Pick up electron microscopy film plates by touching only the edges of the film, which will prevent marking of the film surface with fingerprints.
Inspect the film visually. Remove any dust particles from the film by blowing across the film surface with dry, compressed air. Wiping the film with a cloth is not recommended as it can introduce fine scratches on the surface of the film.
Prepare the flatbed scanner to scan film by following the manufacturer's instructions for using the film holder and the transparency adapter.
Place the film plate on the glass scanner surface and close the scanner.
Select a scan resolution of 1,200 to 2,400 DPI (dots per inch) as it will allow for close matching of film grain size and digital pixel size.
Follow the onscreen computer prompts to initiate scanning.
Save the scanned image.