Which side of the film or slides should face up in the scanner?

When you scan your film or slides, you may notice that one surface is glossy while the other is matte. The matte side is referred to as emulsion which is a light-sensitive coating.

There is debate about whether to scan with the emulsion side up or down. The most common method is to scan with the emulsion facing up as this captures the image without having to scan through the material of the film, this will also scan a mirrored image. Fortunately, Magnasonic Film scanners can flip and mirror images before scanning by using the arrow buttons.