What is the best way to sort hundreds of old large format negatives?
Many purpose built negative scanners only take standard size 35mm film and slides, and anything larger such as 120mm or the larger old glass plates would not be suitable for using with such scanners. There is however a solution.
Take a regular scanner (if you need to purchase one then consider viewing the options available from the negative scanner shop section of our site, then take the followin steps:
- carefully place film side down in the scanner
- place an incandescent lamp over negative without the scanner lid in place
- cover negative, with thin paper or opaque plastic to protect the negative
- scan to photoshop
, and invert in photoshop
- crop, adjust contrast and brightness as necessary
This should then have the same or very similar effect as using a negative film or slide scanner, and may even be an alternative to buying a purpose built scanner altogether providing you have the right equipment and necessary photoshop skills in the first place.
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Ken on Thu, 30th Jul 2009 12:38 pm
Going to try this have a load of 110 negatives from when the family was young …If works well can put on disk for each to have copies …..If not only out a little time ….Have been looking for this kind of information …Tried just scanning and a program on my computer and it was not even close but it was not a program for photos just drawing ” paint “on most PS’s Thank You
Pedagogue13 on Fri, 19th Feb 2010 6:42 pm
In 2003 I bought a Umax Astra 4500 scanner with TPU 4500 transparency unit (under £100 the pair). With this I have scanned 100’s of Victorian 1/4 plate negatives (approx 10cm x 8 cm) - great bit of kit. also does other neg sizes down to 35mm.
However now have a laptop with Windows 7 - can’t use the scanner, no drivers available nor can I find a modern equivalent to deal with the large negs for under £600!