So I haven’t posted any blogs in 3 months … what on earth could have caused this to happen … !??
Welcome to the world of DIY 35mm film scanning … who would have thought that such a simple endeavour could cause so much frustration, headaches, sleepless hours, and repeated post-processing !
Let me explain …
So why scan your own 35mm film ?
Having enthusiastically re-embraced film photography the last 2 years, it’s a natural process to wonder how you can get closer to the physical process that is film image creation.
While my favourite dev lab (www.printpoint.ie) was producing amazing images, I slowly began to wonder about two things:
- What it would be like to develop my own film – working through the chemicals and producing the negatives myself ?
- What would it be like to scan my own negatives – could I get better dynamic range, and higher resolution images ?
The wonderful thing about the internet and social media in particular is the wealth of information available !
So I decided, one step at a time, let’s try the negative scanning & post-processing first, and see how I progress.
After all, how difficult could it be …

Negative Scanning – which approach ?
The first thing I had to decide was which approach: a) buy a dedicated scanner (e.g. Plustek Opticfilm) or b) use my DSLR & macro lens ?
After a lot of research on these two approaches, I decided that the DLSR approach was probably the most expedient & cost effective option for me. I already had both cropped & full-frame DSLR’s, and reliable macro lenses.
The alternative approach of buying a new or secondhand Plustek scanner, seemed like a large financial gamble, for what was still in effect an experiment.
Basic DSLR scanning equipment
More research quickly revealed three critical components necessary to make this DIY scanning endeavour successful:
- A piece of equipment to hold my film in place & flat
- A piece of equipment to hold my camera & macro lens steady
- Software that could edit the raw negative files, and translate them to faithful positives
This is where the trial & error truly began, a lot of failures, a lot of headaches but finally some 35mm scans that were acceptable …
The first unexpected discovery was this neat little adapter which Nikon had produced called the ES-2, which attached a film strip holder directly to your macro lens … genius !

This little gadget immediately solved equipment needs 1 & 2 simultaneously, and remarkably well too ! Not only that, but I also discovered that there are third-party variations of this device that will cater for all camera makes, not just Nikon, as they include an array of adapters for your Canon / Sony / Fujifilm, etc..
So that left item 3, how to edit the negative raw files … reliably & consistently. This is where I lost a lot of hair and aged rapidly over the period of 3 months !! π«
Experiment #1 – Basic Lightroom post-processing
As I say, the ES-2 gadget allowed me to get fantastic raw files of my 35mm negatives with relative ease. So being a heavy user of Lightroom (LR) the last 10+ years, that seemed the obvious starting place for the post-processing.
Some basic internet searching revealed that in order to edit a 35mm negative scan, it was simply a matter of inverting the curve – grab the bottom left handle, and drag it to the top. Then grab to top-right handle and drag it to the bottom:

However what I noticed was a persistent cyan colour cast, that proved to be very challenging to eliminate, as it varied from film to film, scan to scan, at different intensities:

Apparently the only way of removing this, is to perform selective min & max curve flattening across the red, green & blue channels individually:

I spent days embarking on a lot of trial and error, to see if I could accomplish a decent end-product. However, it was proving to be a lot of hard work, absolutely frustrating and just not good enough π§π
What made this all the more challenging is that fact that once you invert the curves, the controls in Lightroom work in the opposite direction π
Experiment #2 – Use a LR plug-in
Soon after, and following some more research, it became apparent that the LR plug-in “Negative Lab Pro” was the way to go. It was going to cost a little bit, but the few experiments I did with a trial copy were showing some promising results.

As you can see from my screenshot above, Negative Lab Pro (NLP) is excellent, very powerful, intuitive and offers some great controls.
I was finally starting to get some nice images – yeaahhh ! π―

I soon found myself spending weeks enjoying messing about with NLP scanner profiles (e.g like Frontier, Crystal & Pakon) and % scan coverage. Then more weeks experimenting with getting the tonality, white balance and overall colour balance reasonably reliable …
I’ll be honest and say, that after almost 2 months, I was beginning to get frustrated with deleting exported files, re-processing, and re-exporting again … only to find that I was still getting odd colour shifts that the perfectionist in me couldn’t ignore.
What I noticed more recently is that NLP handles FujiColor C200, Kodak Gold 200 and Ektar with consummate ease – wonderful – however Kodak Portra 160 & Kodak Portra 400 films have very strong blue saturation, which needs to reworked afterwards π«


So my workflow was soon becoming: 35mm film camera –> negative develop –> DSLR raw file scan –> LR import –> NLP raw file processing –> export –> LR jpeg post processing –> export
Conclusion
So three months later, what can I conclude … personally speaking, the DSLR scanning approach to 35mm colour film is just not for me.
I am certainly able to get acceptable images – the resolution has improved marginally, the image size is larger (now averaging 4200-4400px wide), but the dynamic range is the same.
If anything, the whole experience over the three months has made me really APPRECIATE the craftsmanship & skill of my local film lab !
However, as I say, this is just my perspective … you might decide that it’s worth a shot, or you’re perfectly happy with the results you obtain following your particular process and equipment.


Either way I hope my sharing of this experience helps in some way. In the meantime, keep shooting film !
Instagram :: #irishanalogadventures