Illuminant head assembly for a photographic film image scanner

An illuminant head assembly for a film scanner, the scanner having a scan gate and a pair of support arms on opposite sides of said scan gate, at least one of the support arms having a notch formed therein;

• the head assembly comprising:
• a linear light source;
• and
• a main body having a first elongate planar light conducting channel aligned with said linear light source, said light conducting channel including a planar light pipe therein, the light pipe having a light diffusion material dispersed throughout the light pipe, said channel and light pipe lying in a plane perpendicular to said film and parallel to said linear light source, said main body having opposite side portions adapted to mate with said support arms and at least one of said side portions having a spring finger positioned to mate and lock into said notch when said illuminant assembly is mounted into position on said support arms.

An illuminant head assembly for a film scanner apparatus of the type having a linear scanning aperture and a pair of spaced apart film rails bridging said scanning aperture at a width of image frames on the film strip, said film rails defining a first scanning aperture region therebetween corresponding to said image frame width and at least a second scanning aperture region outside said film rails in alignment with a first feature of the film along a first marginal region of the film;

• the illuminant head assembly comprising:
• a main body having a first elongate planar light conducting channel coextensive with said first scanning aperture;
• a second light conducting channel aligned with said second scanning aperture region;
• a third light conducting channel directed toward said third scanning aperture region;
• and
• a light source panel mounted on said main body and having a linear array of spectrally distinct light sources aligned with said first light conducting channel, a second light source aligned with said second light conducting channel and a third light source aligned with said third light conducting channel.

An illuminant head assembly for a photographic media image scanner comprising:

• a light source having more than one spectrally distinct lights;
• and
• a main body having a first elongate light conducting channel aligned with said light source, said light conducting channel including a light pipe therein, to guide the light from the light source to the photographic media with the light pipe having a light diffusion material dispersed throughout the light pipe as a sole light diffusing agent,
• wherein the light pipe defines an elongate path to diffuse the light from the light source so that the light that is emitted from light pipe is a spectrally consistent combination of the light.