How to Scan Odd-Size Negatives on a HP Scanjet 4850

How to Scan Odd-Size Negatives on a HP Scanjet 4850
How to Scan Odd-Size Negatives on a HP Scanjet 4850
Negatives come in different sizes than 35-mm, for example 126 negatives, and although the HP Scanjet 4850 is only made for 35-mm negatives you can scan other smaller sizes of negatives with it’s backlight scanner and here’s how…

How to Scan Odd-Size Negatives on a HP Scanjet 4850

Hardware:

A Note About Newton’s Rings

I scanned a bunch of color negatives in the way I describe below and some of the scans show a feature called Newton’s rings. It was only later that I learned what was causing the rings to show up in the scans.  Newton’s rings show up on the pictures because light is passing through two different types of mediums that are touching–the negative film and the glass.  Here is an example:

Newtons Rings Example
Newtons Rings Example

This is reason why 34-mm slides are held in cardboard and not laid down on glass to be projected.  Ideally you should have film suspended in the air to make a scan.  Many of my negatives were curled quite a bit, which required pressing them between the plate glass and the scanner’s glass top.  I was happy to have recovered all these lost memories and can handle a few rings on my pictures.

The HP Scanjet 4850 was designed to easily scan 35mm negatives.  This is great if you don’t have a bunch of old negatives like me.  Below shows the 126 negatives (top) compared a standard width 35mm negative (below):

35mm negative (bottom) verses 126 narrow negative (top)

You can still scan these narrow negatives on an HP Scanjet 4950 and here is how you can do it:

Step 1: Create a template to show you where the backlit area is on the scanning deck.

The actual area the scanner will actually scan is narrower but you’ll figure this out when you preview.  Use the top (and align with the back right corner) as a template to cut out your template as shown below.  One thing to note is that you must cut out a rectangle to match the box like I did below, otherwise the scanner doesn’t work correctly.  It goes through a start up procedure where it adjusts the color and brightness and it must see the light through that opening (I learned this the hard way at first).  Mine is not that “neat” but it doesn’t matter how it looks or what you make it out of–it just must be thin and stable enough not to bend:
Paper Template exposing backlit scanning area and calibration zone

Step 2: Lay your negatives in the opening.

Lay them face down (so from the top the frame numbers are backwards).  I can get a whole roll of 12 pictures scanned at once with this size of negative!  Some of my negatives would not lay flat, like seen below:
Curled negatives
I use a piece of glass I borrowed out of a picture frame to press the negatives down flat (and put a couple pieces of tape on the glass to make it easier to lift up):
Using the glass from a picture frame to press the negatives flat

Be careful not to gouge the scanner glass with the corner of the glass you use.

Step 3: Scan using the (color) negative setting.

You can recover tons of pictures this way.
Example negatives I scanned

Step 4: Crop and color correct with your favorite photo editing software.

I would suggest cropping the images before you try color-correcting them because the border will throw off any auto-correcting features of the software.

Other Tips

  • Re-clean the scanner glass each time before you lay down the negatives.  It is easier to clean the glass than to edit a face that has a speck of dust on it.

All my film/negative scanning posts:

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