«

I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't find a
reference to it on Google or anywhere else.

I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file and
convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer. There must
be a way.

<AlexS> wrote in message news:...
>I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't find a
> reference to it on Google or anywhere else.
>
> I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file and
> convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer.
> There must
> be a way.

There should be a setting on your scanner for this. For example I have the
Minolta Dimage Dual Scan IV. There is one drop down menu where I choose the
film format (35mm or APS) and another drop down where I choose the type of
film (color positive, color negative, b&w positive, B&w negative). When you
choose color neg, it will automatically convert the image to a positive.
Hope this helps.

AlexS wrote:
> I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't find a
> reference to it on Google or anywhere else.
>
> I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file and
> convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer. There must
> be a way.

I use Irfanview - it's a very good basic image editing program (only
lacks layers and levels, and a good crop tool, really) available as
freeware at:
http://www.irfanview.com/

Load your negative scan, go to the "image" menu, and select "negative"
- voila!

ECM

"ecm" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
>
> AlexS wrote:
> > I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't
find a
> > reference to it on Google or anywhere else.
> >
> > I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file
and
> > convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer.
There must
> > be a way.
>
> I use Irfanview - it's a very good basic image editing program (only
> lacks layers and levels, and a good crop tool, really) available as
> freeware at:
> http://www.irfanview.com/
>
> Load your negative scan, go to the "image" menu, and select "negative"
> - voila!
>
> ECM
>
Have you ever actually seen a color negative?
Removal of the orange mask is the big problem.
I have not found any freeware program or editor plugin which will perform
this task.
Still looking....

<AlexS> wrote in message news:...
> I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't find
a
> reference to it on Google or anywhere else.
>
> I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file and
> convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer.
There must
> be a way.
Yes there certainly is. You can buy your own scanner. Or you can pay
someone to scan the images for you. If you only have a few negatives,
paying someone else may be the best way (I say may because you have poor
control on how well they do the scan).
Jim

"Jack Rosier" <> wrote in message
news:4vKdnV2pq7OVYGnfRVn-...
>
> "ecm" <> wrote in message
> news: oups.com...
>>
>> AlexS wrote:
>> > I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't
> find a
>> > reference to it on Google or anywhere else.
>> >
>> > I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file
> and
>> > convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer.
> There must
>> > be a way.
>>
>> I use Irfanview - it's a very good basic image editing program (only
>> lacks layers and levels, and a good crop tool, really) available as
>> freeware at:
>> http://www.irfanview.com/
>>
>> Load your negative scan, go to the "image" menu, and select "negative"
>> - voila!
>>
>> ECM
>>
> Have you ever actually seen a color negative?
> Removal of the orange mask is the big problem.
> I have not found any freeware program or editor plugin which will perform
> this task.
> Still looking....
Every Scanner I've seen removes the orange mask automatically when it is set
to negative. As an exercise though I scanned one as a slide and gave it a
bit of photoshop treatment. First I inverted it, which gave me a very cyan
image. Then I jumped into levels, and adjusted the start and end range of
each colour based on the histogram that appeared, and voila - near perfect
colour. A few minor tweaks on each individual colour and it looked pretty
well spot on.
>
>

"ecm" <> writes:

>I use Irfanview - it's a very good basic image editing program (only
>lacks layers and levels, and a good crop tool, really) available as
>freeware at:
>http://www.irfanview.com/

>Load your negative scan, go to the "image" menu, and select "negative"
>- voila!

This will give you a low-contrast positive, not one that matches the
original scene. The reason is that a negative has reduced contrast
compared to the original scene. Technically, its gamma is approximately
in the 0.5-0.6 range. When you convert a negative back into a positive
image, you need to invert this by using a function with a gamma of
about 1.67 (really an exponent of -1.67).

The simple "negative" operation is linear, with a gamma of 1.

If you want to be more accurate, you need to deal with the fact that the
film transfer function isn't a simple straight line in log-log space;
it's an S-shape. And even the straight-line center section has a
different slope for each primary colour.

Dave

On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 16:11:31 +0100, AlexS wrote:

>I realise that this must have been asked a million times but I can't find a
>reference to it on Google or anywhere else.
>
>I have some old 35mm colour negatives and want to scan them to a file and
>convert them to colour positive to print out on an ink jet printer. There must
>be a way.

Yes, it's called a scanner.... S C A N N E R ... You need the flatbed type
with a film carrier, not too expensive today.

buy them at fine computer stores everywhere.

Once you have it, set it to 'color negative'...

I have a Canon 5000 and it works great, even removes dust...

In article <4vKdnV2pq7OVYGnfRVn->,
Jack Rosier <> wrote:
>
>Have you ever actually seen a color negative?
>Removal of the orange mask is the big problem.
>I have not found any freeware program or editor plugin which will perform
>this task.
>Still looking....

It sounds like you're scanning the negative using a slide setting. Your
scanner software shoujld allow you to select negative, in which case it will
remove the mask for you.

If you have uncorrected images of the actual negative, then what you need to
do (e.g. in Photoshop) is firstly invert the image, then set the levels
individually for the R, G and B channels so that something that is supposed
to be white really is white. "Auto color" should do a reasonable
approximation of this, but ideally you'd want to do it manually.

That, or just tell the scanner software that they're negatives.