Can You Scan Film Without Changing Its Look?
And Other Film Digitization Questions Answered
March 24, 2025
The opaque nature of scanning software makes comparing film stocks and understanding the results of different exposures, colour filters, and film brands unreliable. This guide introduces a technique for consistent and predictable film negative inversion. It also answers a few questions about scanning film, starting with an explanation of why it may not be possible to create an image from a film negative without interpreting/changing the colours, whether one film stock can be digitally edited to look like another, what may be the technical advantage of shooting film if it’s going to be scanned with a digital camera, and whether it’s possible to tell if an image was shot on film or digitally.
