How to convert your film negatives, in four steps
Your folder of scans becomes a roll of finished photos. Bring the scans in, follow Prepare the Roll, touch up if you want, and export.
Aerial cliffs, Kodak Gold, converted in Open Negative Initiative.
What you need.
Your scans, and your computer. Nothing else, and no account to make.
Scans of your film. From a camera over a light panel, or from a film scanner. Prepare the Roll asks which, and reads three passes under red, green and blue light too.
A Mac or a Windows PC. macOS 13 or later on Apple Silicon or Intel, or Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit).
Before you start: scanning with a camera.
Lay the strip flat over an even light panel, shoot it in RAW with a macro lens at base ISO, in manual exposure so every frame gets the same settings, and take one shot of the empty panel: Prepare the Roll uses it to even out your light.
Step 1: Bring your scans in.
Open the folder that holds them. Nothing is imported or copied, and your originals are never written to.
Press ADD FOLDER… in the gallery's bar and pick the folder of your scans. It joins your favourites, its subfolders with it.
Or choose Open Folder… in the File menu (⌘O, or Ctrl+O on Windows), or drop the folder on the window.
Make one film a roll. Select its frames: the column on the right asks for a name and a stock, then MAKE THIS FOLDER A ROLL.
Step 2: Prepare the roll.
Five short steps, then Measure. Open a frame of a roll never measured and Prepare the Roll starts on its own, or press PREPARE ROLL in the gallery's bar.
Say what your film is. Negative, Positive for slides, or B&W, and what you digitised it with: DSLR Scan is chosen when the roll opens, and a scanner skips the flat-field.
Even out your light. Click the shot of the empty light panel, then USE THIS FRAME AS FLAT-FIELD. Press SKIP if your light is even.
Click the bare film. Choose a scan and click its border or the gap between two frames, under the loupe. On a roll of slides, click a white or grey instead, and the flags step is skipped.
Flag the odd frames. Light leaks, the cut first frame, extreme shots: they are still converted, but never weigh on the roll's measurement.
Place the measuring frame. Draw it inside the picture, clear of the holder and the film's edges, check it on every scan, then press MEASURE.
Step 3: Touch up, if you want.
Your frames open already converted. Measure opens your whole roll side by side, like a contact sheet. A change there lands on every frame: press Auto White Balance to give the roll one look. To correct one frame alone, select it on its own: it opens by itself.
Press Auto White Balance. It reads the light of your frame and sets Temperature and Tint so that light prints neutral.
- +0+0
Retouch it by hand. Temperature and Tint then move like any other value.
- +0.00 EV
Set how light it prints. Exposure reads in EV: a full stop in the shadows, while the highlights roll toward white.
Step 4: Export.
Your frames, written as photos. The export screen writes your whole selection in one go.
Open the export screen. Select your frames and press EXPORT in the bar, or ⌘E (Ctrl+E on Windows).
Start from a preset. Instagram, Display or Print fills every field at once; change any field after.
Pick the format. TIFF 16-bit keeps every tone, JPEG is read everywhere. A batch asks for a folder, and your originals are never touched.
If it does not look right.
The usual fixes, in a sentence. Each one links to its page of the manual.
One frame prints darker than the others.
The roll's white is set near its brightest frames, so a frame shot darker, or a thin negative, prints lower than the rest. Raise its Exposure.
A frame keeps a colour cast.
Press Auto White Balance, then retouch Temperature and Tint. Balance Strength, in the Roll tab, sets how much of the correction they take.
The corners are darker, or tinted.
Uneven light does that to every frame. Shoot the empty light panel on the same rig and use it as the flat-field, in Prepare the Roll or later in the Roll tab.
Every frame of the roll looks wrong.
Check the film type: the wrong one converts every frame of the roll wrong. It changes in the Roll tab, for the whole roll.
The whole roll should share one look.
Copy Settings on one frame, then Paste to Roll lays its Color and Details tabs on every frame of the roll. The crop never travels with them.
What should a converted roll look like?
Compare yours with real film scans converted in Open Negative Initiative, each beside its raw scan. See what a converted roll looks like.
Convert your first roll tonight.
Add your folder, prepare the roll once, export. Free, and nothing else to install.
- Mac
- macOS 13 or later on Apple Silicon or Intel
- Windows
- Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
Snow night. Kodak Gold, converted in Open Negative Initiative.