How to Scan Odd-Size Negatives on a HP Scanjet 4850
Hardware:
A Note About Newton’s Rings
I scanned a bunch of color negatives in the way I describe below and some of the scans show a feature called Newton’s rings. It was only later that I learned what was causing the rings to show up in the scans. Newton’s rings show up on the pictures because light is passing through two different types of mediums that are touching–the negative film and the glass. Here is an example:
This is reason why 34-mm slides are held in cardboard and not laid down on glass to be projected. Ideally you should have film suspended in the air to make a scan. Many of my negatives were curled quite a bit, which required pressing them between the plate glass and the scanner’s glass top. I was happy to have recovered all these lost memories and can handle a few rings on my pictures.
The HP Scanjet 4850 was designed to easily scan 35mm negatives. This is great if you don’t have a bunch of old negatives like me. Below shows the 126 negatives (top) compared a standard width 35mm negative (below):
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| 35mm negative (bottom) verses 126 narrow negative (top) |
You can still scan these narrow negatives on an HP Scanjet 4950 and here is how you can do it:
Step 1: Create a template to show you where the backlit area is on the scanning deck.
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| Paper Template exposing backlit scanning area and calibration zone |
Step 2: Lay your negatives in the opening.
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| Curled negatives |
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| Using the glass from a picture frame to press the negatives flat |
Be careful not to gouge the scanner glass with the corner of the glass you use.
Step 3: Scan using the (color) negative setting.
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| Example negatives I scanned |
Step 4: Crop and color correct with your favorite photo editing software.
Other Tips
- Re-clean the scanner glass each time before you lay down the negatives. It is easier to clean the glass than to edit a face that has a speck of dust on it.
All my film/negative scanning posts:
- How to Archive and Store 35-mm Slides
- How to Fix Braun Paximat Multimag Compact Magazine Jamming on Slide Number 25
- How to Scan Slides on a Pacific Image PowerSlide 5000 With VueScan on a Mac
- How to Scan Odd-Sized Negatives on an Epson Perfection V700 Scanner Model J221A
- How to Scan Odd-Size Negatives on a HP Scanjet 4850 (this post)
- Scanning Slides With a Braun Multimag SlideScan 4000 Diascanner, same as Pacific Image ProSlide 3650
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Sorry for that. I missed the ODD part. I scanned 10.000 positive slides I had with a projector type scanner. It did run automatic when I was at my work and at nights. Had some negatives left though. That is where the flat bed scanner came in view. Did not like that and eventually used the small 35mm strip holder of the scanner to insert the negative film into a positive slide holder for replication. Only had a few negatives so completely different story but I got my solution in a alternative way now. Again sorry for overlooking the ODD part when I was Googling a lot of stuff.
No problem! I too used one of those carousel slide scanners and scanned something like 5,000 slides.
Why not use the holder that is in the cover?
Good question! Almost all the film I scanned turned out to be NOT 35-mm so it would not fit in the default negative holder. I would say, having learned a lot from all the scanning I’ve done, is that you really need to use a film holder as it is essential to avoid getting the Newton’s rings from your scans (versus laying them on the glass). It’s also the reason that 35-mm slides are mounted in a thick cardboard or plastic frame.
Also, I just recalled that I named this article “How to scan ODD-size negatives” i.e. those which will not fit in the built-in holder.