Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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Negatives? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by sleepy--void@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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So, I was born in 1993 and my mum has a lot of photos on negatives that I'm desperate to see. We've tried some thing she found on eBay but it didn't work. Does anyone here know how we can go about getting them transferred to photos so we can actually view them properly. They are about 20-30 years old.

Perhaps relevant: we are in Essex, England and I can get to London easily so if there's any place that converts negatives to actual photos, that would be rad too.

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[–] msabeln@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Find a negative scanning service and have them produce JPEGs for you. Large camera stores do this.

Scanning is very tedious and time-consuming, and requires special software when scanning color negatives.

[–] X4dow@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Cheapway Use a scanner. Scan them at highest resolution. Import on any editing program and "invert/negative". And there you go.

I'm in Essex Suffolk border so can potentially help if close

[–] Nicolesy@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

You can get scanners on Amazon to convert them to digital. I have a Kodak SCANZA and it does a good job.

[–] dbltax@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

The most cost effective way would be to buy a proper scanner second hand and do it yourself. It takes a long time, but once you're finished you can sell the scanner for about the same price that you bought it for.

Using a dedicated scanning service would save time, but cost a lot of money if there are a lot of photos.

[–] Notwhoiwas42@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

It really depends on what you want to be able to do with them. If you want to make high quality prints then having them professionally scanned is pretty much a requirement. If you just want to be able to view them on the computer for memories, then a cheap film scanner or a flatbed scanner with transparency capabilities would do fine.

[–] DJFisticuffs@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Literally any photo lab can scan and print your negatives. First hit on Google for me was Phoenix photo lab in Rayleigh but there are going to be a ton of others. It will get expensive though.

If you want to do it yourself on the cheap you can get this:

https://www.amazon.com/KODAK-Mobile-Film-Scanner-Built/dp/B07MTKNTPK/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3VSA7MLD58OFC&keywords=kodak+cell+phone+negative+scanner&qid=1699634094&sprefix=kodak+cell+phone+negative+scanner%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-4

There is an associated app that will convert the negative images to positive and color correct for the heavy orange color in the negatives.

Results won't be super high quality but at least you can see the photos.

[–] mc_sandwich@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I helped a friend in the same situation. I had a scanner.

I'd scan the images and use a graphics program to invert the negatives. Did a little editing after but nothing substantial.

[–] VladPatton@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I’ve done a bunch of negatives from the 80’s and 90’s. Get a flatbed scanner that can do it. You pop em in a special tray, scan, and voila, digitized in color. It’s wild to see what comes out.

[–] thehitskeepcoming@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

This is a good question. What’s the faster scanner a prosumer can buy? Like if you have hundreds and hundreds of rolls to scan?