Manage 35mm digitally?

[marioman38]

How would i import, manage, edit, and print my 35mm negatives (specific applications/hardware pls)

-I'm currently in a Photo II class, and being in highschool, i dont have a lot of money...

Also what does aperture exactly do? For some reason i though it was a competitor to PS, but now i realize its not... Is it like iPhoto's Pro app?? How about LightRoom whats its purpose??

- Sorry for the dumb Q's, i've been into video editing (FCP) for a few years now, but am just starting to get into photo...

 

[SuperCompu2]

Get a flatbed scanner. DPI is important, you want it nice and high. Your negatives and developed photos should do nicely on a unit with a large HD and a nice flatbed scanner. My friend uses LightRoom, and adores it. Ive never used Aperture, but I've heard good things about it as well.

They make FireWire Scanners, but I think you should be alright with a USB model. Especially on a HS budget.

Hope this helps.

 

[compuwar]

How would i import, manage, edit, and print my 35mm negatives (specific applications/hardware pls)

-I'm currently in a Photo II class, and being in highschool, i dont have a lot of money...

Also what does aperture exactly do? For some reason i though it was a competitor to PS, but now i realize its not... Is it like iPhoto's Pro app?? How about LightRoom whats its purpose??

- Sorry for the dumb Q's, i've been into video editing (FCP) for a few years now, but am just starting to get into photo...

It really depends on how many negatives you have, having them scanned appears to currently be between .19 and .98 per negative strip, if you're not still shooting film, that may be the cheapest option, though it may not provide you with the ultimate in control.

Unlike the previous poster, I'd recommend getting a film scanner if you want to scan the yourself- a lot of it depends on what your time is worth and what your intended use is but film scanners generally do a better job than flatbeds unless you're scanning large format film.

Back when I shot film, the Nikon Coolscan and Minolta Dimage lines were the top of the at home 35mm scanner tree. I'm not sure how things stack up today.

 

[marioman38]

Wow, those coolscans sure are nice, but at $600+ used on ebay, its not really in my budget... I found a Canon Canoscan4000US, but it apears they dont have drivers for OSX... Will I really be able to notice a huge difference with a flatbed? Afterall, im currently shooting B&W...

- Once i scan the photos, I assume i would import them into LightRoom where they would be stored in my library? What is the prosumer iPhoto equevelent?

Thanks for the help....

edit: would this scanner be decent? (High enough resolution etc?)

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelTechSpecsSupportAct&fcategoryid=235&modelid=13977

 

[shieldyoureyes]

I'd recommend a Epson 4490. You can get them for around $150 if you look hard enough, and they provide excellent scans.

 

[compuwar]

Wow, those coolscans sure are nice, but at $600+ used on ebay, its not really in my budget... I found a Canon Canoscan4000US, but it apears they dont have drivers for OSX... Will I really be able to notice a huge difference with a flatbed? Afterall, im currently shooting B&W...

- Once i scan the photos, I assume i would import them into LightRoom where they would be stored in my library? What is the prosumer iPhoto equevelent?

Thanks for the help....

edit: would this scanner be decent? (High enough resolution etc?)

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelTechSpecsSupportAct&fcategoryid=235&modelid=13977

It depends a lot on how picky you are. I had a lot of issues with film flatness (which affects focus on the scan) with roll film and 35mm on a flat bed that went away with the holders of a film scanner. At the time, putting the film in holders on a flatbed affected focus enough to bother me. The other question is if you get the right software with a flatbed- the software for dealing with dust and grain may be interesting to you- or you may be fine with cleaning the film prior to scanning. Apple's Lightroom equiv. is Aperture- there's not a middle ground between iPhoto and the Pro application.

 

[jmrnavydoc]

How would i import, manage, edit, and print my 35mm negatives (specific applications/hardware pls)

-I'm currently in a Photo II class, and being in highschool, i dont have a lot of money...

Also what does aperture exactly do? For some reason i though it was a competitor to PS, but now i realize its not... Is it like iPhoto's Pro app?? How about LightRoom whats its purpose??

- Sorry for the dumb Q's, i've been into video editing (FCP) for a few years now, but am just starting to get into photo...

I shoot B&W 35mm film and scan it in with my Epson 4180 Photo flatbed scanner, scanning at 4800dpi. Perfect for my needs as a hobbist: Great resolution, works easily with my mac, very reasonably priced, comes with own software for scanning, more than enough (probably) for a high school student. also has adaptors for slides and medium format film if you decide to move into different formats. Only downside is it takes a long time for each photo at that resolution, but produces LARGE files to edit.

Aperature (by Apple) and Lightroom (Adobe's version) are pro applications designed for organizing, managing and batch processing of photos -- like large lightboxes of old. Photoshop is more of a digital darkroom -- lots more power and options to adjust pics for final printing. I scan from my epson, load to aperature (maybe lightroom in near future), quickly adjust curves and look at the pics under the digital loupe, then open in photoshop for further editing (resize, crop, noise reduction, cleaning, sharpening, dodge/burn/blur, borders, etc), then print directly from photoshop to my epson r320 photo printer - 8x11s. Works well for me.

Good luck, enjoy

 

[filmamigo]

Wow, those coolscans sure are nice, but at $600+ used on ebay, its not really in my budget... I found a Canon Canoscan4000US, but it apears they dont have drivers for OSX... Will I really be able to notice a huge difference with a flatbed? Afterall, im currently shooting B&W...

If you are getting your film developed at a lab, I have found that the best thing to do is have them scan and burn a CD at the same time. My lab can process C41 colour, E6, and black & white in 35mm or medium format (120), and scan any of these onto a CD. Their Noritsu scanner gives much better results than any flatbed scanner ever could, and saves me the time of scanning. (Don't underestimate that -- I easily spend 10 to 15 minutes scanning each frame on a flatbed scanner, and that's before I even start editing in Photoshop.) The Noritsu scans I am getting are 3000x2000, the same size of file as produced by a 6mp DLSR. You may have to ask your lab to scan at the highest resolution possible, because a lot of labs scan and burn to CD at lower resolutions by default. For $5 and no time, I get a CD full of high-res scans. I have made prints up to 24"x24" and they look really good.

I would love to have a Nikon scanner, but $800 is a lot of money compared to $5 per roll. If I was shooting a lot more (like 150 rolls/year) then I would think about it, but the desktop scanners are slow and I would spend all of my downtime scanning film.

One more hint -- if you don't want to scan your film at the same time as you have it developed (or if you develop it yourself), ask the lab the leave your film uncut. It is usually MUCH cheaper to have a whole roll, uncut, scanned at once. For example -- $5 for a whole roll of 24, or $0.99 per frame from cut film.

 

[filmamigo]

Here is a sample scan from my lab. This was 120 film, scanned at 2000x2000, with no editing at all. I simply resized it for easier web posting:

 

[seenew]

on a related note, can someone recommend a 35mm negative scanner in the $250-300 range? Or one I can find on ebay for that much? I started taking photo classes at SCAD this year, and I thought it would be good to have digital backups of my negatives, but my combo print/copy/scanner from Canon only gets up to 600dpi, to my knowledge. Fine for scanning prints, but not negatives.

 

[ksz]

^^^ I've heard good things about HP's new 6-color flatbed scanners, the model G4010 for $150 and its bigger brother the G4050 for $200. Both will scan slides and negatives with allegedly high quality. I haven't used them myself since I have a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000ED slide/negative scanner with the (unjustifiably expensive) 50-slide auto-feeder.

Here's a review of the G4050.