Film Scanners

Flatbed Scanners

As well as resolution, colour depth is also an important factor. Otherwise known as bit-depth, this value refers to how wide a gamut of colours the scanner is capable of reading and reproducing, which will have an impact on the colour accuracy and depth of your scans. You’ll see the value referred to as “bits”, so a scanner might be listed as “48-bit” or “64-bit”. This value is the sum of the number of bits in each of the three colour channels in an image – red, green and blue. So, a 64-bit image has 18 bits per channel. Higher values mean better colour variance and more accurate colour.

Depending on what physical media you’re working with, you may be looking for slide film scanners., a negative scanner, or one that’s equipped to handle both formats – which many are. If you have a large volume of slides or negatives to scan, you may want to look for a model that can accommodate batch scanning, as this will considerably expedite the process.

As well as the physical properties of the scanner itself, the software it comes with is also important. Good scanning software will guide you through the process to ensure the best possible scan of your photo, slide or negative, and ideally will also allow you to make edits to your images. Some scanning software is also able to detect and remove dust, scratches and other imperfections in the film or slide, making for a higher-quality scan. In some cases, you can also get third-party software to fine-tune performance to your liking.

Film scanners designed for the home will often have quite a small footprint – some quite sophisticated models advertise themselves as being no larger than a loaf of bread. This can be useful if you’ve already got quite a cramped home office setup and don’t want the scanner taking up too much space. A good scanner is quite often a lot more transportable than several boxes of film slides, so you can bring the scanner to the archive rather than the other way around.

If you have a lot of digitising to do, investing in a high-quality film scanner will absolutely save you money in the long run compared to paying for professional scanning services.

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