FilmLab: Negative Film Scanner Reviews

by Coreyjo92

I used to love FilmLab for checking out my negatives before actually scanning them. I used to be able to take a picture of the negative and crop it down so it color corrected to just the frame. I don’t see the feature in this version, maybe it’s in the paid version but I’m not about to do a 2 week trial, find out it isn’t there and forget to cancel the subscription.

by Samuel_Moreno

Used to be the best app to get a preview of your negatives but since it was updated somehow the camera is awful, can’t even focus right and image is super blown out. Huge bummer, really really hoping they make it exactly as it was before :(

by Bob Polymetis

FilmLab used to be great for quick previews of film photos other than it crashed a lot, now with the update the color reversal is awful and can’t even get black and white photos right.

by Aarontyree

I supported the development of FilmLab.
Now I see that this douche wants everyone to pay him $6 a month just to do what FilmLab was supposed to do in the first place. People like this ruin the software world for everyone.

by Akopxxxxx

I loved checking my negatives before scanning with FilmLab, but since the UI update it became useless for that. Nothing is sharp, dynamic range seems to be down, and colors are off

by EDHBlvd

FilmLab was such a waste of money. It just gets worse over time. Still laggy and unreliable. Want a refund.

by Lfshammu

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by Frank D Young

I understand attempting to fix the iOS 14 camera bug, which I definitely experienced, but this new update now tries to auto-set conversion levels once you snap a picture of your negative and does a HORRIBLE job at the auto leveling. The previous version didn’t work this way. The previous version started with everything at zero and I could adjust the conversion to taste. With this new version, the auto level does such a bad job that you can’t adjust back to a usable conversion. The PREVIEW before you snap looks better than the auto conversion. I know you’re a one person shop doing everything yourself, but PLEASE revert this back to the previous version. I can no longer use FilmLab. 😢

by Jokmama

I’m using FilmLab on an iPhone 11 with iOS 14. I’ve updated to most recent version of Film Lab (2.1).
After developing hundreds of negatives on my previous iPhone 8+ with the 1.x version of Film Lab with great results, with the new version of FilmLab and the iPhone 11 (using the wide lense) the camera mode of FilmLab cycles through exposure levels and every shot I take using that feature is overly saturated in magenta or yellow. Totally unusable, no detail in the frame to filter out or recover.

Is there a fix for this? If there is I’ll adjust the rating back to the solid 4 stars that I always felt like FilmLab was hitting…

by Trisweb1

Crop seems to be gone (which is a show stopper for me), color adjustments are much more difficult to get right, it’s way less automatic, and just more difficult to use all around. I can see the potential in the new version but it’s not there yet.

by Me And I

Literally crashes almost immediately upon opening. As soon as you point it at film, it freaks out and flashes between exposing for the film and film border, then inevitably crashes. Would be very helpful - I think - if it worked properly.

by Timmscup

I don’t know why, but I assumed FilmLab had a light table functionally when used with an iPad. I was disappointed when I needed to find another method to turn an iPad into a light table.

At first, it’s magical. Seeing your negatives become positives by hovering your phone over them is pretty exciting, but it soon gets frustrating.

First, I really wish you could take multiple pictures of the negatives and the edit them later. This is my biggest complaint. Holding a negative flat on a light table with one hand and then positioning the phone AND tapping the shutter button with the other is tedious and cumbersome. Having to crop, edit, and save the image before moving to the next image slows down the process.

Second, the actual capturing of the image seems hit or miss. Sometimes the image seems over exposed or underexposed depending how you hold the phone. I also it sometimes have difficulty being able to capture an image and I’m stuck at the “hold still capturing image” progress bar. I wish this worked more like some document scanner apps that took several images at a time to provide a more accurate representation.

Hopefully FilmLab gets better as I really want to like and use it more.

by Mindset Media

I was looking for a quick way to view or proof my negatives while in the field and not near my scanner.
FilmLab is a quick simple way to view film negatives and get a feeling for what your negative may give you when printed or worked up in a mor traditional work flow.
This is not really a replacement for a good digital scanner but more a tool to use when you don’t have your scanner or want to do a quick check on what your negatives may give you.
Thanks for such a great portable way to check negatives.
I hope it will have other updates to increase quality and coloring of the image.

by Dog Sof

First, you NEED a backlight for this to work. Then, it only takes grainy “photos” of your negatives. But, this is still very useful if you’re trying to figure out which of your 1000+ negatives to print. It’s handy for quickly viewing negatives as positives.
If your want hi-res “scans” to print, use a flatbed scanner or a dedicated film scanner. But that takes a lot of time.
I wish this had a tutorial. Not sure what the difference between 1/50 and 1/60 is. Shutter speed? Who knows? FilmLab really needs a tutorial instructing how to adjust the backlight and the ambient light. It’s a mystery. Worth the $6? Depends on your purpose.

by Sérgio Bruch

So I saw a lot of one star reviews and I feel like I should say something. I downloaded on two different iPhones X and the iPhone S and the issue with the image flickering and giving weird colors is very annoying and it showed on both devices.

When you take the picture of the negative sometimes it will give you a weird exposure. However when I go to crop the picture every time I move the crop corners the pictures gets better and better. When you’re done cropping you will have a fully exposed picture that you can adjust all the basics necessary on the edit section.

Is FilmLab the most high definition scan? No however I’m taking a picture of a picture with a phone, but it does the job much better than the other free ones I downloaded.

My set up was my iPad far enough to lose the pixels in a box and my phone on a tripod. I got really good results for Instagram isn’t all we want anyway right?

So I don’t think the one star review is indicative of the performance of FilmLab . I did expect for 6 bucks FilmLab to be on the efficient side and not have those basic issues especially because one of the selling points is “FilmLab recognizes the negative and transforms into a positive.”

But all and all I’m a hobby film photographer and it does what I needed to do before moving on to pro things.

by TheEmpireLikesBack

I have a lot of family photos dating back to the 20s, and a lot of B&W negatives that nobody has seen in years, if ever. These are in several odd formats and are mostly separate images, no nice neat strips. I use an iPad as backlight and this app takes care of the rest. It usually locks in with the correct exposure, if not it’s easy to correct with the settings. I then edit each image in the standard iPhone photo editor, mainly just crop and rotate. It’s not high end, but these images are taken on crude box cameras. Biggest complaint is that there’s no instructions or support, but I haven’t had any issues yet.

by Jacob1.5million

I don’t really understand the reviews for FilmLab or what people expect a phone scan to look like. FilmLab is by far better than any other negative conversion app (if you have good lighting behind the negative). To be fair I am using and enlarger with no lens as my light source but I’ve had some amazing scans for a phone with FilmLab that I don’t even mind posting. Honestly FilmLab worked so well this is the only review I’ve ever left for any app

by Photo Idaho

I have used FilmLab since backing it on Kickstarter. It has come a very long way since then. It’s a simple enough tool that can produce good if not great results. Keep in mind the results largely depend on the quality of negative or slide you are scanning.

Pair FilmLab with a consistent flat light source (like an iPad using a tracing app) and some sort of jig to hold your phone the right distance away and you have a reasonably simple set-up for digitizing your memories. One final hint, use the self timer to trigger the exposure to avoid camera blurr.

by Rusty Shutter Cable

I hesitated at first with some of the negative responses. I got it and immediately loved it. I am an amateur photographer from the 60’s with hundreds of pounds of negatives that mostly were only contact printed for review, with many more that I never found the time to print. Now I can without setting up a lab. I use my iPad as a light box, with a common sheet protector over it to diffuse the pixels; you know what a sheet protector is; a common article in any office, fits in a 3 ring binder, protects paper from finger dirt. Works perfect. Don’t expect lab quality, but you will be happy when you resurrect a forgotten negative into an enjoyable picture. I’m getting my old enlarger from the attic to project negative images to a screen, to see just how far FilmLab will go.

by Hyperlite1215

Followed this from Kickstart a few years back and finally found I needed FilmLab . I used it to convert my parent’s wedding negatives(1973) to positive color without any issues. I thought they were great quality and definitely sufficed for bringing back memories. I did have to crop each photo even though I zoomed to the correct size, but it was easy enough.

I used a few rolls of tape to set my phone on the actual rolls to find the focus height and keep it steady.

Some feature suggestions: import negative and a timer option during taking the picture(2secs would be good). Not sure if these are an option or not.

by TANYCAR

I purchased FilmLab without hesitating because I’ve followed the project since it was a prototype.
I’m not sure what I’m doing bring because there’s no tutorial or troubleshoot section.
I’m using a back light from my laptop, placing the negative, but for some reason I can’t get the lens to focus properly. The pictures on the Apple store App Download look amazing, but mine look with lots of noise, grainy. I look forward for future updates and tutorials, but in the meantime there’s another free app that does the same but quality is also poor (but free), so I feel like paying for FilmLab wasn’t worth it.
What kind of backlight is recommended?

by Motorstereo

While FilmLab is not a substitute for printing or scanning negatives, it is a great way to see a positive image if you have a light box. I’ve had very good results with FilmLab for medium format negatives. The only improvement I can suggest is a change to the cropping function (so that two adjustment control points can be moved together).

Overall a really nice way to see your negatives after development.

by PoorDust

I have 40 yr old slides of my kids so I LOVE this concept.

I used my laptop computer screen for a light box. I laid the screen flat, cranked up the light setting, and opened up a plain Word doc. Typed a line across the page so I could position the slide evenly. Voila!

I wish there was an erase, delete, or back button on FilmLab . Maybe I’m using it wrong but it seems my only option after snapping the photo is to save it somewhere.

Also, the photo comes out with a fine screen grid behind it. But maybe it’s from my computer screen? The photos also come out grainy, whereas the originals aren’t. Again, that may be from using my laptop screen for a light box.

But it’s still wonderful for what I’m using it for! I was getting ready to toss my old slides before I found this.

by Froggy1188

FilmLab is great for what it does and I love that I can adjust the crop box and correct some misalignment later. I was hoping it had a feature where I could bring in my raw scans from a camera or scanner and flip those files for a quick look at old scans also. Is that feature available and I just can’t find it? Thanks for all the hard work. Even without import this is a better quick film scanner than the others!

by Ar1o3

I think what FilmLab does best is give you a chance to preview negatives. The capturing I tried to do left my images grainy and not exposed too well but the preview looked fantastic. If you need an app that can give you a preview before you scan entire rolls of film this is a great tool if you’re trying to avoid getting a real scanner or taking them to get scanned this is not FilmLab for you

by AllMovie

My husband has been in the photography business for 45+ years. The 1 thing that we had was our wedding on 2 1/4 inch square negatives (old school). I waited over a year for FilmLab to be finished. I wanted my wedding on computer. I am thrilled to have it. We have hundreds of old square negatives of when my husband was young. Having these negatives printed would cost a lot. FilmLab allows us to put these pics on our computer. I wouldn’t take anything for it.

by @ScubaDiverDown

I just started using FilmLab! What an amazing, efficient, and simple to use application! I have thousands of negatives I have wanted to convert to digital but have held off due the the cost of outsourcing or the equipment required. FilmLab changes everything! Kudos to the software developers.

by Amc135

Clearly this isn’t an ideal way to scan film, but this is by far the best mobile app in the game for scanning negatives to tweak on your phone and post online. Once I understood that cropping adjusts the leveling, I have loved the results I’ve gotten. Not too shabby, and good enough for Instagram. Thanks for making this 🙏🏾