Digitizing old (really OLD) photo negatives

ajg617

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Any recommendations for good scanners? When I say old, talking back to the early 1900s. Finally going through boxes and boxes of documents and negatives that I retrieved from my grandparents dating back to the mid-1800s (Great-great-great-grandfather was a portrait artist) and I have so many negatives of all kinds of sizes that I'd like to try an digitize. Went through 20 boxes the past couple of weeks (DW says we are not moving them again). There are so many different formats, I don't know where to begin. The negatives appear to be well preserved.

Also, how do you tell left to right on a negative??????
 
Any recommendations for good scanners? When I say old, talking back to the early 1900s. Finally going through boxes and boxes of documents and negatives ...

Also, how do you tell left to right on a negative??????

I'm going through this same process myself. Bottom line is that you need two different scanning machines. I use a large bed (15x19") Epson printer for prints and documents, scanning them in at 600 dpi. Even then I use software to fine-tune the images for best digital presentation.

THEN you'll need a separate negative scanner (I'm looking at the Kodak model) to capture those. I've seen some folks use a "regular" scanner with work-arounds but haven't found any that result in an acceptable result.

As for your last question, MOST negatives have a manufacturers label along an edge ... when the text is right side up, that's the "front side" of the image.
 
I have an older Nikon CoolScan for 35mm transparencies (positives and negatives) and a professional level Epson flatbed with transparency capabilities for medium and large format (between the two of them, I've digitized over 10,000 old photos). A lot of good scanners are out of production now because there was a finite time period where analog libraries were being converted to digital. I would be suspect of something made by Kodak (they aren't the company they used to be) and would recommend calling someplace like B&H Photo and talking to one of their experts.

Rob
 
For everything up to an 8x10 print, I'm using my Plustek scanner (https://www.ebay.com/itm/332198321898). I also have two flatbed scanners, but you have to manually feed them. The Plustek allows you to quickly scan 100s of photos. The software adjusts automatically for different photo characteristics and straightens the image. But I don't think it would work with negatives. I'm quite interested if anyone comes up with a good scanner for negatives and/or slides.
 
For everything up to an 8x10 print, I'm using my Plustek scanner (https://www.ebay.com/itm/332198321898). I also have two flatbed scanners, but you have to manually feed them. The Plustek allows you to quickly scan 100s of photos. The software adjusts automatically for different photo characteristics and straightens the image. But I don't think it would work with negatives. I'm quite interested if anyone comes up with a good scanner for negatives and/or slides.

My recommendation would be a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 or 8000. They are not in production anymore so you would have to find one used. Mine is FireWire, so I can only use it with my desktop with a FireWire card. They may have come USB in the later iterations, but I don't remember.

Rob
 
My recommendation would be a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 or 8000. They are not in production anymore so you would have to find one used. Mine is FireWire, so I can only use it with my desktop with a FireWire card. They may have come USB in the later iterations, but I don't remember.

Rob

Wow $1,999.99 for the 4000 on Amazon.
 
We borrowed one to scan all the slides and negatives we had. Even so it took us a long time. Then we made sure we had two independent backups of all the photos. Since one time a drive went on us and poof everthing was gone. Now we are a bit smarter.

Good luck.
 
Any recommendations for good scanners? When I say old, talking back to the early 1900s. Finally going through boxes and boxes of documents and negatives that I retrieved from my grandparents dating back to the mid-1800s (Great-great-great-grandfather was a portrait artist) and I have so many negatives of all kinds of sizes that I'd like to try an digitize. Went through 20 boxes the past couple of weeks (DW says we are not moving them again). There are so many different formats, I don't know where to begin. The negatives appear to be well preserved.

Also, how do you tell left to right on a negative??????

Well...I tried to do this myself with a low cost scanner and almost "blew out" my mind. I found a small company in Houston called Houston Scanning (281-612-4741) and let them do it...and they did a great job. I had over 1500 slides (mostly slides) and prints. Tell them "Jay" from Edna referred you. His name is Enneking. I am sure that there are others who provide the same service...but Houston Scanning was cheap, honest, and professional.
 
Epson Perfection V600.

$330 on Amazon.

I’ve been using mine, for years, and love it.

Slides, prints, negatives and OCR.


Comes with a carrier to do four 35mm slides, at once.
 

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