Digitising Photo Negatives

victorludorum · September 2023

I ask as I've just been to a photo shop who wanted 30 quid for 7 photos, not prints, just digital images; that's a bit steep for me. Is this possible to do at home? I presume you need a scanner of some sort? Has anyone done this?

merlin · September 2023

I used to have a scanner that had an attachment for snanning negatives. It is possible and they are out there. I'm sure that phone technology has already come up with something.

RaymondLin · September 2023

What? You just want 7 photos?

can’t you just take 7 random photos on your phone?

Jono111 · September 2023

I have done it using old slides and a flatbed slide scanner. Worked well.

boogieman · September 2023

I’ve digitised lots of my old negs. I’ve got an Epson v550 scanner that came with all the bits needed, like different sized neg carriers. Very simple process with decent results. You can pick the 550 up fairly cheaply s/h as it’s been replaced by newer models.

victorludorum · September 2023

YouTube has some videos showing a very basic technique that I will try. Light source from a phone, a toilet roll, and another phone to take a photo. Then process with Gimp.

RaymondLin · September 2023

oh, I see what you are doing.

Depends what format is your photo in, whether it is a 35mm negative or a print. If its 35mm negative then you need a back light. The easiest thing is put it on a phone, or even a monitor and put the screen to pure white and take a photo (with a longer focal length).

If it's a print photo then do the same, without the monitor back light part.

Emp_Fab · September 2023

You can get gadgets specifically for this. Mrs Fab has one somewhere. Only cost about £30 iirc. I saw them in Lidl / Aldi once too.

axisus · September 2023

I'll scan them for free if you can get them to London NW9 in work hours.

victorludorum · September 2023

RaymondLin said:

oh, I see what you are doing.

Depends what format is your photo in, whether it is a 35mm negative or a print. If its 35mm negative then you need a back light. The easiest thing is put it on a phone, or even a monitor and put the screen to pure white and take a photo (with a longer focal length).

If it's a print photo then do the same, without the monitor back light part.

It's a 35mm neg, so I'll need two phones as I don't have a tablet.

Stratavarious · September 2023

I have a scanner that does it.

Some frosted glass or plastic with a light underneath to get a nice even backlight and a phone camera is all you need. Plenty of photo processing apps will reverse the colours.

thermionic · September 2023

I did a load of 35mm slides about 15 years ago or more, using an Epson scanner that came with a holder for 4 slides and some sort of backlight arrangement. The resolution of the scanner allowed me to achieve something like 4-5MP - consumer cameras were about 3MP at the time so I was happy with that, especially considering the condition of some of the slides and the quality of camera they were originally taken with. The equivalent scanner would be much better today I guess.

RaymondLin · September 2023

victorludorum said:

RaymondLin said:

oh, I see what you are doing.

Depends what format is your photo in, whether it is a 35mm negative or a print. If its 35mm negative then you need a back light. The easiest thing is put it on a phone, or even a monitor and put the screen to pure white and take a photo (with a longer focal length).

If it's a print photo then do the same, without the monitor back light part.

It's a 35mm neg, so I'll need two phones as I don't have a tablet.

I thought ahead of that.....You will notice i said Monitor? You have a computer? Then you just need 1 phone, don't need a tablet. I thought ahead of this.

Hell, you can do it with your TV, just need to make the screen to be white. Day light colour, it's easier on a monitor as you can adjust it.

victorludorum · September 2023

I'd like something that lies flat to make it as easy as possible to take a good steady photo.

RaymondLin · September 2023

victorludorum said:

I'd like something that lies flat to make it as easy as possible to take a good steady photo.

The monitor is flat, put a pillow down and then lay it down.

I don't think you have a CRT or a 48" curved monitor....or do it with a laptop. Any kind of screen really.

Or just use a tiny bit of tape, tape the edge of the 35mm to the TV. It doesn't need much for that to stick and hold up.

victorludorum · September 2023

RaymondLin said:

victorludorum said:

I'd like something that lies flat to make it as easy as possible to take a good steady photo.

The monitor is flat, put a pillow down and then lay it down.

I don't think you have a CRT or a 48" curved monitor....

Too much arse-ache for me. I'll wait until my wife gets home and use her phone. Cheers for the tip though :-)

Stratavarious · September 2023

victorludorum said:

I'd like something that lies flat to make it as easy as possible to take a good steady photo.

Make something.. even a piece cut from an old milk bottle side over a lamp will give you a backlight

hywelg · September 2023

I bought a Canon 9950F scanner way back purely to digitise all my work negatives. It has a frame that hold 4 strips of negatives IIRC, and another that hold mounted slides, plus other film types and the scanning process is automatic, separating each into an individual file. I did 110 films in total. Took a while but glad i did.

victorludorum · September 2023

hywelg said:

I bought a Canon 9950F scanner way back purely to digitise all my work negatives. It has a frame that hold 4 strips of negatives IIRC, and another that hold mounted slides, plus other film types and the scanning process is automatic, separating each into an individual file. I did 110 films in total. Took a while but glad i did.

Cheers for the tip and the details of the model :-)

ThePrettyDamned · September 2023

Doing this to a professional standard isn't easy or cheap - often, it involves a fluid mount, high-end (and not very commonly maintained!) scanner and a keen hand and eye for focusing, removing dust etc. You can do a decent job yourself, but for truly professional results you'll need to pay I'm afraid.

For what it's worth I'd say only pay big money for scans of medium or large format film, or just pay for a top quality optical print. Delicious.

Edit: to clarify, I'm more defending the price, rather than saying it's the only way!

victorludorum · September 2023

How much does it cost to just process negatives into prints, old school style? Is anyone offering this type of service now?

CavemanGrogg · September 2023

victorludorum said:

I ask as I've just been to a photo shop who wanted 30 quid for 7 photos, not prints, just digital images; that's a bit steep for me. Is this possible to do at home? I presume you need a scanner of some sort? Has anyone done this?

Seriously pay the money, scanners that do an alright but nothing special or great job of scanning slides or/and negatives are not cheap, and proper scanners that do really really good jobs of scanning negatives and slides - these tend to be dedicated to either slides or negatives rarely both, are very very expensive, these use very different scanning technology compared to your standard available at every computer store flatbed scanner of multi function printers.

victorludorum · September 2023

We're talking about some very average 35mm photos that were taken on a point and shoot camera 30 years ago. I can't imagine that an image scanned by a top end scanner, or photographed with a 25mp camera will look very different to one done at home with a typical smartphone camera.

victorludorum · September 2023

axisus said:

I'll scan them for free if you can get them to London NW9 in work hours.

Sorry, I forgot to reply to this very generous offer. I'd love to take you up on it, but I'm in France. Thanks very much though :-)

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Digitising Photo Negatives

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