Is it possible to digitize photographic film at home. How to digitize photographic film at home? Film scanner for digitizing photographic films

It is better to convert film photo archives into digital or digitize individual negatives / positives using special film scanners. But if there are not so many pictures worth such a procedure and the goal is not to create exhibition photographs, but only to return to life (on a computer or TV screen) memorable photographs, then you can also scan using a digital camera. Design

The digitizing system described in the article was made from a camera Canon PowerShot G9, an adapter for attaching attachments and light filters, a system for attaching light filters and a homemade "slide module". Kits like Cokin, are also produced for cameras for which there is no possibility of installing lens attachments (they are attached to a tripod socket), which makes it possible to turn even such cameras into a film scanner.

Since the “camera-scanner” system is compact, it is convenient for “on-site” work. I wanted to "complete" it so that a slide film from old films could be made with using the lung laptop or netbook. That is, shoot in JPEG and hardly process it.

The photo at the beginning of the article shows a "camera - scanner". The idea is simple - a device for macro film shooting. Tasks that need to be solved in order for the result to be good:
ensure accurate and rigid fastening of the film in the focusing plane perpendicular to the optical axis of the lens;
evenly highlight the film;
process digital images, convert negatives to positives.

There is not much to do with your own hands: a holder for the film and a rigid frame in which this holder will "slide" ("slide module"). The frame fits into the filter holder Cokin... Parts can also be made of thick black cardboard, but it will not provide the required rigidity. Therefore, black plastic was used.


Film holder (material - plastic from a binder).



The film holder is installed in the frame. The frame is made of two almost identical parts (plates with a frame window, material - plastic ~ 1 mm thick) glued together so that the film holder (together with the film) can move inside this frame. For this, thin strips of plastic are laid between the plates in the places of gluing (2-3 strips of the same material from which the film holder is made).

The film holder and frame are sized so that the film holder can move in two perpendicular directions in the focusing plane. This allows, if necessary, to place different areas of the film in the center of the frame, which can be useful when setting the white balance and exposure according to the enlarged area of ​​the picture on the film.


If you need to digitize not a film in a segment, but in a frame, then you can fix it with a rubber band:



Disassembled "Scanner"



"Scanner" assembly.

Backlight

You can illuminate the film for reshooting different ways... If there is a viewing table, use it. You can attach milky plastic to the window or install it between the lamp and the camera. Another alternative is to use a flash that illuminates white wall- the reflected light will illuminate the film. If the camera flash is too close to the lens, such as Canon G9, you can shoot with an external flash.

Camera settings

In the photo at the beginning of the article, the "slide scanner" is not installed correctly - directly on the viewing table. When reshooting, the distance between the surface of the light source and the film should be large enough so that matting and surface imperfections of the light source are not noticeable in the photograph. The aperture should be chosen such that the depth of field is sufficient for uneven film, but also not so small that the details of the surface of the light source are noticeable in the picture.

As a rule, with compact cameras, the largest shooting scale is possible with the minimum focal length. This may distort the image. Better to zoom out and shoot at longer focal lengths... In this case, you will have to increase the distance between the camera and the film to the point at which focusing is possible. In my design, I used to lengthen the frame of the frame from the light filters.

Focusing - automatic, macro mode. If the camera has a stabilizer, it must be turned off (it works relative to a stationary object, and if this object is attached to the lens, the stabilizer will perform the opposite action - "shake" the camera).

Exposure - automatic, matrix metering. The histogram or snapshot can be used to judge the error and make corrections. If the dynamic range of the camera is not enough for the film, you can shoot in bracketing mode and “stack” the final image from several files.

White balance is automatic. What difference does it make for a camera to shoot a real object or its image on film, even a negative one? If autobalance works well for real-world scenes, then it will cope with film. An error in the white balance setting can result in a loss of detail in one of the color channels, as can be seen in the following illustration (red channel, top). This is not critical when shooting in RAW, but for JPEG it will not be possible to "restore" highlights or shadows.


Histograms for RGB channels of color negative images obtained with different installations white balance in the camera. Top image - manual white balance by light source. Medium - Auto White Balance. Bottom - manual white balance according to the enlarged fragment of the film on which the gray card was shot (when manual installation white balance focusing is not necessary, so you can enlarge the fragment).

Permission


Fragment 1: 1, black and white negative.

The resolution of the "scanner" is determined by the resolution of the camera and the focusing accuracy. The typical resolution for a digital camera is ~ 0.7 lines per pixel. For a camera with a 12 megapixel matrix and a long side of 4000 pixels, we get a resolution of 2800 lines on the long side of the frame. The long side of the frame for 35 mm film is approximately 1.5 inches and the resolution of the "scanner" will be ~ 1800 lines / inch. WITH Canon G9 in practice you can get ~ 1700 lines per inch. Since the macro mode of this camera is not very effective, in the picture the field of the film frame occupies about 3/4 (along the long side) and the practical resolution turns out to be less than ~ 1300 lines / inch. This is sufficient for slideshows and prints up to about 13 x 18 cm.

Ideal if the camera can apply inversion (negative-positive) and cropping to the image. Having guessed or correctly adjusted the white balance, you can get the finished photograph after inversion. Unfortunately, Canon G9 there is no “negative” function.



The result of applying an inversion curve when reshooting a negative. Left when applying a "simple" curve. On the right - processing of a "complex" curve with different gamma values ​​for RGB channels.



Snippet 1: 1. Broken pixels are noticeable.

Working with curves in CHDK for the camera Canon G9 has not yet been brought to the level that would allow receiving good result without significant investment of time and effort. Moreover, when "applying curves" in Canon PowerShot G9 so far I have not been able to solve the problem of "dead pixels".

The translation of film materials and slides into digital format does not lose its relevance today, when, it would seem, everything has long been processed and placed on virtual media. Old archives, photo albums and negatives require either special storage conditions or final transformation into computer files. In this regard, the question arises: "How to digitize photographic film at home and with minimal cost? "It should be noted right away that you won't be able to limit yourself to the means at hand, especially if the result is to be of high quality. Professional equipment that is used for digitizing in laboratories and studios, of course, is not required, but you need to prepare for the purchase of an appropriate scanner. and a DSLR camera, although in this case the responsibility of the manual work increases.

Digitization workflow

To understand how, in principle, the methods of converting film frames into computer image formats work, it is necessary to disassemble the technology of this transformation. By by and large digitization of photographic films provides for the division of each frame into pixels - small elements from which another, computer picture is composed. The generated in the course saves data about colors image and other photographic properties in the digital file.

Scanner for digitizing - which one to choose?

At the moment, from the point of view of digitization, there is no worthy alternative to the scanner. There are two types of these and models equipped with a slide module. The advantages of flatbed slide modules include the ability to digitize both film materials and finished photographs. If you need to digitize photographic films at home, then the slide module will optimal solution... It is inexpensive, provides a minimum of functionality for the workflow, and takes up a little extra space.

Film scanner can be classified as equipment close to professional models. It allows you to obtain high quality digitized images with user friendliness. This option will do, if you need to process both regularly appearing new frames and old film. Many scanners help to digitize images at the amateur level, but if you want to get a high-quality professional result, then drum photo scanners and mini-laboratories are required.

Optimal resolution

It is important to be guided here simple rule: As you know, 300dpi is the standard for printing - therefore, the scanner must at least support this parameter. In general, modern photographic equipment and scanning devices are capable of supporting 4800dpi - another thing is that such a format simply does not justify itself when working with old film... For example, many are interested in how to digitize film at home so that each element is as detailed as possible. In practice, it is impossible to select more from the finished frame than it provides. As the optimal resolution, you can take a format that is twice as large as the similar capabilities of film. For example, 900dpi can go well with almost all old photographic materials. Even if the resolution significantly exceeds all the boundaries and limits of the negative, you can always crop the excess - the main thing is that there will be no loss in quality.

Digitization process

On a scanner, the procedure is elementary and requires almost no input from the user. Of course, before the first processing, you will have to load the necessary drivers and software for the equipment to work - then the settings are set, and scanning starts. It is important to note that a film scanner for digitizing photographic films, depending on the model, can have a whole range of useful options that will increase the quality of the finished images. Among them:

  • decrease in graininess;
  • removal of dust and oil traces;
  • restoration of shades;
  • increased noise reduction and sharpness;
  • auto exposure;
  • histogram for adjusting tone curves.

In modern versions of Epson, Digital ICE technology is also provided, with the help of which the device independently cleans working and processed surfaces, and also removes scratches.

In which file to save?

The main mistake of novice amateur photographers, for whom the digitization of photographic films at home is associated with the usual conversion of files, is the wrong format for saving the image. It is not recommended to use JPEG in the output, as it will lead to significant loss in compression. The best option will become TIFF. Here again, the following principle is relevant: it is better to immediately make voluminous, but high-quality sources than to suffer in the future with unsatisfactory resolution, etc. Indeed, TIFF is a rather bulky format, but these inconveniences will be more than compensated for by decent printing in the future.

The problem of digitizing negatives

Most printers have a negative attitude towards the task of scanning negatives. This is by no means due to the correction of color rendition, fine-tuning of contrasts, etc. The question of how to digitize photographic film at home and without pronounced "noise" is often encountered. So negatives in this regard are considered the most problematic.

If the slides are digitized, the "noise" falls into the shadows, where it is quite difficult to detect. When processing the negative, the same thing happens, and it seems that all the flaws have gone into naturally dark areas. Disappointment comes when a scanner for digitizing photographic films turns the negative into a positive - after this operation, all the "noise" is transferred to the light. You should remember this and make the most of the autocorrection capabilities aimed at suppressing "noise".

Digitizing negatives with a DSLR camera

Many people think that this way of working with negatives is optimal for amateurs. The negative is filmed on the camera, after which it is converted and processed. Technically, the procedure is as follows: the camera is firmly fixed in front of the working platform, installed LED lamp(with filters if necessary), and the exposure is adjusted. Such digitization of photographic films can be streamed, but only if the frames have the same lighting conditions. In other cases, for each frame, for example, it is selected individually. Actually, personal revision and settings for each picture can be considered a plus: firstly, it is freedom of creativity, and secondly, they are practiced with photographic materials.

Conclusion

At the last stage, it remains only to decide on the file cataloging system. In general, the question of how to digitize photographic film at home and obtain high-quality images at the output suggests an elementary answer. To do this, you need to have an appropriate scanner or SLR camera- in the first case, most of the workflow is assigned to the equipment, and in the second - to the user, who, at his discretion, adjusts the digitization settings and the conditions for its implementation. That is, all opinions that scanning and digitizing kills all the advantages of photography are untenable. There are a lot of tools, methods, parameters and adjusting subtleties that allow you to create a real work of art from an old negative.

In general, the idea to scan and organize old photographs, of course, was hatched for a long time, it is not easy to decide on such a volume of work on scanning old photographic films (more than a hundred) and photographs (thousands). In general, since childhood, he wanted me to have digitized old photographs of great-great-great-grandmothers, and finally, after 20 years, he decided to move on to this business.

Scanner

The first question was - of course the scanner. At one time, about 7 years ago, I tried to digitize negatives and decided to stock up on a film scanner. There was not much money, I chose which is cheaper, it turned out to be Miktotek Filmscan 35.


Compared to the monsters of scanning, it cost a penny, but the result was terrifying. I used Silverfast for it as the most advanced software at that time (maybe now). I don't know why, but sometimes with different passes this miracle gave me a blue or a green photo, then everything hung, it was unpredictable and very sad, I had to pore over each frame for 10-15 minutes, straightening histograms and performing other dances with a tambourine. In general, this process discouraged me from scanning films for several years, the scanner is lying around somewhere.

Now, having considered all the pros and cons, the following was decided.
There were several points to consider:

  • for the most part, it will not be me who will scan, but the parents, since they have time now
  • you need to scan not only films, but also photos
  • you need to scan a lot
  • no fabulous budget

In addition to all of the above, I understood that now the film is no longer an actual medium, and therefore most likely it will be necessary to scan only once, although it may take a lot of time.

So, film scanners fell away for two reasons:
firstly, previous experience has shown that you cannot buy such a unit for a cheap normal unit, but what is cheap - oh, I can't stand such hell a second time.
Secondly, buying a separate scanner for photos and separately for film is also somehow expensive and impractical.
Moreover, I said to myself, if I come across something good, I will take it to a professional laboratory, for a dozen shots you can go broke.

Having looked at what is on sale that can scan film, in addition to paper, it turned out that the choice is not great: either, again, sky-high prices, or just a couple of options. After the break of all shops that were open right after the holiday, it turned out that there are the following acceptable options:

  • Epson Perfection V330 Photo (A4, 4800 x 9600 dpi, USB 2.0, CCD, Film Adapter)
  • Epson Perfection V370, Photo (A4, 4800x9600 dpi, CCD, USB 2.0)
  • Canon CanoScan LiDE 700F (A4 9600х9600dpi 48bit CIS Slide Adapter USB2.0)
  • Canon CanoScan 5600F (A4 4800х9600dpi 48bit Slide Adapter USB2.0)

The rest was either too expensive, from 10,000, or, conversely, nothing was skillful. Unfortunately, the CanoScan 5600F was dropped due to the lack of it at the moment on sale, although according to the description it is very good. The rest turned out, according to reviews, approximately the same, but the decisive role was played by the fact that Epson "s had drivers for Linux, and since I would like to work not only under Windows, in the end the Epson Perfection V330 Photo won. , how does the 330 model differ from the 370, but since Linux drivers were mentioned only for 330, I settled on it, so to speak, "in order to avoid".

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to try it for Linux yet, but in the Windows software I liked the function of removing defects - it works with a bang on black and white old photographs. But you also need to be careful with her - sometimes something worthwhile can be considered a defect.

In the reviews about the scanner, in some places the problem with the appearance of stripes when scanning films is mentioned - but I have not seen this yet. Nevertheless, in my opinion, here is something useful about this, found in one of the reviews on the Yandex market: “Two years later, I can report on the results of the investigation: there is a calibration window in the scanner frame where the white balance is set. If there are dust particles, "broken pixels" are obtained, which, when the carriage is run, give stripes. This is most likely a design defect in the new LED backlight(but who will admit it ...). So gentlemen, if you have such a scanner,
remove dust. "

With what resolution to scan - this question was not the last. The scanner produces a maximum of 4800x9600, but when trying to set this when scanning a 9x13cm photo, the system began to swear at the scale, it was necessary to reduce it.

The criterion for choosing a resolution is simple: if you consider that you can print at a standard resolution of 300dpi, then in order to get the same image, you need to have a minimum of 300dpi. Considering that the photos are old, there is no point in overestimating this figure - all the same, the physical resolution will not allow you to get quality out of nothing. Again, hardly anyone would ever want to print a poster with a picture of their great-grandfather in A1 or even A4 format. If anyone writes a book, it is unlikely that the picture will be larger than a sheet. In general, I decided that for very old ones a two-fold excess will come down, for higher-quality and later ones - a three-fold excess, i.e. 600dpi and 900dpi respectively. Then I chose what was the closest to what the software gave out that came with the scanner.

I decided to use the maximum for negatives - it was not in vain that I bought with such a resolution ... Most likely this is an overkill of 4800x4800dpi, but you can always cut it down later, but the main thing is that you don't have to rescan with other parameters and you can sleep peacefully.

Scans are saved, of course, not in jpeg, in order to avoid compression losses. Everything is just tiff. It seems, of course, that the place eats more, but then scan it once - and then you don't know the problems: I do what I want. I also did not come to this right away, but practice shows that if I save now, then I will regret and return to this issue, and so, if everything is to the maximum, then there is nothing to regret later.

Cataloging

Naturally, after digitization, the whole thing needs to be raked somehow. The main task was to sign great-great-relatives, because I wanted to save the history of the family for the future, and no one would ever figure it out without competent comments.

The option to immediately process photos and upload them to the site was not suitable for two reasons: firstly, you need to process everything at once, and this is time, and the parents do not understand anything about this; secondly, technologies are changing, and who would have known how the site would look like in a couple of decades, if it would exist at all.

The use of a smart cataloging program was not suitable for the same essential reason - there is no guarantee that in a few decades this software will be alive and, accordingly, no one will understand what, where and how is stored in its smart unique format.

The decision came to mind to store the description in a regular text file with the same name as the photo - the text is also text in Africa, probably anyone can read it after ten decades, even if they come up with some other super-unicode, it's still much more reliable than special software. But as a programmer, I looked at this option with horror - well, it's ugly and that's it. Yes, and inconvenient in the process.

The parents said that they generally want it like in a Word - here's a photo, here's a signature - and everything is clear. From such a proposal, the hair stood on end, for again - today there is a Word - tomorrow it is not.

Another option is to store signatures in EXIF. It was embarrassing that when processing pictures, many EXIF ​​softphones are simply ignored, as a result, losing precious signatures may be irreplaceable.

In general, after analyzing the whole situation, I made a decision: we scan the photo, sign it in the form of EXIF ​​and then do all these pictures with signatures read-only, so that there is no temptation to change something, and thus we guarantee the safety of information. If you want to change - make a copy - and go. Well, backups, of course. And in general, in the end, that's what we programmers are for, in order to sketch out a small script so that the entire EXIF ​​could be exported to a text file, just in case, "in order to avoid" :)

There are a bunch of command line tools for working with EXIF ​​in Linux, but this is unacceptable for comfortable work with big amount pictures. However, here's what it is: exif, exiftool, exiv2, google it for more information. Next, I used exiftool for batch processing, but more on that later.

Let's see what is from the GUI. After studying what the OpenSource community offers us, I somehow settled on DigiKam - “digiKam is an advanced digital photo management application for Linux, Windows, and Mac-OSX,” as they say on their website.
I decided to edit in GIMP, GNU Image Manipulation Program, similar to Photoshop, but opensource. Therefore, the ability to edit photos for the cataloging software was not required separately, but several things were bribed in cataloging itself.

First, DigiKam edits EXIF, which is what I need.

Secondly, all the photos are immediately on the screen, we sign in the window next to it and immediately go to the next one - quickly, simply and conveniently.

Thirdly, it was noticed that in EXIF ​​itself there are several similar tags for commenting: Comment, UserComment, ImageComment, and so, DigiKam writes to everything at once, so the probability that this information will be read by other software is quite high.

In addition, reading the reviews, I was pleased with the thought that apart from just EXIF, the softphone can keep a catalog, and without copying anything anywhere, unlike many others, but simply processing everything on the spot. This was a huge plus - I did not look for this opportunity initially, but it turned out to be very useful. And what I liked - besides entering information in EXIF, she writes it to her database and then it is convenient to sort the photo and search by tags, tags, descriptions, etc. And even if at some point the software disappears and the database also disappears, then a copy of the data will remain in EXIF, which, in fact, is what I need.

Some interesting ideas on cataloging are described in the already mentioned article. So, all or almost all of this data can also be stored in EXIF ​​and, if necessary, exported to any format as it is convenient for us.
An additional advantage of DigiKam is that you can choose any photo as the cover of the album, and I liked the idea of ​​having a photo of the paper album itself as the cover, for which thanks to the author.

Another unobvious moment that I encountered when working with DigiKam: if there is no permission to write to a photo file, then the software silently writes only to its database, not making it clear that there are problems. For a long time I tried to figure out why there is a signature in the program, but not in the file, especially since the "save to file" option is set in the settings. So, keep this in mind - check the access rights, otherwise you can swear for a long time.

We put it on the site

So, the main tasks have been solved - scanning and cataloging. Now it's time to boast to relatives, to show friends a photo. Naturally, by uploading photos to the site. Not so long ago I already made a softphone for this case: folded necessary photos v
catalog, launched - and ready, there was an album. I wrote about this on Habré last time,. Now, using DigiKam, I decided that you can mark a photo directly in EXIF ​​tags, whether it should be placed in a photo album or not, because during scanning there were all sorts of pictures that should not be uploaded to the site. And comments can now be taken from EXIF.

Everything seems to be good, but not very good.

Everything on the site is processed in PHP, and there is, as it seemed to me, a wonderful function for working with EXIF, read_exif_data (), but as practice has shown, this under-function shows only part of the data, completely silent about the rest. I rummaged through everything I could - and the dream of an easy life sank into oblivion, I had to pull EXIF ​​out of the files at the stage of album generation, since there are command line tools.

As a result, I rewrote the script, recalling the caustic commentary on my previous article "The generator of php files in Perl ... Monsieur knows a lot ..." now the leg, and so a couple of minutes - and the problem is solved.

So, when processing a photo in DigiKam, we mark the photo with a flag (it is called PickLabel there). The flag is written to the file in EXIF. When we process all the files from the directory, we pull out the checkbox using exiftool:

$ flagPickLabel = `exiftool -b -PickLabel" $ fname_in "`;

Well, then, depending on the checkbox - if it is, then we process it, if not, we skip it. Everything is set on the command line, so that it is convenient. In fact, here you can process a lot of things, it already tastes and colors whoever needs it.

Link to the source code, in case someone suddenly needs to look closely or even apply: photo_album-r143.tar.gz. How to use - mentioned in the previous article, I will not repeat myself.

Thank you for your attention, and if it came in handy for someone, then I'm immensely glad.
Criticism is welcome.

UPD: I accidentally found it on Habré - I'm surprised I didn't notice it before. Let it be here to the heap.

Tags:

  • photo archive
  • photo cataloging
  • scanning
  • DigiKam
  • EXIF
  • exiftool
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Scanner with slide module

I will make a reservation right away that it will be ok to scan a film only on a scanner with a slide module. A slide module is a device inside the scanner lid, consisting of a special plate and some other elements. If you just put the film on the scanner glass, the result will be terrible, everything will be overexposed and ruined. In addition, the scanner must have a real (not to be confused with interpolated resolution) optical resolution of at least 2400dPi, and better 4800dPi.

Step 2

We need to prepare the film. Cut it into pieces of 6 frames each. Before that, it is advisable to rinse the film with plain water. Clean the scanner glass with glass cleaner, otherwise every speck of dust will be visible in the photo. Detach the slide module plate and attach the film to it. For a firm hold, use small strips around the edges. Attach the slide module to the scanner lid and lower the lid.

Step 3

Software. As a program for scanning film, you can use the software supplied with the scanner. The VueScan program also copes well with this task. You can download it from the resource This utility supports most scanners and has many settings. The scanning process itself is not much different from scanning photos. You need to select the media type Slide \ Film, scan resolution and location to save the file. Choose the format of the created file BMP or TIFF, if you choose JPEG, you will lose the quality of the picture. Batch mode allows you to scan multiple slides at the same time. It is better to process the resulting image in graphic editors, for example Photoshop. Source site

  • On a weak PC, scanning at high resolution can take quite a long time.
  • Do not use multifunction devices (MFPs) to digitize film.
  • Both negatives and positives can be scanned.


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