the clarity and definition which
your photographs deserve.

Per Inge Oestmoen, Norway

 

[Douglas MacDonald]

The scan has completed well enough but you need to do a bit of "grain
Surgery" on the noise in the sky and some dust and scratch removal as well.
Canon's FARE is better not used on film. So... You need: Polaroid's dust and
scratch remover and either Digital GEM (Kodak) or Grain Surgery to fix the
photos up. Oh, don't forget Photoshop or it's rival software too.

This is a really good demonstration of why Professionals don't use Canon
scanners and for that matter, almost ANY flatbed scanner for 35mm negatives.
You can get base level professional results but the time it takes to achieve
that quality is outside what Pro's would call reasonable.

You can, with a little patience make this photo look like you obviously
expect it to. If however, you just bought this scanner and it was
specifically bought for negatives... Send it back for a refund. I don't know
your country's consumer laws but in Australia I got a refund from Canon
(probably the first in history) because they promoted this scanner as a
professional tool but I couldn't scan and process a 36 exp film in a normal
working day.

Stay away from their dedicated film scanner too. They are no better. Canon
simply do not have a product worth using for scanning film. An almost
essential feature of any film scanner should be the Digital ICE dust and
scratch control features.

I have just bought an Epson 4870 which has ICE and although the results are
so far above what you can expect from a Canon, it still takes over 30
minutes to scan a MF 6x9cm negative at 4800 dpi with ICE enabled. For 35mm
stuff it will probably do 10 to 15, maybe 20 minutes but even that is hardly
good enough to scan a couple of rolls of 36 exp and print the results in one
day.

Originally I thought I might shoot a 100 frames of a wedding on film (645)
and scan the film, printing the initial proofs over the weekend (I worked
during the week then). Of course you simply cannot do this with these low
end, so called "Professional" scanners. Even with the top end Minolta or
Nikon dedicated scanners, you'd be hard pressed to achieve that sort of
workflow.

Now... My solution is to use a slide duplicator I picked up cheaply and my
EOS 10D DSLR. I can "copy" a couple of hundred negatives in a day and use
all the features of Photoshop CS to achieve what I set out to do... The
thing is, now I have the DSLR, there is no need to bother with film!!

Douglas

 

[Bruce Graham]

Stay away from their dedicated film scanner too. They are no better. Canon
simply do not have a product worth using for scanning film. An almost
essential feature of any film scanner should be the Digital ICE dust and
scratch control features.

but the Canon FS4000 film scanner DOES have an infrared channel and these
days Vuescan does an excellent job of dust and scratch removal with that
scanner. For that matter the Canon software does that part of the job
well too.

Now if I was a pro, I would probably buy the Nikon because it is faster,
and possibly has better noise performance, but as an amateur I am very
happy with the MUCH less expensive Canon.

I have just bought an Epson 4870 which has ICE and although the results are
so far above what you can expect from a Canon, it still takes over 30
minutes to scan a MF 6x9cm negative at 4800 dpi with ICE enabled. For 35mm
stuff it will probably do 10 to 15, maybe 20 minutes but even that is hardly
good enough to scan a couple of rolls of 36 exp and print the results in one
day.

I assume you are not saying that the Epson 4870 is better than the Canon
FS4000, but rather that it is better than the Canon flatbed??

The Canon FS4000 performance is much better in resolution and speed. You
get genuine 4000dpi and a scan speed (with a SCSI interface) worst case
of about 5 mins/frame (that is with longest exposure and a separate
infrared pass). Vuescan will take some extra time cleaning, adjusting
colour and saving however. Maybe you were using the USB 1.1 connection
which is a lot slower.