Negative Scanner or Flatbed?

ScrapYap

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 25, 2008
I bought a Wolverine negative scanner. I like the viewing screen and I like the lightning-fast scan. But I don't like the color balance or levels (despite experimenting with the Wolverine's onboard color and exposure adjustments). Even using batch actions on Photoshop, this is proving to be very time consuming. If I could get a scan with more accurate color balance, it would save so much trouble. (Because of course I am compulsively adjusting every scan - even for shots that were semi duds.)

The flatbed Canoscan has pretty good reviews with optical: 4800 x 4800 dpi. But then you have to deal with the set-up for each negative strip. And I have thousands. But if the colors scanned more accurately, it would save time in the end.

The Wolverine is a piece of cake - you just push the negative strip through the scanner.

Kodak makes a similar product. Anyone here tried it?

My goal is to scan one set of negatives every morning. But the Photoshop time is killing me.

Is there a better way??
 
I have a Canon scanner (flatbed style) with the insert for negatives and slides in the lid that will fit 4 slide frames or 6 negative frames (35mm) at a time...it's slow, so I haven't really dived into converting everything I have yet, but have done a few - for the most part, once I get it all set up and adjust the defaults to where I like it, I haven't had to do much photoshop after. The scans themselves take a minute or two to scan the 3, then you have to interact with the software to accept the crop and framing, minor adjustments if wanted, and save the 4-6 scanned results. I've not tried the Wolverine, but was tempted when I heard how much simpler the process was - but I've heard many of the same complaints you mention - that the overall quality, color, etc are not great, or require a lot of work...that makes the process more time-consuming then it would be worth for me...so I'd probably use it for the 'generic' or memory shots, and reserve my 'good' shots from negatives or slides for a better, slower scanner and less processing after the fact.
 
I looked seriously at the Wolverine before recently purchasing the Magnasonic.

After scanning about 140 of my negatives from 1999 I give this scanner a B+. It works quickly and easily allowing you to slide in two or more negatives at a time (without removing the negative tray) or you can open the negative tray and insert one or more at a time. There are also a few on-screen editing tools. Some of those tools are: mirroring image, flipping to horizontal etc. and changing exposure compensation. Here's where I rated the Magnasonic lower than an A. Maybe it's because I wasn't very skilled using these tools but I found it easier to edit in PSE or Lightroom.

I've scanned negatives using negative trays in the past and depending upon the scanner it worked okay but the process is very slow and cumbersome. Using the Magnasonic is easy and fast and I love being able to preview the negative before saving it to a memory card.

Since I recently found thousands of my negatives I figure using the Magnasonic will save me money and time over scanning the photos myself or sending them to be digitized using a Groupon deal!

It will be a two-step process of scanning and editing but again, like you ScrapYak, I am somewhat of a perfectionist and compulsive about editing many of the scans!!!
 



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