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Negative/Positive Films
Negative films are used to make paper prints and are characterized as having light and dark areas in inverse
order to the original photographic subject.
Negative film provides the greatest latitude in selecting exposure (light) settings. An incorrect exposure setting at
the time of shooting can be corrected to a certain extent at the print-making stage. Negative film is recommended
for situations when the photographer doesn’t wish to pay strict attention to exposure settings and when paper
prints are desired.
However, the color of the film base (the substrate upon which the emulsion is applied) varies between film manu-
facturers and products. As a result, the CanoScan 2700F must perform extra processing to accurately reproduce
the correct colors of the original film, a task it performs with its Automatic Color Adjustment Function.
Positive film reproduces the light and dark areas of photographic subjects in the same order as they originally
appear, permitting relatively immediate evaluation of the content and colors. Positive films are primarily selected
when the goal is to mount the images in slide covers or use them to make printing plates.
Positive film offers less latitude than negative film with exposure settings. Nonetheless, it doesn’t require color
correction to compensate for the variance of film base colors between brands, thereby eliminating the need to
specify the film manufacturer and product name as well as the extra time to process the scanned image with the
Automatic Color Adjustment Function.
Negative Color Film
Color Positive Film
