Here's a scan of a 37-year-old negative. If I remember correctly, I tried to print this one back in the day, but never got a good image out of it. The negative actually is fine, with a lot of detail. If I had to guess, I didn't have paper that was high enough contrast to do it justice.I took this picture one Sunday at Penn Station in Baltimore, back in the days when you could wander around the platforms without causing anyone any anxiety. It was just a few days after I bought a Leica IIIc and a Canon Serenar 50mm f/1.8 lens.
Tonight, I scanned this negative, along with some others, on my Epson V500 scanner. I've only used the scanner for documents up until now, but its raw specs implied it would do a good job on negatives and slides. I cranked up the resolution to its maximum, 4800 dpi, and it yielded a 28-megapixel file. I noticed in Photoshop that it was 26" x 17" at 240 dpi. Just a little manipulation in Photoshop to adjust the blacks was all it needed to make a compelling image. I didn't even apply any sharpening, as the scanned image just didn't need any.
On-screen and on the web, I think the image looks great. I'll have an 18x12 print made from this file to see how that looks, but for the time being, I'm very happy with the film-scanning ability of the V500.
