Scanning negatives
 

I have a newbie question about scanning negatives:

When you scan negatives, what do you get as the end result? Is it just a digital representation of the negative itself (in that funky shade of brown), or does the picture get "developed" on the computer?

The reason I'm asking is because I had some pictures done by a professional photographer using a film camera. At the time of development, he also "scanned the negatives". As a result, I have a physical set of pictures developed from the film, and also a CD containing JPG files of the pictures. I don't think the JPG files are simply scanned versions of the physical photographs - they're too clear!

Edit:
Upon further thought, I might be messing up the terminology - film is developed into negatives, and pictures are printed from the negatives, right?

i have an HP scanner that can scan them, you just need to have a light behind them to get it to scan properly if you have a sucky scanner.

the 'negatives' are basically the film after its been taken out of the camera chopped and printed in whatever fashon. Yes, as far as I know, pictures are printed from negatives.

confusing question.. maybe im a noobie

Ok let me clarify:

Negative -> scanner -> my_picture.jpg

where my_picture.jpg is a colour picture in jpg format (or whatever format you choose to save in), as if you took the original picture with your average digital camera?

Yeah, thats how I use to do it pre digital.

Get the negatives, put them on the scanner, scan them save them as a BMP or JPG. Then go into photoshop and change anything that looks sucky.

oh, i want to add, dont take the film apart yourself, because its got to go thru a process to get it so it doesnt go blank when its exposed to light, hence the 'negatives' name.

If you open a film can in daylight, bye bye pictures.

Negs scanned with a flatbed scanner with an adapter will never be as good as using a dedicated film scanner.

Ok, I know at least that much about photography!! :D

If you place negatives on a flatbed scanner, you will simply get an image of negatives. If you place negatives on a flatbed scanner with an adapter that allows light to pass through from both sides, you will get the image as if you had developed and scanned it. Same process as how they scan slide film.

ok, just making sure. I've seen people make that mistake before.

Thanks naomi-sarah, that explains it perfectly to a noob like me! :)

are film negative holders sort of universal?

i have access to an all-in-one but the owner lost the 35mm film holder that came with it

No, they are specific to the make/model of the scanner, unless it's a flatbed scanner. Then you can just lay the negs on the glass.

Holy thread revival, Batman!

it's a flatbed scanner ... Epson CX7800

it's no coolscan or even a v500, but it's freely available to me so i thought i'd made use of it in the meantime

thnx