Our Epson Scanner and How We Use It

Our Epson scanner is used for scanning negatives. We only have one of these scanners at Townsweb as we generally receive less negatives compared to paper material.

I am currently using the Epson scanner for scanning negatives from The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Throughout this blog I will be running through how we use the scanner and how we connect the scanner to the PC to create the final scans in CaptureOne.

The Epson scanner consists of a glass bed, film frames for 35mm negatives and the scanner lid that contains the LED light source. The LED light shines through the film to scan the negatives. The lid also contains mirrors and lenses for scanning.

Step by step of how we use the Epson scanner

Before we start scanning, the preparation is the most important part. If this is the first time I’m using the Epson scanner, I will begin by plugging in the cables to the PC which connect the scanner to the PC. This allows us to use the EPSON Scan software to edit and view the scans on the PC using CaptureOne. Then, I clean the glass bed with a duster as there can be a lot of dust collected in this area.

Once the scanner is set up and ready, we turn on the scanner and insert the relevant sized film frames. I have been scanning 35mm negatives for The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo so I’ve used the 35mm film frames. Then, I carefully insert the negatives into the frames while only touching the edges of the film to ensure there are no marks on the film. After the negatives are fitted, we place grids over the negatives and close the scanner lid, this is so that they stay in place throughout the scanning process.

The negatives are now ready to be scanned. However, before scanning we need to adjust some settings in the EPSON Scan software. We need to ensure all the image settings are correct, the relevant folder is selected and the file naming is accurate. Once all the settings are correct, we select ‘preview’ to display a preview of all the scans and crop each scan individually. It is important that we create borders for each scan at this stage to separate the scans, this also makes it easier for us to crop and edit the scans when outputted to CaptureOne.

Now the preparation is complete and we can select ‘scan’ in the EPSON Scan software. Once the scanning is finished, we can view the scans in our output folder in CaptureOne. Usually we only need to crop the scans in CaptureOne but sometimes we need to adjust the colour correction slightly if an image is too bright or the colour is not realistic.

Once the scans are complete, we remove all negatives and film frames from the Epson scanner so that it is ready for next time!

If you have materials that need digitising, then please reach out to our team for a friendly chat.