FilmLab: Negative Film Scanner

Good idea but can't deliver. No autofocus and crashes when taking a picture. To bad there isn't an option for buying a full licence to be able to import pictures, you have to pay a monthly fee. Using an iPhone 13 PRO

While I wouldn’t use this app looking for high resolution scans for printing, the scans I get from it are of good enough quality for reviewing films for further scanning or putting up on social media. It’s simple but an integral part of my process.

You need a light table (there are cheap LED ones) and decent phone camera. It flickers when you try to focus, but don’t worry and never mind how it looks because when you crop it, it then balances the color/gray scale and you can also adjust manually. You can also compensate for a weird photo angle when cropping and it adjusts the image perfectly. I can take photos through the cellophane negative sleeves, so no need to get the negatives out in the dust. Very important to keep phone still!! I wish I could post some examples here. Of course you don’t get it sharp down to the finest grain, but the app developer doesn’t promise that either. One star minus because you have to crop it yourself, would be nice if it did it for you.

The purposes of the app is great all though the app clearly can’t deliver what it says it does. When you try to scan. Negative the screen just flicker and colours goes crazy. App is now reported to apple as non working and I have demand a refund.

Resolution and sharpness not at all good enoug. Good idea but not worth it.

Does a decent job with black-and-white negatives. But it’s missing some major features, including the ability to select a bunch of scans and upload them at one time rather than individually. Also, I don’t see why cannot have manually adjustable exposure. Even better would be if it used the HDR feature on the camera to capture a wide dynamic range so negatives are a slightly under exposed and slightly overexposed all capture perfectly and separated out. Add all these features and it’s worth $25.

Seems like a scam

Please be a little patient and discover an amazing app!! It works great if you put your negative against a light source, you’ll be amazed!!!

Not sure why this app has poor reviews. I have tried the other negative scanning apps in the App Store and FilmLab works the best. It scans negatives with a clean and easy to use interface. It has just the right amount of tools and will save a Tiff file. It doesn’t have the intrusive magic filters or colorizing features that are always in your face. It’s a solid straightforward app.

I downloaded this app and paid for the monthly subscription. It keeps telling me to login but it never gave me the opportunity to set up a login and password. It won’t let me do anything at this point.