Scan it Your Way

11

To those who cannot afford to buy a flatbed scanner with a film mask to scan films, try this, a cheap film scanner for all. It is easy to try and harmless to do. Just follow these few steps to scan your films and get your negative digitalized. Others might have wrote about this too, but this is how i’m scanning my films. Different people come out with different ways!

What you need to get your film digitalized is :

1. An empty box (preferably small)
2. A pair of scissors

3. A study lamp wrapped with white paper or laptop screen

4. A digital camera (compact / dslr )

What you need to do is :
1. Cut out a small part of the box. You have to cut it at the front and at back-in my case, i used a battery box and i cut exactly according to the frame size of 35mm film. If you would like to scan 120mm film, you will need a bigger box and cut it according to the frame size of 120mm film.

2. If you see the photo above in detail, you’ll see there are two slits, on the right and left side of the cut out part. Film is inserted through the slit so that it won’t move during ‘scanning’ process.
3. After you inserted the film in between the two slits, put the box with the film on the study lamp with white paper or just put it at your laptop screen. If you are using your laptop, you have to open microsoft word or notes to get white background.
4. When everything is in position, use your camera to take several shots of the part to be ‘scanned’. You’ll need to shoot a few times with different distance and focussing to get your best shot.

before

5. Then, we come to post process. When you shoot negative film, you have to invert the colour. So, open up your photo editor. I’m using adobe photoshop. To those who use adobe photoshop, go to image>adjustments>invert. You’ll see the colour being inverted. You can adjust the colour by opening curve int the adjustments tab.

after

6. Lastly, save your newly ‘scanned’ photos and upload it to your lomohome!!

Have fun trying it!!

written by haziqhashim on 2012-08-07 #gear #tutorials #diy #malaysia #scanning #tipster #select-type-of-tipster #select-what-this-tipster-is-about #self-scan

11 Comments

  1. claudia___
    claudia___ ·

    very useful tips! cause i don't have a scanner, i can just make a box and "scan" photos with my lamb! thanks~

  2. haziqhashim
    haziqhashim ·

    Thank you claudia. hope this tips are useful to you :) dont wait, start scanning your film now!!

  3. haziqhashim
    haziqhashim ·

    thanks all!! @claudia___, @eva_eva, @ester_s_ch, @adi_totp, @sixsixty.

  4. haziqhashim
    haziqhashim ·

    thank you @andronidze, @reminator, @cutebun, @shea_w for spending some times reading this tips :)

  5. casperxd
    casperxd ·

    I use PAINT.NET to process the negatives as i don't have photoshop

  6. haziqhashim
    haziqhashim ·

    @casperxd yea you can use any software to invert the colour :)

  7. andronidze
    andronidze ·

    @haziqhashim www.lomography.com/homes/andronidze/walls/172858-lomowall-4 smthng like that. I shoul try lamp light for more effective result. Thank a lot, it's really helps then you don't have scaner, but not panacea at all.

  8. twinklecat
    twinklecat ·

    AWESOME! I was a little intimidated by the whole scanning business.

  9. haziqhashim
    haziqhashim ·

    thanks :) @andronidze because if we are using laptop screen small pixels will appear, the brighter the lamp, the better. @twinklecat thank you so much :)

  10. mafiosa
    mafiosa ·

    Very good idea for those without a scanner. Might even work better than self scanning. I might try this for xpro

  11. haziqhashim
    haziqhashim ·

    thank you to all of you :) @juampis, @bbthom, @mafiosa, @-scruff-, @casperxd @mafiosa i havent tried it for xpro. who knows the result might turn out well :)

More Interesting Articles