Your Flatbed Scanner Isn’t the Downside: How To Get Lab-Level Results at Residence

If you spend any time in movie boards, you’ll see a well-known sample: somebody buys an Epson V600, scans a roll they’re actually enthusiastic about, and instantly decides the scanner is trash.

The pictures look gentle. The colour is bizarre. The shadows really feel muddy and the highlights are already clipping. Just a few pissed off evenings later, they’re pricing out lab scans, devoted movie scanners, or a used Noritsu and questioning why everybody instructed them the V600 was “good enough.”

I get it. Before I wrote “Scanning Is My Darkroom,” I went by means of my very own model of that disappointment. I’d see stunning lab scans on-line, have a look at the flat, lifeless frames coming off my flatbed, and assume the answer was to throw cash on the drawback.

The fact is more durable and extra encouraging on the identical time: more often than not, your flatbed scanner isn’t the bottleneck. Your course of is.

A V600 won’t ever flip right into a drum scanner, however with the proper workflow, it will possibly get surprisingly near what you’d name “lab-level” for lots of on a regular basis work. Before you record it on Facebook Marketplace and begin refreshing monitoring numbers on a brand new scanner, it’s price squeezing all the things you may out of the one you already personal.

This is the deeper dive I want somebody had handed me after I first sat down with a stack of negatives and a flatbed that I assumed was letting me down.

What “Lab-Level” Really Means

When individuals say they need “lab-level scans,” what they often bear in mind is a sense greater than a spec sheet. They’re desirous about the best way good lab scans look clear however not plastic, sharp however not crispy, with colour that doesn’t collapse the second you progress a slider. They’re desirous about the best way these recordsdata print with out falling aside.

What they often neglect is that these labs are utilizing instruments optimized for velocity and consistency, not magic. Frontier and Noritsu scanners stay within the candy spot between decision and workflow. They’re arrange by techs who know precisely learn how to oversee a roll of Portra or Tri-X, they usually’re fed clear, flat negatives all day, each day.

A V600, alternatively, is an trustworthy, barely unforgiving mirror. It sees each little bit of mud you ignored, each scratch you hoped wouldn’t present up, each slight wave in a curled strip of movie. It will completely punish sloppy method. But it’s completely able to producing a file you may dangle on a wall should you respect what it wants.

When I say “lab-level” within the context of a V600, I’m not promising you 40×60-inch prints from 35mm that rival a drum scan. I’m speaking about sharp 8×10s and 11×14s, clear recordsdata for the online, and prints that don’t scream “home scan” the second you get nearer than 5 toes. That is effectively inside attain of a flatbed—should you handle all the things that occurs earlier than and after you click on “scan.”

Before You Scan: Film, Cleanliness, and Holders

It’s tempting to suppose the magic occurs within the software program, however with a flatbed, the battle is half-won—or misplaced—earlier than the lid even closes.

The first variable is the unfavorable itself. A V600 has no allure filter. If your movie is soiled, streaked, or badly scratched, it should present you all of it. That means slowing down on the very begin. I blow off every strip with a rocket blower and use a clear anti-static fabric if mud is cussed, and deal with movie by the sides prefer it’s the final donut on the security assembly. Fingerprints which may disappear in a lab scan typically present up as greasy ghosts on a flatbed.

Then there’s flatness. The V600’s optics are designed for the movie to sit down at a particular peak above the glass. If your negatives are curling like potato chips, sharpness will endure irrespective of how a lot you crank the sharpening slider. Using the Epson holders correctly is the naked minimal. For extra cussed movie, lots of people shim their holders with skinny tape or cardstock to seek out the sharpest airplane. It sounds fussy till you see how a lot distinction half a millimeter could make.

In some circumstances, particularly with 120, anti-Newton glass inserts might help hold issues flat, however they arrive with their very own mud and dealing with challenges. Whatever route you select, the objective is straightforward: get clear, flat movie sitting on the proper distance from the glass so the scanner has a preventing likelihood to resolve what’s on the unfavorable.

If you deal with your V600 like a trash can with a light-weight inside it, it gives you trash. Treat it like an enlarger, and it begins to behave extra like one.

Dialing In Scan Settings That Actually Help

Once the movie is within the holder, the following set of selections occurs in software program. This is the place lots of people both settle for the defaults or attempt to end the picture contained in the scanning program. Both approaches often finish in disappointment.

The first alternative is bit depth and mode. For black-and-white, 16-bit grayscale or 48-bit colour each work, however 16-bit grayscale retains the recordsdata leaner. For colour unfavorable and slide movie, 48-bit colour is your good friend. It preserves extra subtlety within the tones and provides you extra room to work later.

Resolution is the place advertising and marketing hype and actuality half methods. The V600 advertises eye-watering numbers, however the true, usable decision is decrease. Scanning 35mm at 2400–3200 dpi and medium format at 2400 dpi is a sane start line. Higher settings principally provide you with larger recordsdata, no more actual element, they usually complicate sharpening and noise. You can all the time print bigger than you suppose from a well-sharpened 2400 dpi scan.

Sharpening contained in the scanner software program is among the best methods to destroy an in any other case first rate scan. It’s tempting to show it on as a result of the preview seems snappy, however what you’re often doing is baking in halos and crunchy grain that you would be able to’t unbake later. I hold in-scanner sharpening off or set to the bottom potential worth. My objective at this stage is just not a completed picture; it’s a impartial, barely gentle “digital negative” I can form later.

Features like multi-exposure and multi-sampling could be useful in particular circumstances. Multi-exposure, which mixes a number of scans at completely different exposures, can pull a bit extra element out of deep shadows in dense negatives or slide movie. It additionally dramatically will increase scan time. I reserve it for frames that actually want it relatively than turning it on for all the things. Multi-sampling, which averages out noise by scanning the identical body repeatedly, provides diminishing returns for many dwelling workflows.

The different massive lure is letting the software program make artistic selections for you. Auto-exposure, auto colour, and “restore faded color” choices could be helpful as a tough start line on actually previous or broken movie, however for something you’ve shot not too long ago, they have a tendency to overcorrect. I’d relatively settle for a flat, barely uninteresting preview if it means my highlights and shadows are intact and the colour isn’t being shoved into any person else’s thought of “normal.”

On a V600, the most effective scans are often the boring ones on the level of seize: low sharpening, impartial curves, protected publicity, and as few “magic” buttons pressed as potential.

Sharpening Without Destroying Your Grain

The first time you have a look at a V600 scan at one hundred pc, it may be somewhat miserable. Everything feels softer than you need it to, particularly should you’re coming from the razor-sharp previews of a contemporary digital digicam. It’s simple to imagine the scanner merely isn’t able to extra.

What helped me was pondering of sharpening in two levels: seize and output.

Capture sharpening is about restoring the inherent sharpness of the unfavorable—the element the lens recorded and the movie resolved—with out inventing something new. This is the place I make a world sharpening cross in Lightroom or my editor of alternative. I hold the radius low, improve the quantity till edges begin to get up, after which use masking or the same management in order that flat areas like skies and clean pores and skin keep principally untouched. The objective is to make the scan appear like a crisp unfavorable on a light-weight desk, not a YouTube thumbnail.

Output sharpening is tailor-made to the place the picture goes. A 2048-pixel-wide file for the online can handle extra aggressive sharpening than a 16×20 print seen at arm’s size. I’ll resize the picture to its closing dimensions after which apply a second, lighter cross of sharpening, once more watching grain fastidiously. Grain ought to appear like texture, not sandpaper.

One small however vital trick is to keep away from judging sharpness at absurd magnifications. It’s frequent to zoom in to 200–400 %, panic, and begin dialing in increasingly more sharpening to compensate. Instead, I attempt to view the file at 50 or one hundred pc whereas sharpening after which step again to see the way it reads at typical viewing sizes. The solely factor worse than a gentle scan is an over-sharpened one that appears prefer it’s been processed by means of a deep fryer.

A V600 might by no means squeeze each final line pair out of 35mm, however, when dealt with effectively, it will possibly resolve loads of element for reasonable print sizes. Most of the “softness” individuals blame on the {hardware} comes from a mix of flat negatives, shaky holders, and sharpening that’s both lacking or wildly overcooked.

Getting Color Under Control Without Losing Your Mind

Color is the place lots of people lastly surrender on dwelling scanning. One roll is available in inexperienced, the following is just too magenta, pores and skin tones are in every single place, and each edit appears like ranging from scratch. It doesn’t take lengthy to surprise if the issue is the scanner.

The much less glamorous clarification is that movie is opinionated and so are scanners. Labs tame that through the use of constant chemistry, well-maintained machines, and customary profiles for frequent emulsions. At dwelling, you’re the lab tech, the scanner operator, and the colorist, .

The first step towards sane colour is consistency. I choose a colour area—often Adobe RGB whereas I’m modifying, changing to sRGB for the online—and keep it up. I scan all the things from a given session the identical means: identical bit depth, identical primary curves, no random slider experiments within the scanning software program from body to border. That provides me a standard start line.

From there, I construct a psychological “baseline” search for every movie inventory. I’ll take a well-exposed roll of, say, Portra or Ektar, scan it as neutrally as I can, after which spend time dialing in a glance I like in my editor. Once I’m pleased with that, I’ll save these changes as a preset or use them as a visible reference for the following roll. I don’t anticipate each body to match completely—mild and subject material all the time shift—however it retains me from reinventing movie from scratch each time.

I don’t trouble chasing mathematical perfection. I care way more about whether or not pores and skin tones appear like individuals I acknowledge, greens don’t glow like radioactive grass, and highlights roll off in a satisfying means. If my scans constantly lean somewhat hotter or cooler than what a lab would possibly ship, however I prefer it, that’s not a bug; that’s my home look.

If you need to go deeper, you may profile your scanner utilizing IT8 targets and colour administration instruments, however in my expertise, you may get 90 % of the best way there just by being constant and constructing a relationship with the movies you shoot.

When to Re-Scan and When to Fix It in Post

It’s tempting to deal with each disappointing scan as proof that the V600 is failing you. Sometimes it’s only a unhealthy scan. Sometimes it’s the unfavorable. The trick is studying to inform the distinction, so that you don’t waste hours chasing miracles within the unsuitable place.

If the unfavorable itself is underexposed, closely scratched, or dramatically uneven, no scanner on this planet goes to show it into an ideal file. You can raise shadows, pull highlights, and spot-heal till your eyes go blurry, however there’s solely a lot info there.

On the opposite hand, if the histogram reveals clipped highlights when the unfavorable clearly has extra element, or shadows are crushed though the movie doesn’t look that dense, that’s an indication your scan settings had been off. Maybe the software program’s auto-exposure pushed the curve too far. Maybe you bumped right into a slider. Those are the frames price re-scanning.

Color is comparable. If you see a wild solid that doesn’t present up on the precise unfavorable or slide, and your different scans from the batch look high quality, it is perhaps an outlier that advantages from one other cross. If all the roll is unusual, it might be a problem with chemistry or publicity, not the scanner begging for a redo.

My rule of thumb is straightforward: if I can repair it with a few considerate strikes in put up with out wrecking the file, I do it. If I discover myself constructing a home of adjustment layers and nonetheless not liking what I see, I’m going again to the scanner for vital frames. Rescanning is just not a failure. It’s a part of the method.

When It Makes Sense to Outsource

All of this would possibly sound like I’m arguing you need to by no means ship movie to a lab once more. I’m not. There are completely instances when outsourcing scans is smart, even should you’ve obtained a V600 in your desk.

If I do know I would like an exceptionally giant print from a single, particular body—one thing I’m going to hold, promote, or exhibit—I’ll strongly contemplate a high-end lab or drum scan. If I’m coping with difficult, extraordinarily dense slides or extremely previous, fragile negatives, there are labs which have each the {hardware} and the expertise to handle them extra gracefully than my flatbed will.

What I don’t do anymore is assume that each scan I’m sad with is proof that I want a brand new scanner. The V600 can deal with 95 % of what I shoot at a top quality degree that makes me completely glad for prints and private work. For the remaining 5 %, it’s cheaper and extra versatile to let a lab take these single, hero frames to the following degree than to improve my whole scanning setup.

Outsourcing turns into a focused software as an alternative of a everlasting crutch. The flatbed does the on a regular basis heavy lifting. The lab is there after I actually want what solely their machines and expertise can present.

If you’ve learn this far, you’ve in all probability already had at the least one darkish night time of the soul together with your V600. Maybe you’ve satisfied your self that the one strategy to be taken critically as a movie photographer is to purchase a devoted scanner that prices as a lot as one other digicam physique. Maybe you’re already midway to the checkout web page.

Before you decide to that path, I’d encourage you to present your flatbed one trustworthy, disciplined shot.

Clean your negatives such as you imply it. Make positive they’re flat and sitting the place the scanner expects them. Turn off the magic buttons. Scan in a means that preserves info as an alternative of attempting to complete the picture on the seize stage. Sharpen thoughtfully. Build a easy, repeatable method to paint. Learn which issues stay within the unfavorable and which of them stay in your settings. Reserve outsourcing for the frames that really want it.

When I lastly did all of that, the V600 stopped feeling like a limitation and began feeling like a quiet little workhorse. The identical scanner that when had me pricing out options is now the one quietly turning my movie into recordsdata I’m proud to print.

If you do all this and nonetheless hate it, then positive—perhaps it’s time to maneuver on. But at the least you’ll know the issue was by no means a plastic field with a light-weight in it. It was the best way you used it. And when you repair that, it follows you to no matter scanner you utilize subsequent.

Photos of the Epson V600 scanner and holders are from the B&H web site. The different photographs belong to the writer, Steven Van Worth.