Turn On The Bright Lights: Film Is Certainly NOT Dead.

Do you have a 35mm Film Camera?

Do you want to find a way to Use it in this Growing Digital Era?

-Here Is a Fun Way To Take Advantage of That Old Camera-

By Robert Chapman

Today Turned into a somewhat boring day and I decided to try a photography process known to some as "Digitizing Film". Sure, there are many ways (eg. Using a CD from a professional developer, scanning prints or scanning the negatives) to do this; but one creative way involves a DSLR camera, 35mm (or any previous kind) film, a Tripod (Optional), a bright display and patience. First off, I would like to point out, having a Live view camera (Canon) helps a great deal with composing the shot as well as monitoring the photos whilst it being connected to a computer.

Step 1: Find a bright light source (I used my iMac on full brightness and opened "TextEdit" App) I have heard that using a light board is the easiest way but I do not have access to this. Also bright lamps with glass holding the film in between has proven to work as well for me.

Step 2: Connect A DSLR Camera (preferably) to a computer and set up the Utility for the camera (EOS Utility on a Canon) to use the Live Mode feature (Under Camera Settings/ Remote Shooting).

Step 3 (Optional): Mount the camera onto a tripod (this only helps for framing, as doing all of these things at once can be very challenging.)

Step 4: If you are using a computer screen, you may want to put up a piece of drawing paper (Tracing paper) because the camera will end up focusing on the pixels in the screen as well. This will wash out the pixels and the light source will appear more soft. (Ignore this step if you are using a lightboard or a bright lamp

Step 5: Choose your filmstrip and frame up one of the slides or frames in the strip. Make sure the strip is as straight as possible or else you may loose the original framing of the picture later in editing. Once it is lined up, use the Camera Utility to take a picture from the computer.

Step 6: Repeat for how ever many pictures you want in your computer.

Step 7: Bring all of the photos into Photoshop (I used CS5.1) Earlier and newer versions work in the same way for this. (Photo Below)

Step 8: Crop the frame of the photo you want inside the rest of the filmstrip (Photos Below)

Step 9: In the menu bar go to Image > Adjustments > Invert (Photos Below)

Step 10: After the image has been inverted, go to Image > Adjustments > Levels... > Auto (In the side bar under "Ok" when the window pops up. After clicking "Auto" click "Ok" and your photo will have auto-corrected colors etc. to how the print-out is. (Photos Below)

This is how the final product will look (Unless further edited).

NOTE: These images may look different when they are in front of different lights, in front of different types of paper or how the photos were developed.

In these i used a Tracing paper sheet in front of the screen and it gave the images a watercolor feel, or sketched feel.

Even before processing, The image on the left without anything between the screen and filmstrip has invaded the photo itself through pixels (Later degrading the quality even more). The paper in between the screen and film fades the pixels and gives the final piece a softer look.

-Here Are Some Other Works-