35mm film work-flowĪlmost all of my 35mm work is with Ilford XP2 Super film. Scanning a street photograph taken on 35mm film and destined only for social media or a web-site requires a less rigorous approach than scanning a 5 x 7 format image destined to be printed as a fine photograph in an exhibition or someone’s wall or as an alternative process image, say.

Secondly, to what purpose will the scanned image be used? The answer to this question partly determines which scanner I use and how I scan. My scanners also give me a preview option so this acts as a second check before I decide to scan. With a roll of 12 negatives of 120 format I scan one in three images on average. With a 35mm roll of 36 negatives, on average I would only scan about 5 images. So before I scan I look at the negative on a light box (in my case an iPad ) and with a loupe to see whether the image passes muster: composition and tonality.

In this post I set out what works for me on black and white films, much which has been learnt through trial and mostly error … Preliminariesīefore I scan I ask myself two preliminary questions:įirstly, is the picture worth it? Scanning takes time and the resulting images are large and therefore take bags of space on a drive. However getting it right is important to some workflows. If you are like me, scanning is a bit of a pain.

How to use vuescan to scan film