Scanning old negatives

ZA
Posted By
Zachariah Allen
Jan 5, 2007
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673
Replies
3
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Closed
I have Photoshop and an HP C5180 all in one printer/scanner. I have been working with some very old (but, in remarkably good condition) black and white negatives from an old folding camera that makes a large negative (over 4×6, I forget the film size, I still have the camera!). Some of the negatives were somewhat overexposed. If I were working with an enlarger in a darkroom, I could adjust for that easily.

But, the scanner is just producing a black square. There is so little detail available as to make the scan useless.

I am not finding a way to make the scanner adjust for the density of the negative. Has anyone a suggestion on this, or am I just trying to put a saddle on a cow?

Zach Allen
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negative old scan

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AC
Art Campbell
Jan 5, 2007
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Art
T
Talker
Jan 5, 2007
On Fri, 5 Jan 2007 09:34:02 -0800, "Zachariah Allen" wrote:

I have Photoshop and an HP C5180 all in one printer/scanner. I have been working with some very old (but, in remarkably good condition) black and white negatives from an old folding camera that makes a large negative (over 4×6, I forget the film size, I still have the camera!). Some of the negatives were somewhat overexposed. If I were working with an enlarger in a darkroom, I could adjust for that easily.

But, the scanner is just producing a black square. There is so little detail available as to make the scan useless.

I am not finding a way to make the scanner adjust for the density of the negative. Has anyone a suggestion on this, or am I just trying to put a saddle on a cow?

Zach Allen

Hi Zach! From the spec sheet on the HP C5180, it appears that it doesn’t scan negatives. For a flatbed scanner to scan negatives, the lid of the scanner must have some sort of light source so that the light comes from the lid, through the negative, and onto the sensor. If there is no light source, then you can’t scan a negative.

Talker
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Jan 5, 2007
Its a case of saddle and cow, unfortunately. Your all-in-one does not have film scanning capability. A flatbed scanner must be designed specifically to work with film or slides will have a special film/slide holder and a backlight, as well as a higher-resolution scanning mode for these transparent media. To a regular flatbed scanner, your negative is, as you have seen, just a black square.

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