There's been some recent discussion on RFF about using an ordinary scanner to scan 4x5 negs. Some have asserted that a negative can be scanned in a conventional scanner then inverted by software to achieve a positive. I was skeptical of this as I'd never heard of it being done, especially here on LFPF where a lot of scanning is done. To test it I scanned one of my 8x10 negs on my V600, as a 16 bit greyscale document ad 1200 dpi. The result was barely passable, requiring a lot of sharpening and some adjustment to curves. I then tried a 5x7 double sided x-ray neg and the result was awful. I assume the double density was too much for the scanner to handle. My conclusion is that it's a hit-and-miss technique and not up to the quality of 'ordinary' LF scanners like the V700. It got me thinking about why this is so. One obvious difference between the two processes is that one is reflective and the other transmissive. I also know that LF scanners seem to have a two lens system, obviously for better resolution. But I don't do much digital processing and am wondering if there's more to it than that. Any thoughts?