Questions

A Mac app that scans 35 mm film with a Plustek OpticFilm film scanner and turns color negatives into finished, natural-looking photos automatically. You scan each frame, press Done scanning, name your photos and save them.

Tested with the Plustek OpticFilm 7400. The OpticFilm 7200, 7200i, 7300, 7500i, 7600i, 8100 and 8200i should work and are in beta. Scans from any other scanner can be imported as files. See the scanner list on our website.

Yes. Film to Photos runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs and is tested on Apple Silicon with macOS 27.

No. Film to Photos talks to the scanner itself. Plug the scanner in, switch it on, and press Scan.

It's a one-time purchase: $34.99, currently $19.99 at the launch price. No subscription, free updates for this version, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Yes. Every feature works, and your first 15 saved photos are free.

Yes, on up to 3 of your Macs. On a new Mac, enter the same license key (it's in your receipt email). To free up a Mac you no longer use, remove the license from it in Settings, or email us if that Mac is gone.

It's in the receipt email you got when you bought. You can also look up your order and key on Lemon Squeezy's "My Orders" page with the same email address, or email us.

Yes. It removes the orange film mask, sets brightness and keeps grays and whites neutral. People in front of a bright window are brightened, but very strong backlight can still leave faces a bit dark; the Brightness slider under the photo fixes that in one drag.

Yes. Under every photo, Adjust opens three sliders: Brightness, Warmth and Contrast. Rotate, flip and crop are there too. If you want more, More adjustments opens the full editor with curves, color tools and a dust brush. Every change is made from the untouched original scan, so nothing is lost.

35 mm color negatives are fully tested. Black-and-white negatives are new: they're recognized automatically and saved as true grey photos, but still being tested on more film. Slides aren't supported yet. Try the free trial with yours.

Yes. Choose "Import scans you already have" and pick TIFF, JPEG, PNG, scanner DNG or iPhone HEIC files. They're copied in unchanged and converted like a scan.

Quick (1800 dpi) for sharing and Archive (3600 dpi) for keeping and large prints.

JPEG for sharing or 16-bit TIFF for the best quality. The untouched original scans are kept in their own folder by default.

Partly. Remove dust cleans up loose dust specks with one click; the original scan is kept as it is. It is careful on purpose, so it can leave bigger specks, and it doesn't remove hairs or scratches: use the dust brush in More adjustments for those (click or paint over them). It works on any scanner and on black-and-white film. A scanner's own infrared cleaning isn't used yet.

No. Everything happens on your Mac. There's no account, no cloud and no tracking.

Nothing is lost. Scans are kept as you go, and the unfinished roll is picked up again when you open the app.

Not yet. Film to Photos is Mac-only for now.

Check the cable and that the scanner is switched on, then press Try again. If it still isn't found, use Settings > Save a scan report and email it to us.

Any Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 and later) or an Intel processor, on macOS 11 Big Sur or later. We test on an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 27.

Not for direct scanning: Plustek OpticFilm scanners take 35 mm film only. If you scan other sizes with a flatbed or another scanner, you can import color negative TIFF or JPEG files; we've tested 35 mm, so try other sizes with the free trial.

Not for scanning directly. Scan with that scanner's software, save TIFF files, and choose Import scans you already have: Film to Photos converts the negatives the same way.

You can import them: Film to Photos reads iPhone HEIC, JPEG, PNG and TIFF photos and converts them like a scan. It's built and tested for film-scanner scans, and we're still testing phone photos, so try yours with the free trial. Camera RAW files aren't supported yet; export those as TIFF or JPEG first. Results depend on how evenly lit and sharp the photo is.

Our first estimate on the OpticFilm 7400 is about 20–30 seconds per frame, so a 36-photo roll is roughly 15–20 minutes of scanning plus a little time to move the film holder. We're still timing this carefully, and Archive takes longer than Quick. The photo is ready as soon as the frame is scanned.

Only to buy and activate your license key, plus a quiet check about once a week that keeps working offline. Scanning, converting and saving never need the internet.

Never. The untouched original scans are saved in a "Negatives" folder inside each roll (you can turn this off), so you can redo any photo later.

Quick scans at 1800 dpi (about 4 megapixels): fast, good for sharing and small prints. (Scanners without an 1800 setting, like the newer OpticFilm 7400 and the 8100, use 2400.) Archive scans at 3600 dpi (about 17 megapixels): slower, best for keeping and printing large.

Film to Photos does one thing simply: Plustek film scanner in, finished and named color photos out, with no settings needed. VueScan and SilverFast support more scanners and film types and have many more options. See our comparison guides.