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General discussion

Scanner for B&W Negatives

Feb 12, 2005 2:20AM PST

I have inherited a box of old Photo's with many negatives . These were given to me when my Mom passed away .Some of the negs are 35mm and others are from different size film . A majority are Black & white .
Is there an affordable scanner that will allow me to discover the contents of the negatives .

Thank You

Discussion is locked

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I'd do this first
Feb 13, 2005 5:19AM PST

Take a few negatives to a decent local photoshop and have a few prints made to see if you want to take this further. Some scanners come with attachments that will scan negatives and slides. The reversal process is done in software and I am not certain how well these handle B&W. They also do not produce the sharpest and most detailed images but might be ok for your purposes. Photoshops can scan slides and negatives. You might do better asking them about their experience with B&W. Professional equipment will always do a better job. If you are looking for a flatbed scanner designed for other purposes but want to use it mostly for negatives, I would not get any hopes up. Professional scanning equipment is the only way to go for best results.

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scanner
Feb 13, 2005 11:48AM PST

Hi george -
I have an Epson Perfection 1260 Photo - it is the model that has the slide scanner/film scanner add-on. I got it for about 50 dollars refurbished. I did exactly what you did - had a whole bunch of old film/slides that I scanned in and made a CD for the whole family (which they loved). It was pretty time consuming, but well worth the effort. I got my money's worth out of it, and the scans yield great prints as well. If you go with the Epson Perfection Series, make sure you the "Photo" version of the scanner as those have the add-on machine to plugin.

Another nice thing is that the scanner software can automatically detect what kind of media you have in the scanner with the addon plugged in and scan accordingly. Epson's website also has a great "how to" section that walks you through the process.

Hope this helps.