Scanning 4x5 with an Epson V500/600

ChrisR

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This has been mentioned before in passing, as in "scan the two halves and stitch together". I understand the second bit (I can do it in Affinity Photo, just like making a panorama shot), but the first part raised several questions for me. Questions like... if you scan each half as a negative isn't it unlikely the tones of the two halves will match up? And... what do you do about film holders?

Then I found this youtube video from a guy named (I think) Dmitri, who shows how he did it. I found a shorter one as well which was a silent set of screen shots. Part of the point of both was fixing the settings, which presumably addresses the first question. Both used Epson Scan, and I use Vuescan Pro; I presume the equivalent is to check the Lock Exposure box?

Dmitri also showed how he had cut his own film holders from a desk mat that he got from Ikea. It looked a really cool idea, sorts the Newton's Rings, and provides a simple way of keeping the film in the exact same orientation while sliding it across. The only trouble is, I can't find the sort of mats he was talking about, and I've no idea of the measurements (when asked in the comments he just says he used the 120 film holder as a template). I suppose for a more practical person this would be a doddle. Has anyone done this, or worked out a different way to make film holders for 4x5 on an Epson V500/550/600?
 
I don't use holders, I just put the sheets flat on the glass.

I put the sheet on the glass so that one half of it is in the scanning area, and then do a preview scan. Then I just adjust exposure like you would with a 120/35mm negative, except I then expand the scanning area so that it covers the whole half of the sheet and quite a bit of the area around it. I hit scan, and when it's done I slide the sheet over so that the other half is in the scanning area, and hit scan again. I don't change any settings at all in between scans, but I'm using Epson Scan so I'm not sure how it works with Vuescan (I got Vuescan but got bored trying to figure it out, so just went back to Epson which seemed to work well enough for me).

I don't worry about keeping both halves perfectly lined up when I scan them, as Photoshop does a great job stitching them whether they're a bit wonky or not.

When I started scanning 4x5's I kept telling myself "Keep It Simple, Stupid" as I have a tendency to make things overly complicated. This way seemed to work perfectly for me so I didn't bother to improve on it lol.
 
Quick search doesn't reveal a more appropriate thread... just scanning a few old 120 6*6 negatives on the V500. What an absolute pain the negative holder is! The negs are cut in strips of 3, but only 2 frames can fit into the window at one time. There's no real guide for the location of the strip, eg sideways or lengthwise. I just felt the whole thing was much more difficult than it need be.

Is there a better negative holder available?
 
No problems with Newton's Rings, @Carl Hall ?
I've never but I don't think the scan is as sharp as it could be. On the other hand I've never bothered to rig up anything different...

Is there a better negative holder available?
I think you can get The "Better Negative Holder" but its not cheap.

Try it with 6x7 you can only do one frame at a time and getting them straight is a pita. But still I cba to pay money for anything else.
 
Maybe Steve can invent something with his 3d printer, at a reasonable price, for epson flatbed scanners from 35mm to 4X5...................
 
I've never but I don't think the scan is as sharp as it could be. On the other hand I've never bothered to rig up anything different...I think you can get The "Better Negative Holder" but its not cheap.

Try it with 6x7 you can only do one frame at a time and getting them straight is a pita. But still I cba to pay money for anything else.

Blimey, $100 including postage! That definitely IS expensive. Although if I were mostly shooting 120 (instead of 135) t might just possibly be worth it...
 
I don't seem to have any drawing tools on my Mac (thought I had something like Google Sketchup somewhere!). But I've done a quick dodgy sketch on a piece of paper...

a) IIRC the scanning plate on the top of the V500 is 22 cm by 31.5 cm. I assume the part that will scan negatives is at least 6 cm across, set in the middle. So there is 8 cm on each side.

b) If I want to scan a 4x5 (inch... that's around 10x12.5 cm) negative in two parts, the long side needs to align roughly with one edge (say the left edge) of the negative scannable area. So that would leave 4 cm of the negative over in the unscannable area to the right. There would be a further 4 cm to the edge of scanning plate.

c) I think that means that if I cut a sheet of card that is 18 cm on the short side and around 30 cm on the long side (to avoid the V500 sensors), and then cut a 12.5x10 cm hole in it, dead centre, then lay the card on the scanner at the right edge of the scanning plat, the hole will line up as above with the left edge of the negative scanning area. After the first scan, sliding the card across to the left edge should place the right hand edge of the hole at the right edge of the negative scanning area!

d) the size of the hole would need some fine tuning to allow the negative to be taped on with small strips of masking tape.

Not sure if this diagram will help...

Scan sketch.jpg

(Nice example of taking a photo of a piece of white paper and having it come out grey!)
 
I think you're making things more complicated than they need to be, Chris. I put a couple of stickers on the rear edge behind the glass (where you've written 22 above), and then holding the lid upright I marked lines on the stickers where the edge of the window in the lid sat. Now I just put the negative on the scanner glass so the negative is just on the inside of the left sticker marker, scan it, move it so that it's just inside of the right marker, and scan again.

It would make things easier if you can cut a piece of card to fit the glass, with an aperture in the right place to hold the negative in two positions you need, but I don't think there's any need to tape the negative unless for some reason it won't lie flat against the glass.
 
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