Vuescan Negative

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  1. Vuescan Negative Stock
  2. Vuescan Color Negative Settings
  3. Vuescan Negative Film Scanning
  4. Vuescan Negatives
  5. Vuescan Negative Scanning
  6. Vuescan Negative Light
I purchased an Epson V700 Scanner so I could scan some large format negatives that were taken by my grandparents back in the 1940’s, some were even taken on the battlefield of WWII. Another reason I purchased the V700 is to avoid an issue called “Newton Rings,” which you can get if your negatives are not suspended in the air, which was the case on my HP scanner. The Epson V700 comes with 4 different film holders for the more common negative types…

If you select 'Negative film' or 'Slide film', the cropped image will be comparable to the original scene that was photographed. When you use either film option, the Color tab then lets you choose the film manufacturer, the brand, and film type to enable VueScan to refine the result further. Negative scanning in VueScan can be tricky. My recommendation would be: load defaults, do a preview at the default resolution, go to tab Color and select 'Color balance: Auto levels' (or 'White balance', or right-click the image for manual adjustment), press Ctrl+2 (or go to menu Image - Graph b/w) and adjust the histogram, and just then try any 'Restore' option in the Filter tab. During “Preview” scan with Vuescan, it could be seen beginning before the sensor got to the negative area. It occurred with either Epson’s scanning program or Vuescan, and cleaning the glass surfaces made no difference. Reinstalling driver made no difference. Negatives were without visual evidence of scratches or other defects.

Epson’s stock film templates (which ironically have pictures, not negatives framed in each one for photo purposes)
…but many of the negatives I have are too big for the one size film holder and too small for the larger one. There are some third party companies that are making custom film holders and in the case of 126 film negatives, I’d encourage you to buy one. But in this case I was able to easily make a cardboard template to adapt the large film holder to hold these smaller negatives. Here’s how…

Hardware:

Vuescan Negative Stock

Step 1: Find some cardboard to use.

It needs to be more like thick paper versus corrugated cardboard, which will be too thick. I used a file folder, which turns out to be a perfect thickness–but you could use poster board too.

Step 2: Open up the film holder and determine how to cut the cardboard.

You’ll have to play around with it. I had to re-cut them and then trim a millimeter off here and there but the nice thing is that if you mess up you can just easily do it over again.
Cardboard negative film adapter
Place the film in the corner and place marks on your cardboard so the film just slightly overlaps under the cardboard. I folded the cardboard in half so the film is pinched in-between and the fold of the cardboard is on the edge like this:
Vuescan color negative
First place the cardboard adapter in the tray, all they way in the corner

Step 3: Place the film in the holder.

Make sure your cardboard is all the way to the edge and that your negative is all the way on its side.
Then place the negative in, making sure it is in the opposite corner

Step 4: Close the cardboard template on the negative.

I would usually reach through the plastic frame door to hold the cardboard template in place (not pictured below) so the negative doesn’t move while I’m snapping the door shut.
Closing the cardboard template on the negative

Step 5: Scan the negatives in your “adapted” frame.

Vuescan Negative
Now your odd-size negatives are ready to scan!
Two negatives in one, with another custom cardboard film holder adapter
And here they are with the frame snapped shut. These are small enough that I can leave their one edge floating in the air and it doesn’t matter:
Fitting 4 negatives in two frames

Vuescan Color Negative Settings

Epson Perfection V700 and VueScan–A Perfect Match

Vuescan Negative Film Scanning

I really like the Epson Perfection V700 scanner for scanning film and I recommend using it with VueScan, which gives you a lot more control over the scanner than Epson’s scanner software (and once you learn how to run VueScan on this scanner you can use it on virtually every other scanner made. BTW: You must purchase their Pro version to do film. I purchased it over 10 years ago and it comes with lifetime updates and I’m still using it and the price hasn’t changed ($79.95)! AND, Ed Hamrick, the author answers tech support emails very quickly and even on Saturdays sometimes and has been very helpful to me. He hasn’t asked me to give a plug for his software, I just like it that much that I want to recommend it.Here’s an example of a negative I scanned in this manner:

Vuescan Negatives

Negative scanned on Epson Perfection V700 Scanner

Please post any questions you have in the comments and I’ll get right back to you! Thanks, John.

All my film/negative scanning posts:

Vuescan Negative Scanning

  • How to Scan Odd-Sized Negatives on an Epson Perfection V700 Scanner Model J221A (this post)

Vuescan Negative Light

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