What services do you offer for scanning negative film and positive film transparencies?

With our newly acquired Epson V800 scanner, we can now efficiently scan negatives and positive transparencies at an optical resolution of 6400 dpi.  The difference in scanning a positive print and a negative or positive transparency is while a positive print is scanned with reflective light, transparencies must be scanned with transmitted light -- light that passes through the photographic object.  The Epson V800 has a light in the cover to illuminate the transparency so that the imaging bar traveling the length of the flatbed receives light transmitted through the transparency.

We offer three different services for scanning negatives and positive transparencies:

• Strip of 35mm negatives. Normally negatives returned by a photo processor come in strips of 4 or 5 negatives.  It is most efficient for us to scan all of the images in a negative strip rather than identify one or two of the images of a strip for scanning.  It is also difficult for customers to pick out which negative they wish to scan because it is difficult to visualize what the positive version of the negative looks like.  As a result, we offer a reduced price per image if all images on the strip are scanned at once.
  
  
• Single 35mm image from a strip of negatives. Strips of negatives typically come in a plastic sleeve that is folded accordion-like.  To identify the negatives you wish to scan, keep the negatives in their plastic sleeve and mark the plastic sleeve to identify the desired negatives.  Because identifying the individual negatives takes more manual labor than scanning an entire strip of negatives, the per image price is higher than if all of the images on a strip are scanned.
  
  
• Medium and Large Format negatives.  There is a wide variety of negative sizes that are all larger than the 35mm format.  They are typically individual images. If originally taken with care, pictures that are scanned from Medium and Large Format negatives combined with the high 6400 dpi optical resolution of the Epson V800 scanner result in stunning images.

​To read an article about the practical view of scanning resolutions, please see: Resolving Resolution.