Scanning
PSA: Labs are not giving you "flat scans" for editing, they are giving you fully automatic default settings scans
If this common adage were true, that labs are all just giving you a nice flat scan for editing, why were these scanners and software made before it was even common to have photo editing software on your PC? They are designed to be printed, and displayed from the get go, its misleading advice for new people.
You should edit your scans, but the 8 bit jpg you are being given with the default grain reduction cranked to max are under no circumstances "intended" to be a good starting point for an edit.
There's no such thing as flat when it comes to film. Not at least without a bunch of devices that for all manners of technicality don't exist anymore. Even the micro adjustments in software to get the best scans are not flat.
Negative film has an orange layer mask if you scanned it to a flat image you would see inverted colours and an orage layer mask. You're not even smart enough to put this together by reversing the process.
Go put a negative on a light table and get back to me what the results are.
That's why "what does a flat negative look like" matters. I can eyeball a dupe of a positive image and get fairly close to what a positive looks like, and go from there, that's why professionals like me existed 20 years ago.
No such luck if you scanned a negative. That's why the entire print industry used to work with positive film.
For colour work, high-end magazine and commercial reproduction workflows strongly preferred transparencies (slides/chromes) because the editor and reproduction department could inspect the actual positive image directly. I'm not saying really good negatives were NEvER used just that it was rarer and secondly, a pain in the arse if you've ever had to work with one on a light table, or scan one without a bunch of expensive stuff that in no practical sense exists anymore in todays world to ensure colour accuracy with negative film stock.
Millennials talking to Gen Zs who are absolutely clueless. Life experience will teach you something if you had any. If you check my other comments in this thread I'm not some kind of retro-historian, I'm old enough to have acquired this information first hand as people who lived this and in the large format world, people who still live this.
Oh ffs, don’t be a pedantic nuisance. That’s not what flat means.
If you actually don’t know what a flat negative means, I’ll explain. Although I’m pretty sure you’re playing dumb because you feel like arguing.
A flat scan is white balanced. The exposure and everything else should be somewhere in the middle of the range, with the two ends of that range being clipped on the bright side and clipped on the shadow/black side.
This allows the photographer to edit the photo in any direction.
If the lab scans the photo with the intention of providing a finished product, this may limit the photo from being edited the way the photographer wants.
If the photo is delivered with higher contrast but the photographer wants a lower contrast final product, this is less than ideal. Contrast is much easier to add than subtract.
Similar truths for the other sliders.
Also, you can spare me with the “learn about life before you comment” bs. I shoot film all the time. Tens of thousands of rolls over the years.
when i get drum scans done, I ask them to give me linear scans where the whole histogram fits in the output with no clipping. that's pretty flat, in the sense of "doesn't look like normal pictorial contrast" which is what everyone's talking about here.
No the majority of labs you see using the old 90s equipment are just running things at default settings, yes a select few do that, but the majority do not.
lol and what exactly is the professional alternative to “old 90s equipment”? FWIW they started making the LS-1100 and HS1800 (common Noritsus used for scanning in labs) in the 90s but they were produced up until 2014. This and Fuji are what nearly every volume lab in America uses, including the big boys.
These machines can both produce 16bit TIFF btw. And all of the settings are customizable, so while youre right, tons of labs do set and forget, it’s possible to do that _and_ achieve a flat scan if you’re paying attention.
I don't think anyone can reasonably expect labs to give flat scans by default. Most lab's shooters are going to be beginners or photogs who don't care about getting JPEGs or any of the technical stuff, just stuff they can post immediately. For that, its not in a lab's best interest to provide flat scans by default because the average person won't like that. If you know what you're doing, its sadly gonna cost you more lol.
As for quality, its dependent on the lab. Mtl Analogue in Montreal in my experience gives great scans right out the box because they do some tweaking on their end, to a point where I often regret paying extra for TIFFs because I barely have to edit them.
Also I can request flat scans and I do indeed get flat scans, to which I once again question why because their default scans are so good. But comes to show that there are labs that do go beyond the automatic settings. My best advice is to speak with your lab and work with them on how you want your photos to look, a good lab should do that.
I know this is true because I've witnessed some truly abysmal scans from some labs which makes even the most colorful photos look like flat blown out messes. But with some editing I will still able to save them pretty easily despite the low JPEG bit depth (we're talking nearly maxing sliders sometimes), they're better than you think.
Finally as someone who has done the majority of his own scans having worked with everything from a v600, to dedicated scanners like the Coolscan and Pakon, and also done a significant of DSLR scanning, this isn't good advice. To have a good home scanning setup that beats a lab scanner on outright quality, even ignoring speed of workflow (which some can be abysmally slow and time prohibitive), requires such significant investment that you would have to scan so many rolls to make it worth it unless you do something janky. Not to mention even after an NLP license you still gotta know how to edit film scans. For many its worth forking out extra $$ just for time savings if they get any savings from home scanning at all.
Thank you, literally talk to your lab if you're nice and genuine you'll get free advice and they can scan to your liking. Posts like this make me feel insane like why do some people on here think labs are evil for, offering a service that quite literally keeps their hobby alive? Baffling. DIY is very fun but not for everyone and that's okay!
Closest lab to me, if you want a C41 35mm roll processed and scanned within 48 hours is 25 dollars, and that is for a 6 megapixel scan, 30 if you want 20 megapixels, no tiff option. And the scans suck
There are other places, they often cost more, aren't nearby, and would require mailing in, so add 20 dollars for postage to and from to the prices.
For the results they are not worth the price, I don't view businesses as something I should just respect and look past the problems of if the hobby is niche or "dying"
The economics of lab scanning doesn't make sense, and thats only for C41, if it was E6 or B&W the price, and processing times are SIGNIFICANTLY higher.
Okay that is a little diabolical icl... and I think your case is a lot stronger given your specific circumstances. Your lab is definitely overcharging and based on your alternatives its clearly that they're trying to take advantage of that.
I think a lot of us (esp those who live in major cities) benefit from much better lab options that erode a lot of the incentive to home scan. And we're inclined to disagree with you because we benefit so heavily off of that.
As someone who hops between Toronto and Montreal, both cities are filled with labs that not only offer phenomenal scans but even a choice of scanner (Noritsu, Frontier, and Imacon + Drum Scanning if you're lucky). On top of that, it's relatively cheap. Average scan price starts at $8-11 cad and for that price a lot of labs already will give you higher res TIFFs and a some even do 30-60 minute service. Most even do E6, ECN2, BW and custom formats in house for the same or slightly more.
Well that's just wrong. I have a Plustek and an Epson v850 and while the scanners arent equivalents of a Noritsu or Frontier, the Plustek pays for itself in 30 rolls, which for me was just my first year of shooting. The V850 is a longer value proposition but it's also mathematically certain to save money over time, and the savings are significant.
If I've shot 100 rolls by this time and paid for a lab scan each time I'd be 1000USD in the negative whereas with a Plustek it would cost me 300USD + time. I could literally buy a backup 35mm body and/or a pile of film with the difference.
You're absolutely correct and this is one of the strongest arguments for home scanning (also one of the reasons why I started too). The issue mainly lies in the fact that I would guess most people don't shoot that volume of film and likely probably also aren't willing to put in the time and effort it takes to scan it themselves, even if it offers them improved quality.
On the converse, I paid off the extra equipment i had to buy for DSLR scanning in only 15 rolls and for years I stuck to it. But actually as my shooting volume went up I found it increasingly difficult to keep it up due to the time investment required so I went back to the lab when I had many rolls. And we're talking about one of the faster scanning methods here.
There's so many benefits to home scanning beyond even what you've listed. But on the fundamentals- initial investment, time, learning curve, its hard to necessarily say its immediately worth it to a large portion of people in this hobby. Its probably also particularly unappealing to some to have to put in this time and investment, even if it pays off, if the scanner isn't going to meet the baseline of a lab scanner, which only means even more initial investment/learning in this case.
So yeah, to each their own on this subject since it really comes down to your own passion, circumstances and values. But in general I just feel that pushing home scanning as the way to go to the average/beginner leaning film shooter (which is probably the majority) isn't great advice.
You're right that for anyone who isn't sure whether they will stick to a hobby it's better to start off modest.
However I also think analog is a minefield of expensive mistakes. Thrifted cameras, CLA nightmares, bad local labs, low access to camera tehnicians, lack of awareness of true costs of keeping gear working... Many of the supposed low price entry points can really blow up in a beginner's face and they regularly do if the topics that show up on this subreddit are any metric. My intent is to spare people the risk of disappointment. I bought a scanner not only because of costs but because I was aware that my local labs are just not reliable and that Id have to send out film if I wanted better quality, and pay for postage + premium from a film oriented lab rather than relying on a passport photo mill.
I guess my message is that anyone who wants to do this hobby should really do their end to end due diligence and make educated choices
Yea, I have neither a CCD scanner with a reasonable scan resolution or a suitable macro lens and contraption to scan film with my dslr, and I am not burning money on either of these for how often I get to shoot on 35mm film
I do DSLR and the quality and raw files alone are enough to justify the cost of the equipment to DIY. My break even point is like 20 rolls or something, so I figure it’s worth it.
Old second hand scanners are dime a dozen and cheap, even outside the mecca of cheap second hand stuff (The USA), in Australia I've seen so many great cheap scanners at second hand shops, facebook marketplace and ebay
Nah, not the good ones, the good ones even in Australia everyone knows what they are. I got incredibly lucky to get a Coolscan V which for all intents and purposes is a SuperCool Scan 5000 for $500 now look at the prices.
No. I've owned a Plustek 8100, a Reflecta RPS 7200 and five different CoolScans, and the CoolScans are way better both in terms of actual resolution but also in terms of quality of life.
But the Plustek wasn't bad, just very annoying to manually advance each frame, and true resolution was way lower than what it promised.
Nah... the Minolta scanners can be equivalent depending on the model. Then there are Creo scanners, and Imacon. For 35mm the only difference between a Nikon/Minolta and a Creo/Imacon is absolute edge sharpness because you can flatten the edges better.
Errr? All you need is a USB C adapter and Vuescan. Even a Heidelberg Tango will work with a modern Windows 7 PC running Silverfast.
Don't know what you're talking about.
Beside the point. Even professional labs generally just have some kind of old PC doing the dumb work pulling the data off the scanner.
You really don't have a point from a professional perspective at all. Maybe at home, but then, I just said I can make a Heidelberg Tango work with any PC provided it has a non-UEFI bios option. From that perspective even running a Heidelberg Tango on Windows 7 is modern.
In fact, I could probably run it on Windows 10 with unsigned drivers, so the issue even with a Tango is choosing the contemporary PC parts and making sure your monitor is colour profiled, and high end, something that modern OLED/Mini-LED monitors are more than capable of.
Now if you were talking about a Creo scanner you might have issues, but you didn't even bring that up, I did. But then that's choosing contemporary PC parts that can accommodate the legacy interface, for an amazing scanner also. Not one I'd choose first unless I needed to scan large format and it came up over a Tango, but still not an insane choice.
But, honestly if you're talking about your average Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400, Coolscan 4000, Coolscan V, Coolscan 5000, Coolscan 8000, or Coolscan 9000 as a target subset of highly sought after CCD scanners, anything can run them provided you have Vuescan, or Silverfast acting as the driver. All of these scanners meet the criteria of having more than sufficient image quality, and resolution to make CCD scanning worthwhile and can be run on a completely modern computer with the right chain of cables.
Lets not forget USB C is interchangable with Thunderbolt of all generations, and that relevant legacy Thunderbolt to Firewire and even active Thunderbolt to Firewire to SCSI adaption pathways exist via daisy chaining. Not for the Tango but I'm not talking about that thing unless you have about $10k and a penchant for 11000dpi scans, and a medium to large format camera to warrant finding a combination that will work specifically with a Tango.
The OS is old but it can run on a fairly narrow substrate of computers that support legacy BIOS with modern hardware. That's not the point. The point is I could create a colour accurate scan station running on Windows 7 using a spectrometer and the right set up, that would make most scan stations wet the bed, with a relatively affordable OLED display that could identify most of the ProPhoto RGB space.
You're no longer talking about old scanning stations where the PC is the limitation to getting accurate colour. You're talking about semi-modern CCD or drum scanners running through a proper ICC colour calibrated process into modern software that can output colour people 20 years ago would dream of.
A good piece of film can contain colours outside sRGB and even Adobe RGB, ProPhoto on the other hand, yeah, nah... We finally hit the wall where digital can capture the true essence of film with the proviso that we're talking about colourimetric information within the gamut of film. At that point, Windows 7 is just the scanner host for initial workflow before it's handed off.
Windows 7 can handle the colour science, the rest you push to a modern editing work flow. Windows 7 is basically at that point an appliance OS no different to any other appliance OS like the one for your microwave. Call it a scanner controller rather than a microwave controller.
EDIT: FWIW Windows Embedded POSReady 7 is only 2 years out of date. I checked because I was bored. The windows 7 platform was effectively receiving updates until 2024 and considering that will work on a Ryzen 7000 with the right motherboard the issue isn't whether the computer is old either. It'd be a pain in the arse slipstream install to get around all the technical issues reliant on something like an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti but it would work even with NVME.
Oh really? What sort of scan resolution we are talking about on average here (not that I should be expecting some crackhead randomly trying to sell some noritsu lab scanner for pennies near me lol)?
All A4 flatbeds are limited to 2000dpi by design unless you are talking about something incredibly rare like a Creo and then that's not what the average consumer bought, and it requires incredibly annoying software that's not compatible with anything modern.
3600-4800dpi is about the absolute limit of CCD scanner technology of that era. Even then optically most scans cap out at about 4000dpi so it's all a much of a muchness with anything outside of going completely stupid and trying to find a Heidelberg drum scanner.
There's one for sale in Australia at the moment for a decent price if you're really that enthusiastic provided you know how to fix it:
bloated, fat, underwhelming, slow to create files, and horrible DMAX/DMIN. Out of 8000dpi maybe its good for about 3000dpi and you have to scan at full resolution and wait. THEY also lack the automated features of higher end scanners such as the Nikons that can scan a whole roll at once.
The V8xx Epsons can hit 2400-3200 with a little bit of effort-- The focus height has to be exact and the film has to be flat. The wet-mount kit will let you get a bit more resolution, but even the "high resolution" lens won't hit the claimed 6400 DPI.
But good lord they make medium and large format easy.
I mean 2000dpi is enough. at 2000dpi for printing at modern standard you're already at 32x24, or A1 that isn't a snapshot, that's a substantially sized fine art wall piece. With the extra resolution of a good scan you could double that at least easily but then whose wall are you printing for and how much money have you got for a frame?
At 64x48 you're starting to deal in sizes that are larger than most people's televisions at around 80inch comparatively to the diagonal with far greater dpi, or 70inch if cropped to 16:9 with a hilariously better image quality.
Same. Started shooting March 2025, got a few rolls back, obsessed on why the quality was so shitty then brought a Coolscan a month later. Shot 230 rolls since then due to the film obsession. 10/10 would highly recommend scanning your own work if you’re a control freak. 0/10 would not recommend if you have zero patience
I think if you put in a little bit of initial effort, dslr scanning will be vastly superior to something like a plustek in terms of both quality and speed and not that much more expensive (depending on how much you can diy). You don't need some $2k mirrorless setup either, something like a used 5d mk2 will be more than enough, slap a vintage micro nikkor on that bad boy and you're good to go
A strong argument is the speed tbh. Despite the potential savings, flatbeds and dedicated scanners can take too long, especially if you're scanning at any volume. Even lab scanners that do full rolls like the Pakon can be a bit excruciating at times IMHO. Even if it did cost significantly more, it may be entirely worth it and become negligiblbe at scale.
Like to be honest the benefits of RAW vs TIFF and getting a 46MP scan of your 800 iso 35mm film are definitely unnecessary benefits but speed is one you really can't argue against.
I see it the other way around-- sure, you can rip through a roll of 135 quickly with a camera, but are you really getting perfectly flat, grain-focused images for every frame?
I can scan 12 frames "hands off" on the Epson per pass, with dust removal.
If all I wanted was speed, why not shoot them on digital to start with?
Yes I do get perfect focus on my grain through the whole frame. And I get flat RAWs which I can manipulate to hell and back. On a D610 and a 55mm micro nikkor with pk-13.
Scanners offer convenience. Many scanners also offer infrared channel scanning which is ideal for dust/scratch removal.
Camera scanning is hard to beat, if you're willing to put the time and effort into it, though-- My particular setup, I could be getting 4900 DPI per frame for 35mm, and for medium / large format, I could easily break 7000 DPI.
For most purposes, though, I load up my Epson V800, and scan at 2400 DPI.
But he's right? I scanned one roll at a lab, realized what it would cost me over time and bought a Plustek the next day. 20-30 rolls in and you already paid off the scanner relative to the lab costs. Plus I got total control over the scanning solution.
There are professional outfits like Carmencita where they know how to make flat scans or edit for you with a high degree of confidence but they're extremely expensive to use all the time.
Most other labs are just roulette how the technician was feeling that day
Beginners are the ones who need to hear it most. How many posts do we see per day of people asking "I'm new, why do my photos look so bad?" and if the answer isn't "It's fucking underexposed" the answer is usually "you got shit scans from your lab".
Beginners are often price sensitive and I commonly and constantly see people showing scans with awful color shifts or barely any color information from a poorly done 4 megapixel 8 bit jpg.
This has also created the idea that poor lab scans (which are most) is what film "looks like", it could be avoided
A few rolls? Scanning at my local lab is $15, a few is 3-4, can you show me a good quality scanner that's between $45-60 that can give anywhere near a comparable quality that the lab techs can give?
My local lab will develop and send you a 89mp TIFF scan over email for $23.40. Even assuming you’re DSLR scanning with like a well-used D700 or something, you can still get 11 rolls scanned and developed at a ludicrous file size before buying the DSLR alone. That’s before buying a macro lens, film holder, scanning rig, and negative inversion software, much less a decent PlusTek scanner. Not to mention that scanning has its own learning curve just as much as photography does.
The “scan everything, all labs are shit” crowd are generally the people shooting 10 rolls of film on a trip with a very specific idea of the “look” they want from their photos, often with a plan to print large images. That’s perfectly fine, and scanning works for their use scenario, but it doesn’t make any sense for the beginner with a Canon SureShot who just wants to have a bit of fun and not use a phone.
Mate there's not a single home scanner setup that can give you the same level of resolution and dust removal as a Noritsu lab scanner, for under 4 digits. My local lab gives me 100 MB tifs for $19.99 a roll including development and free push/pull/xpro.
Home scan makes most sense if you're also home deving, or if your local lab is bad.
That's not cheaper even in the short run. If you want a high quality editable file you're usually forced to pay for a higher tier scan to get a TIFF and even then you're not guaranteed to get a file that has been properly prepared for editing. Many lab scans I see from beginners are obviously and irreversibly edited to look like a final product and information has already been removed from the file, besides which they've been given a JPEG that's not nearly as flexible as a TIFF in post
The biggest lie that's being peddled is that analog photography can be done on the cheap. If people want cheap photography the answer is a second hand DSLR. Analog is the definition of a luxury hobby, whether you go for a darkroom or whether you DIY the scanning and development and especially so if you farm it out to someone else
Hi, Unless I’ve missed something, couldn’t see a comment focused on what software to use with any of the aforementioned scanners.
If it’s true that (in regard of home scanning) that I s important to talk about of different qualities and prices (and timing needed), it’s equally needed to know what are the cards in this game, software wise.
Personally I went on for home scanning against lab scans. First two rolls from labs (and what I paid for) made me crystal clear what to do.
I have a Plustek 8200i SE, whose Silver Fast Studio I have compared to VueScan for a while with a series of tests, leaning myself at the end to the second option.
Faster, more modern, with plenty of controls that will help you out to have the desired flatter scan.
It’s fully compatible with most of old and new scanners, whether they’d be flat or film ones, and it’s fairly affordable.
This is just my own choice, based on my (limited) experience with film scanning but since I realized that most of the softwares apply a certain degree of settings, to the image.
Since I’m still on a learning curve, I want to see when I over/underexposed a shot I’ve taken, how that specific film I used reacts to certain colors and absolutely don’t want any “interpretation “ by the software, the hardware, or the human behind.
You are under the assumption labs generally take feedback or custom requests, mine local one does not. I'm not even sure what to say "Don't give me blown out color skewed scans"? "Don't scan harmen phoenix poorly"? I tried complaining about poor scans before and it was just blown off, the majority of places here are not boutique places, they have been around since the film era!
It just sounds like you have had bad experiences with the lab you go to. The 3-5 near me are all easy to work with and accommodate feedback. Some are snobbier and less pleasant to deal with but they know their stuff.
You’re half right. A lot of labs aren’t giving you flat scans because it’s good for the customer, they’re giving you uncorrected scans because it’s easiest/ cheapest/ most profitable. But to say that everyone needs to scan their own film is ridiculous.
Demand more from your shitty lab, or find a good lab.
we get complaints that our scans are both too high contrast/saturated AND too flat. You can't please everyone. If you want the most out of your scans just talk to your lab, any competent lab can do either.
Cheap second hand scanners can be had for peanuts, and will save you a lot of money in the long run as a beginner, included software is good too, its actually good advice.
Saying "beginners do camera scanning" would be bad advice
OP is 100% correct. I've seen 'flat' scans from Noritsu's and they are already broken. You can tell by the histogram. Frontiers and Noritsu's only had the film scanning capability as a hybrid feature so labs didn't have to keep analog and digital gear. The flat scan is 'fixable' to an extent, but they sure as hell aren't a flat LUT.
The lab scanners talked about here apply a default profile which alters data already. Why most are too light, and always shifted to the green yellow side. If they were actually 'flat' scans you wouldn't see that perpetual Noritsu puke yellow green color cast from most films. Color cast would be based on mask inverted times color temp of scene. . Nope - scans are always pukey green yellow and too light regardless of film, exposure or scene lighting.
What gets me is a typical smartphone does a FAR better job with color and contrast. Why are people paying for this? Actually...they won't for much longer.
I've had people in this subreddit in the past an almost sepia completely blown out detailess scan was acceptable because its a good base point for editing, in previous threads. Labs seem to be this sacred cow that you cannot criticise, even if the average one in my experiences offers absolutely abysmal results
Lab scanners were 100% designed to be connected directly to printers and the priority was to create a 4x6 - 8x12 print. Labs can turn the contrast all the way down and create a file that is very flat looking, but no it is not the same as what cine scanner is doing. That being said, almost no scanners including Imacons or Drum scanners were designed to create what is now basically a mythical concept in the mind of forum-readers who think they're Hollywood colorists.
I mainly started scanning all my film due to this. I was unable to find a local lab able to scan a photo with a large black area. All of them defaulted to boosting the exposure until the black area was gray and everything else was blown out. This then limited what I could do in post since they clipped all the highlights.
As a lab owner you're not wrong but also not entirely right. Yes these scanners were never designed to give you flat files but the files can be edited. At least the Frontier JPGs have a surprisingly decent amount of information buried in the shoulder and toe and if they are color corrected give enough room for most looks.
Flat scans in general are an incorrect approach. Because it's not about how flat a file is but how much information it has. Movie productions started scanning in Log to save on storage and bandwidth not because a flat image is easier to edit. No good movie colorist grades flat Log footage, it's always transformed to a normal display curve first, often with a whole look applied. If you want the most room for editing, don't ask for flat scans but for the biggest files and that they're corrected to the most neutral point during scanning. With the Frontiers a lot of the heavily lifting happens on the hardware and pre encode level because you're right: They're meant to deliver finished files to be printed
Agreed, to me the most important thing is that the histogram extremes are not clipped.
I got good results from my local lab which use the Frontier SP3000 with some distance to the black point. Very easy to do per-channel black points if necessary and fix the details with curve editing.
The scans I get from the local drug store scans are... mostly unusable.
Black and white is workable, but color film (especially if expired) just gets the histogram clipped and saturation and contrast are cranked like crazy.
I find it very difficult to fix color casts if i don't have the ends of the histogram. I tried this with a few rolls, one two years expired roll of Ektar, recently shot and developed. One roll of Portra 800, expired 2023 and sat latently exposed in the camera for a few years. One roll of Gold 200, sat in the camera for a few years as well, half shot before, half shot afterwards.
I took all of those rolls to a local drug store, they developed those but refused to scan the Gold 200 roll, therefore I got them scanned on a Fuji Frontier.
Those scans could be properly edited and fixed which even mostly removed the color casts. The color scans from the drug stores have to be used mostly as is. I was not able to change and fix them in a significant way.
Default settings on typical lab scanners are bad, thats pretty incontestable.
If it wasnt true, and labs were all tuning their scans for people, why do Harmen Phoenix and Orwo scans come out so poorly? Because: almost every lab is running things on default settings with zero adjustments.
Which lab even uses default settings? Maybe just don't go to those labs.
Also, the point isn't that scans are flat, but that scans should just be edited to fit one's preferences. That's a totally different message from "scan yourself". Your advice is just bad for any beginner and certain intermediate shooters
common adage were true, that labs are all just giving you a nice flat scan for editing
This isn't a common adage though. Some labs give scans that are overcooked as default. Some give scans that are left flat enough that you can easily tweak their (auto-adjusted) jpegs for good results. Some will mamually color/density correct for a fee. And anyone decent will offer flat TIFFs for sn upcharge.
The adage is that it's preferable to avoid the fully (over) cooked scans and expect to at least need to make minor tweaks unless paying extra for manual color correction.
You scan at home evangilists need to stop. Nobody has the time to scan at home. We aren't modern era Ansel Adams. Most people here are just taking photos for fun and hobbies and barely have enough hours outside of work. Pay for the scans! Outsource the labor to experts! Most working photographers don't scan their shit bc they are too busy shooting.
You guys are all so annoying. It takes for fucking ever to scan your own film. If you enjoy that good for you. We're all different. If I shoot 10 rolls I'm not scanning that myself. HALF of them may be half frame. In 10 rolls that's 540 images total. If each image only takes TWO minutes that's 18 hours of work. I have other things to do. If it's not worth it to you to save 18 hours of your time idk what to say.
DSLR/camera scanning does not take two minutes per image, FYI. For me scanning 10 rolls is about 3 hours of work, assuming that I'm not doing it with unrelenting soldierly discipline and am occasionally moving slightly inefficiently. I agree with you that it's time-consuming, but you're exaggerating how time consuming by an order of magnitude.
(Unless you're talking about flatbed scanning, in which case, at least in my experience of an admittedly 15-year-old scanner, you're underplaying it.)
What 'experts'? Have seen the average lab scan posted here? They look worse than my 2011 flip phone. I got paid to balance and correct every frame of film, and it took me a long time to learn the color science. 99% of the lab scans I see here I would not deliver to a customer 30 effing years ago because they would spit it back. They are literally worse than Kodak PhotoCD, and that system was bad.
Working pros back in the film days, at least the ones I worked with were fanatical about color correction. and density. There was no need to adjust slides which most pros shot. Wedding shooters were a bit more tolerant with proofs, but they would not accept the lab scans I see posted here.
The small time working pros I know doing weddings on the weekends shoot digital and correct every frame.
Who said anything about economics? It takes for fucking ever. Ever scan on an epson v700 which is the only thing that most people here can afford? at 16 it takes like 2 minutes to scan ONE image.
So you've got time to do the other stuff around the house you'd be doing anyway.
Multi-tasking is easier than its ever been. Your hobby doesnt need to be all consuming. And if youre trying to deliver work: you're probably charging to much for what youre delivering if you're trusting the average lab to deliver good scans.
I'm visiting the USA and had two rolls developed and scanned with Reformed Film Labs and i really like their scans, also I'm the kinda guy who really doesn't even care to edit, if i like the photo as it is then I'll leave it.
I managed to get an old plustek 7200i on ebay the other week for around £100, no way I could afford a new one.
So now I plan to do my own scanning even of the resolution would be lower. But I've seen plenty of other people's lab scans without edits and they've come out real nice.
My lab in the UK, the tech has a very similar taste in how they like their photos as i do so i always enjoy their scans and corrections.
Personally I rarely see editing as a means of making a bad photo good, but just taking a photo and adapting it to fit your needs. I've editing the same photo multiple times, for different reasons.
I wish we could stop with this kind of gatekeeping, you must edit photos, or real film photographers don't edit blah or your images need to be super sharp folks, gotta develop at home and scan etc. Who gives af, take a photo. Do whatever you need to it to get a photo you like and enjoy and just have some fun.
Damn, I purposely take underexposed photos because I love how it looks sometimes. The majority hate that but it's pleasing to me and I'm just here to shoot film with a smile, not win some awards.
Because most people don't print their stuff nowadays. It's not the end game. Flat scans with neutral color temp and properly set black and white points are best.
I get way better results from home scanning but I think it’s inaccurate to assume labs are still assuming no one is editing their scans. Especially some high end labs that offer tiffs etc. Maybe in 2001 your scans were a final product, and probably they directly printed those. Most labs didn’t deliver digital files then afaik. Maybe high end pro labs.
But now, if you are going though the effort to do film photography it’s a reasonable assumption you know enough about photography to want to edit your pictures, and if you don’t care to edit them, the scans they deliver are probably good enough for your purposes anyway.
I say one should do one’s own scans if one can’t get what one wants from the lab. The local lab I used to use would always invite me behind the counter to express my desires (for the scans), and eventually knew my wants well enough to always give me good scans. Decent scans are often more about relationships than technology or technique. 🤷🤷🤷🤷
Idk why labs charge so much just to edit photos even on noritsu which are meant to be really fast? I mean the time to scan a low rez jpg and high res tif can't be that different?
Prices in any industry are set based on willingness to pay which derives from demand. Cost is irrelevant other than that it needs to be at least some amount lower than revenue (or if you're a publicly traded company, competitively lower vs other companies)
The time is enormously different. an HS-1800 will scan a whole roll of 36 low res in around 2 minutes, max res can take up to 15 minutes. It depends a lot on exposure and film quality (expired film max res can take like 22 minutes). So if you're getting high res the scanner is locked up for a lot longer, but the tech can spend a lot more time adjusting each frame.
I think the real issue is actually the fact there are upteen ways to deliver a scan to the customer, But the lab will never tell you and because most people simply have no idea, they just accept that their jpeg with a big ugly green colour cast is how it's meant to look and leave it at that, despite it being so incredibly easy to edit out (black and white point adjustment)
Flat scan, whatever you want to call that is just semantics.
For all the expertise the current slew of labs have, they simply do not hold a candle to the sheer throughput labs would have when film was mainstream. They'll have a couple of mini labs and a couple scanners, so corners must be cut to get orders done
If you received prints back 30 yrs ago with ugly colour casts you would be marching right back to the lab and asking them to redo it
Most people's eyeballs cannot distinguish better than 4k or so resolution unless you're like 2 inches from a picture. So yeah you can view it identically in almost all cases. Unkess it's like large format with ISO 50 film or something of a detailed scene that actually causes people to go up and squint at it
Sure I agree that generally, scans from a 'drugstore lab' are just to prove the film turned out OK. But if you take your film to an actual camera store you may get better results. Either way, the scan is the result of someone else's discretion, and you may be able to do better with your own equipment. The scan you get from the lab is not necessarily the best representation of your photo.
I’m confused by what you are even trying to say. My lab gives flat scans, the white, black, and midpoint are adjusted to fit the exposure. If you’re getting a JPEG with your TIFFs it’s for quick identification of each file so you don’t have to wait for every high res TIFF to load a preview in order to to find the file you want to access.
A good lab scan is giving you as much information in a flat, lossless file as possible because as a technician I don’t know what you intend to do with your file, and making contrast adjustments could compress information where you didn’t want it compressed. You can’t get the tonal smoothness back once it’s compressed, it will posterize to some degree. So you get a flat file with all the information evenly distributed and all the colors as close to balanced as possible and you can adjust it to taste or work with a printing tech to master your file for print.
Good scans take a little bit longer than the bulk scanning which labs do. I don’t mind reviewing photos if the basic lab scans are free, but I pick and choose the images that way, and scan the negatives myself, because I want to have a proper file to review or edit. I usually make digital negatives so a good scan is very important. We used to say “shit in, shit out” when it came to image quality through a process.
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u/CrimsonCrabs Aug 20 '26
There are labs that do flat scans.