Is it possible to scan diapositives, negative b/w or color films with ordinary scanners (e.g. HP 3200C)? How to proceed?

-- George Fischer (gyuri@oradea.iiruc.ro), July 17, 2000

Answers

If the manufacturers supply a Transparency adapter or TMA (Transparent Media Adapter- why don't they just say 'a light to go on top of your scanner'?) then it's possible. However unless the scanner is a very high end job, or it's been specifically designed with transparency scanning in mind, the results will be less than satisfactory. Most scanners don't have the dynamic range, or the software, to properly remove the masking from colour negatives. You might just about get a usable result from B&W or normal slides.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 17, 2000.