 So you've developed your film or maybe you got it back from the lab and when they asked if you'd like scans You told them to go fuck themselves because you're an independent film photographer who don't need no man Well, once you have your film a possible next step for you might be to scan them So that you have a digital copy of your shots They can then post to Instagram to get six likes from all of your parents alt accounts We're here today because the scanning software that you choose can actually make a huge difference in the final outcome of your image Today we're going to be comparing three programs that do just that first up on the list today is Epson scan Which is the free and default software that is provided when you purchase an Epson scanner Additionally, we'll compare some pricier alternatives like silver fast which goes for about $50 per license And of course the popular plug-in for Lightroom negative lab pro which retails for about a hundred dollars luckily for you I just acquired a new scanner and by acquired I mean I broke into their house beat the crap out of them took a shit in the upper deck of their toilet Grab the scanner and ran it's the epson v700 which replaced the epson v550 that I've since smashed to pieces with a hammer Not because it's a bad scanner. It's actually really good. I just get satisfaction from destroying beautiful things like friendships Does that make me an unstable sociopath? That's for my psychiatrist to know and me to find out So here's the first shot we're gonna compare it was shot on portrait 400 in Kathmandu, Nepal at box speed So let's go back find the physical negative load it into our scanner and crack open Epson scan For your reference, I won't be making any color or levels adjustments to any of the scans I'll just keep the images as the default scan that the program gives me because any adjustments after that point kind of just becomes subjective You'll see here in a silver fast since this shot was on Kodak portrait 400 I'll use the preset portrait 400 profile And lastly negative lab pro which does things a little bit differently as it needs to be scanned as a positive So you get an image that looks like this that the plug-in itself will later flip in light room after white balancing This is the image that is initially prepared on the default standard preset in negative lab pro so again no adjustments So here are all of them compared to one another So right off the bat the colors are quite a bit different Silver fast and negative lab pro are pretty similar They seem to have a bit of a yellow cast which I'd say the Epson scan doesn't really have The silver fast scan definitely has more contrast than either of them And because of that it naturally pushes out some of the shadow detail What's interesting to me is uh the negative lab pro and the Epson scan both have nearly identical Contrast or latitude, but the negative lab pro scan is a lot more saturated Let's take a look at another example. Here's a comparison of a landscape shot I shot many years ago on ektar 100 which is dead. It's not discontinued. It's just dead to me So this one example is where we see the biggest shifts for some reason Silver fast was significantly brighter than the epson scan furthermore the blues in the negative lab pro scan are quite punchy and turquoise Like the waters of a caribbean island remember when we could go places and weren't quarantined in our depressing apartments So that's something I definitely noticed about negative lab pro oftentimes I'll have to color correct blue skies back to like a normal hue Additionally the reds in negative lab pro will sometimes come out redder than a baboon's ass and sometimes need to be desaturated in my opinion Lastly to change it up. Here is a color negative night shot from a yet to air video shot with my memia 7 with cinestal 800 t So the epson scan definitely came out the flattest to where we can really see the grain Silver fast again has more contrast, but way better colors I think negative lab pro looks like a lot more exposure was applied to the brights of the image But the colors are solid in my opinion Now that's all great And you may already have a program in mind that you think produces the best results But sometimes these programs will give you s*** results if you're scanning an image that's backlit or has mixed lighting in frame Let's use this example of a backlit scenario of kale playing on his game boy instead of enjoying nature Shot on my contacts t2 at box speed and also this photo of sunrise for mixed lighting Epson looks like it came out Kind of flat again the colors on silver fast are definitely more accurate. I think for some reason I like the negative lab pro scan the most Those blues are turquoise as s*** though. So that would need to be something that needs to be fixed now. Let's do mixed lighting Here's the final edit for reference Again, I think silver fast nailed the tones to real life Negative lab pro definitely has a greenish cast like it got a mountain dude pre wash in development And epson scan kind of just looks like swamp ass in my opinion Okay, so let's take a look at some black and white photo scans and see if there's a huge difference between them So here's a shot of a gas station in iceland taken on hp5 on the contacts t2 So for once silver fasts actually calm the f*** down and actually seems to have less contrast than the epson scan The negative lab pro scan seems to want to brighten the sky quite a bit for some reason I think the epson scan actually nailed this one Let's try out another black and white image. Here's a different black and white shot of some downtown la skyscrapers taken on camp mere 400 Once again, it looks like silver fast rendered a flatter image somehow, especially in the highlights Negative lab pro seems to have the most contrast So that's it. That's all I got for examples My overall thoughts epson scan actually seems to be quite good for black and white work But the color negative scans are kind of bland and flat in my opinion silver fast is not a bad option I actually quite like the look it gave to some of the shots I think the color algorithm that it uses is probably the most accurate overall worth mentioning though I kept getting errors on the epson scanner But only in silver fast for some reason silver fast also made me purchase another license Because I changed scanners So just a heads up, I guess negative lab pro definitely has some crazy colors a lot of the times But at least it's pretty consistent in my opinion the scan process for negative lab pro is definitely longer overall So which one do I use you ponder as the mystery deepens? You've probably already figured out my bias at this point these days I've been using none other than negative lab pro for all of my my work because frankly I feel like it takes all my stupid boring shots and has another level of pop and range to them Especially if you know what to look out for and you can correct for it I might be like I like negative lab pro quite a bit. But why is it $99? I could buy 99 things off the dollar menu for that price. Well, the good news is you're free to use whatever program you want negative lab pro isn't paying me money or sexual favor coupons to endorse them But consider this the plugin itself is built in the light room Which is really convenient and as far as I know it's just one guy who makes it Probably in his dorm room at harvard after his girlfriend broke up with him Additionally negative lab pro still gets updates every now and then and I can only assume it'll continue to get updates into the future You know at least until it becomes sentient and tries to wipe out the youtube film photography Avengers At some point in the future it might be cool to try other programs like view scan But I'm pretty happy with the pipeline that I have going right now. So why change it? So that's that I hope that this video was at least a little informative And at the very least provided a little entertainment during this crazy time until next time You can find me eagerly watching the news in quarantine waiting for the first zombie to appear. See you guys