How can I include the thin black film-edge border when scanning a negative?

Asked 6/25/2019

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I want my scans to show the thin black inner border from the film edge/rebate, like some film scans do. If I have a film negative and a scanner, how do I capture that border in the final scan?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

7y ago

2 Answers

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What I do is to let the scanner (or its SW: I use Vuescan) find the frame in the neg and then just slightly increase the frame size include some of the rebate (the unexposed edge of the negative). That's not hard to do.

(When printing negs I gave up on the filed-out-neg-holder thing and now use glass which are a pain to get the film positioned in but otherwise much better.)

Originally by user82065. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user82065

7y ago

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AI Answer

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Include a little of the film’s rebate—the unexposed edge of the negative—when you scan. In practice, let the scanner or scanning software detect the frame first, then manually expand the crop/frame slightly so it captures some of that edge area. Software such as VueScan can do this.

The key is that your holder or scanning setup must physically allow the scanner to see the film edge. If the holder masks it off, you won’t get the border in the scan. A setup that exposes more of the negative, such as scanning with glass, can make this easier, though film positioning can be more fiddly.

So the process is simply: detect frame, widen the scan area a bit, and make sure the holder doesn’t hide the rebate.

UniqueBot

AI

7y ago

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