Prior to the advent of the digital camera, most amateur and semi-professional photographers shot pictures on 35mm film. Anyone who spent much time behind a camera had binders full of 35mm negatives, carefully preserved in archival sheeting. Those negatives, when preserved properly, last quite a while, but no matter how careful you are with them, they will eventually begin to deteriorate. Dust, scratches, and fading make them practically useless for reprints. Today, there is an alternative to storing your negatives in this way. By taking advantage of 35mm scanning services, you can create a high quality digital image from your negatives that will not fade or get scratched.

Why Scan Negatives?

Even if you have a paper print of your image, the negative is the best option to scan if it is available. This is because it is a “first generation” image, and, even though it is much smaller than the print, a negative has more detail and contrast than a print. This means you will get the highest quality digital image if you use the negative over the print.

Choosing a Service

If you are interested in having your negatives scanned, the first step is to choose the right 35mm scanning service. First, look for a company that offers a variety of resolutions. Negatives are scanned in a resolution measured as “dots per inch,” or dpi. The dpi you need varies depending on the intended use of the image. A 35mm negative scanned at 1500 dpi is a good choice if you wish to archive your images, view them on a screen, or print up to a 5 x 7 picture. In contrast, a scan of 4000 dpi gives you the ability to zoom in on a particular area of your picture and make prints up to a 13 x 19.

Besides choosing a 35mm scanning service with several dpi options, choose one that uses a quality negative-specific scanner. You do not want to pay someone to scan negatives on a device you could buy and use at home. High-end professional scanners deliver quality images that make excellent prints.

Touch Up Services

Another option to look for when choosing a scanning service is photo enhancement service. Choose a company that has the ability to remove scratches, fix fading, or reduce red eye in your finished image. This will allow you to archive your oldest negatives, even if they have been damaged with time. Keep in mind that a poorly shot image will still look poorly shot, even with touch up services.

Kodak has developed a technology known ad Digital ICE that allows the imaging professional to isolate images of dirt and scratches on an image. The area is then filled in using information scanned from the color in the surrounding are of the image. Kodak also offers Digital GEM, a program that allows the imaging professional to remove film grain and the effects of poor lighting from a finished image. Programs like Digital ICE, Digital GEM, or something similar are one feature you want to look for when choosing a 35mm scanning service. This is especially true if you are working with older negatives that have faded with time.

The next time you move your old box of negatives from one shelf in the closet to another, ask yourself if there is a better way. The answer is yes, because you can store your negatives in a much more compact digital format by choosing 35mm scanning services.

Scanners are great tools for converting images from prints, negatives, and slides into a digital form for the purposes of storage, editing, and sharing via the internet or to produce actual prints. The quality of the images from a scanner depends in large part upon resolution. Some scanners offer significantly higher resolution than others but most allow the user to adjust the resolution used for any given scan.

Because higher resolution means more detailed and higher quality images why would a user ever select to lower resolution? There are actually a couple of reasons why someone might decide to adjust the resolution downward when scanning.

One reason that the choice to use lower resolution would be considered is that higher resolution images contain more information. The downside of more information is that file sizes are much larger, requiring much more storage space. When storage space is limited, higher resolution images can be a drawback. Users must experiment to determine what level of quality they are willing to accept in order to preserve memory.

In addition to the increased storage needs, the larger file size of high resolution images creates a second drawback. Such images are slower to scan, manipulate, and download. A user may not wish to spend exorbitant amounts of time dealing with larger file sizes and those receiving or waiting for a web page to open that contains such files may become impatient with the process as well. Again, the user has to determine how much image quality they are willing to sacrifice to get smaller files that save time.

Determining what resolution to use when scanning can depend on a number of things: the type of material being scanned, the quality of the image, and how the resulting file will be used.

Slides and negatives require a higher resolution than a print. Because they start off quite small, they will likely be enlarged for viewing purposes. When any image is enlarged, greater resolution is needed to maintain acceptable image quality. The number of pixels or bits of image information needed for the enlarged image to be of reasonable quality may need to be 2,000 or more.

If an image being scanned is a text document less information will be needed to create a clear image and, indeed, a resolution of only 100 should be sufficient. If the image scanned is a picture that will be shared only via computer, then a resolution of 100 or so may still be quite acceptable as the resolution at which a computer screen is able to display is generally limited. However, if that same image will be printed, resolution will need to be greater; perhaps 300 to obtain an acceptable image. Just as explained when scanning slides however, if a user chooses to enlarge that same image, greater resolution will be required to maintain quality. For instance, if a 4×6 print will be scanned and enlarged to a 10×15 print, then a resolution of at least 600 would be wise.

Clearly, scanning images at the highest resolution can create optimum image quality but when speed of scanning and downloading are important or storage space is limited, users are wise to consider adjusting resolution downward in situations where acceptable image quality is possible with lower settings. Some experimentation will be required to find the level of image quality that is acceptable to an individual user.

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation when you have to scan paper prints, negatives or slides and store them as digital photos on your computer. Although the reason for doing that can vary there are some common considerations to scanning paper prints. In this article we will go over some of them and try to make your scanning experience easier.

There are three types of prints that you might be scanning:

Paper prints: the most common, usually at sizes like 4X6 and 5X7.

Negatives: also known simply as film. This is the processed film usually 35mm from which paper prints are made.

Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on a large screen.

Scanning paper photos prints.

Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can choose to scan them yourself at home (purchasing a scanner that can do the job is usually cheap and costs less than a $100). You can also choose to mail them (or hand them) to a professional scanning service that will scan them for you and mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans (such services include www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more)

There are pros and cons to both scanning at home and using a professional service. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service might be easier but you can end up spending more money.

When scanning at home consider the following:

Resolution: the resolution of a scan is measured by the number of dots per inch that the scanner can produce. Most scanners can scan at 1200 DPI or more. Usually the scanner can be set to scan at different resolutions. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and the bigger the photo file size will be. For most paper prints scanning at 300 to 600 DPI is enough but you can experiment scanning at higher resolutions if you feel it provides better results.

Speed: If you have a small number of photos speed is not an issue. If you have hundreds or more of photos scanning speed becomes important. To get fast scans you would have to scan at the lowest resolution possible that results in good enough scans – for most paper prints 300 to 600 DPI is enough.. Also if you’re going to buy a scanner check the scanning speed (usually measured in the number of scans per minute make sure that you check the speed at the DPI you’re going to use).

Photo feeding: if you only have a small number of photos this is not an issue. If you have many photos make sure that the scanner you buy allows fast and easy loading of photos. Some higher-end scanners will let you load a stack of photos and will automatically feed and scan them for you. These scanners are the right choice if you are planning on scanning hundreds or more photos.

Scanning negatives and slides

Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints. In most cases it is easier and maybe cheaper to use a professional scanning service (such services include www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). If you want to scan at home your standard flat scanner will not be good enough. In most cases you will need to spend money on purchasing a film/slides scanner. Those scanners are more expensive than the flat paper scanners. Negatives and slides are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used.

The considerations for scanning negatives and slides are similar to scanning paper prints. If you need to scan just a few negatives or slides speed and ease are not important but if you’re going to scan hundreds or more you should spend more money on scanners that can feed the negatives or slides automatically or can just load a roll of film and scan it.

The concept of photo negatives can be confusing. You see them in film developing centers, cameras, and photo envelopes, but you may not understand them. So what exactly are photographic negatives and why are they used? Hopefully this article will shed some light on the subject, so to speak.

A photo negative image is an exact copy of a normal image, but the colors and tones are reversed. I’m sure you’ve seen the reddish film strips that come with developed photos in envelopes. Those are negatives. If you want more copies of your photos you take them from the negatives. Look at them and you’ll notice that the bright and dark tones are reversed and the colors are opposite as well. What should be blue is yellow, what should be purple is green, and so on (based on the Red Green Blue color model).

Negative images are created by the film’s chemical reaction to light. The unexposed chemicals wash away and the negatives become opaque, or seen through. To make a copy of a photograph from a negative, another negative is made off of that, actually creating a positive. This might remind you of algebra, where two negative numbers multiplied by each other become a positive. This is considered the two step process in photography. There are other processes such as positive, or slide, but the negative is the most common chemical based process.

The most common color negative film is called C-41. The negative is made up of different colored emulsions layered onto an acetate or polyester base. Each layer is sensitive to certain colors and underneath each layer are collodial silver or dye filters. When exposed each filter removes light and exposes the layer beneath it. When developed, the dye couplers inside of each emulsion layer produce the colors.

So why still use photo negatives when we now have scanners? Convenience and quality. Typically when you scan an image you’ll lose detail, whereas with the negatives, you have entire original albums intact in a small envelope. If you have photograph negatives lying around that you’d like prints of, your best bet is taking them to a photo lab. You can scan negatives yourself though if you own a properly equipped digital camera or photo scanner. Most regular flatbed scanners won’t do this, but with a fluorescent lamp and a high resolution scan you can manage it. Of course with the popularity of digital cameras photograph negatives are needed less and less. But it’s still good to understand the basics of photo negatives.

Scanning negatives and slides can seem a bit tricky, but it can be done with the right equipment and know how. First of all, negatives and slides can be scanned with a scanner, but you cannot just put a negative on the glass and push the button to scan.

The scanner you use has to be one with built in negative scanning ability. Usually, a scanner designed for paper documents wont have this feature, but some do. A good scanner that is suitable for scanning negatives will produce excellent quality scans quickly, and there are different models to choose from that can allow you to scan numerous negatives and slides at once.

Scanning Negatives: DPI and Resolution

To begin, since the image on a negative is so small, you will want to keep a high resolution so that you can enlarge the picture and still maintain good picture quality. A good rule of thumb is that for every doubling in size for the picture, maintain that same increase for your resolution. For example, to get a 4X6in print from a 4X6in scan, the recommended dpi setting is 300. To get an 8X11 from that same scan, double the dpi to 600, and so on.

Scanning Negatives: Files and Output Type

There are several different file formats for images that computers use. These are TIFF, JPEG, and BMP files, just to name a few. The best files for scanning negatives are TIFF files. TIFFs can be edited and saved easily, and without compression loss. However, TIFFs can be large files that take up much memory. Besides choosing a file format, Output Type is another variable to consider when scanning. The default output type is usually Millions of Colors which is the best for photos with lots of color. Grayscale is for black and white pictures. It is recommended, though, that you maintain the default setting for color output, because this maintains the highest picture quality, and photo enhancement software can easily take the color photo and put it in black and white for you.

A word of caution about storage space: Many people have found that file sizes can mount quickly with scanning, saving, and editing photos. Pay special attention to file sizes and how much space is available on a CD or disk that you are saving the pictures to. Try to see about how much space a picture file uses, multiply that by the number of files you are saving, and make sure you dont run out of space in the middle of creating your masterpieces!

Keeping these tips and other important points in mind will help you decipher the puzzle of scanning negatives. These tips will get you started on your way to turning your tiny negatives into meaningful photographs that you will treasure for years to come.

The best way to preserve your older photographs is to carefully preserve the negatives. Negatives fade much more slowly than printed pictures, but they are a bit fragile if not cared for carefully. To keep your negatives free from dust and scratches, consider these steps.

Use Archival Sleeves

You can purchase plastic sleeves for your negatives to be stored in. these are different than the sleeves the film developer may have put on your negatives. They are typically on a paper-sized sheet with holes for a binder, so you can easily store your negatives in an organized manner. Be sure to use an acid-free product to store your negatives, because acid that is sometimes found in plastic can damage your negatives.

Why are sleeves so important? Archival sleeves keep dust off of your negatives. Even small pieces of dust can cause permanent scratches on a negative that will ruin any future reprints you might want to make. Archival sleeves also make it easier to handle your negatives without the risk of fingerprints. Fingerprints on a negative are not removable, and they will show up in a printed image.

Proper Storage Box

If you wish to house your negatives in a box for long term storage, choose either a metal box or a box made from acid-free cardboard. This is important even if you have the negatives in an archival sleeve. Again, the acid in most storage containers, including plastic and wood containers, can damage negatives.

Protect from Moisture

Moisture is one of the biggest enemies of a photographic negative. Keep your negatives dry by throwing a silica gel pouch into the box where you are storing them. Even if moisture does not touch the negatives, moisture that is in the air can cause them to curl or cause mold and mildew growth on them, which destroys them.

Choose the Proper Storage Location

Your negatives need to be in a relatively dry location. The humidity should be around 60 percent in the area where you store your negatives. Also, they need to be protected from extreme heat and exposure to sunlight. A cool, dry place, like a basement, is ideal.

Consider a Permanent Storage Solution

No matter how careful you are with your negatives, damage can occur. You cannot control all of the factors in the environment, no matter how hard you try. Also, storing your negatives becomes cumbersome over time, as you have to constantly deal with boxes and binders. Instead of storing your negatives, you might want to consider permanently storing them in a digital format.

You can send your negatives to a lab with specialized equipment that can scan them, create a positive digital image, and store it on a CD or memory card. The CD or memory card can then be used to make prints if you should want them at a later date. High resolution scanners make it possible to turn that box of negatives into a carefully preserved digital file, without sacrificing image quality. Instead of a box crammed full of negatives, you will have one or two CDs with all of your pictures on them ready to share online or offline.

Storing film negatives can become a hassle quite quickly, and since today’s photography is turning more and more digital in nature, you may want to find a digital storage option for your negatives and slides. Scanning negatives and turning them into a digital file is entirely possible, but you need the right equipment to do so.

Scanning Negatives at Home with a Flatbed Scanne

If you have a scanner with the right adapter, you can scan negatives and slides at home using a simple flatbed scanner. Keep in mind that simply putting your negatives on a flatbed scanner will not work. Flatbed scanners are designed to scan photos by capturing the reflection of the light shown on them. Because negatives are transparent, this does not work. You need a transparency adapter to scan negatives. The transparency adapter, when used in place of the scanner’s lid, shines light onto the negatives from above, and the sensors can pick up this light and capture a digital image of the print. Without the adapter, a scanned negative or transparency will look like a big black square.

Scanning Negatives at Home with Film Scanners

If you plan on scanning negatives frequently, you may want to purchase a scanner designed to scan film. These scanners give you a better final image, because there is no piece of glass between the negative and the image sensor. Also, the light is more intense with one of these scanners. They also typically have a higher dpi resolution than flatbed scanners.

Another reason film scanners give a better final image has to do with the density of the image. Photographs have a density of approximately 2.0, and negatives have a density of about 3.0. Because flatbed scanners are designed primarily for documents and photographs, they are calibrated closer to the 2.0 range. This means that scanning negatives with a flatbed scanner will result in tonal loss. This is slight, as in a negative the tonal loss occurs mostly in lighter areas, but it does affect the final image quality a bit.

High Resolution Is Key

Regardless of whether you use a flatbed scanner or a film scanner, you will want to scan your negatives at the highest resolution possible. This will make the scanning process take a while, but if you intend to make prints off of the resulting digital photos, you will be glad you took the time to scan the picture at a high resolution.

Professional Help Is Available

While you can scan negatives at home, it takes quite a bit of time, particularly if you scan them at the high resolution necessary for images you wish to eventually print. To save yourself some time, consider sending your negatives away for professional negative scanning services.

Negative scanning companies will scan your images at an extremely high resolution using scanners specifically designed for scanning negatives, giving you high quality digital images that you can use for just about any purpose, from print to web to archival. In fact, the quality from a professionally scanned image placed onto a CD is so good that you do not have to hang on to those negatives any longer. You can dispose of them, using the CD as your record of the images. Hiring a professional to scan your negatives will save you time, and in the long run, it may also save you money, because you will not need to buy special equipment to get the quality images you need.

Negative scanning is a term that is used to refer to the scanning of both photo negatives, most typically those on 35mm film, and also, of film slides. Scanning negatives or film produces a more quality print at a higher resolution, since scanning a print would produce a lower quality, second generation copy of the image.

Think of the difference in quality between the music on a CD purchased at a store and the music on a tape made from that same CD, and it is easy to see why scanning negatives and film slides is the preferred method of the professionals when it comes to obtaining prints from these mediums.

Make sure to always organize your negatives by group, and use your scanner’s batch mode to scan each negative by category both before and after scanning. You can still name each scan individually if you want to, but the batch scan feature eliminates the absolute necessity of this step.

You should also take care to make sure to use a scanner with Kodak’s Digital ICE photo restoring software. You can also use a special film cleaner and compressed air for especially stubborn particulate matter.

Before you start scanning, you should adjust your settings to 3000 DPI. In terms of file formats, we recommend that professional photographers use the TIFF format, and that novices use JPEG, due to the large file sizes of the TIFF format.

You should also compare the difference in negative resolution with Kodak ICE and without, and never, ever, crop your negatives until you have scanned the entire image in.

What Are Some of The Benefits Of Negative Scanning?

First of all, whether we want to admit it or not, most of us have at least one or two dusty boxes sitting in our garage, attic, or basement full of old negatives and slides, and unorganized photos. In short, a treasure trove of memories that no one will ever see. This is where the pros at photo restoration comes into play.

Negative scanning on your own can be tricky, but a professional will have the experience and technical know how necessary to make sure that your precious memories are handled with care. Do not let your family history molder in a cardboard box. Instead, you can preserve it safely, inexpensively, and using the highest caliber equipment and restoration methods at a slide scanning company.

One of the questions that I am quite often asked is the following:

Which is better to scan, film negatives or prints?

It is always best to scan the original negatives, provided that they are in good shape and the colors have not faded. The reasons for this are explained below.

To begin with, you have to realize that a photograph is merely a copy of the original, processed negative. In most cases, a copy is never as good as the original. Typically, photographs are printed out at 240-300 dpi when done at your local photo lab. That means that a 4×6 print is, at most, 1200×1800 dpi. This is why prints are typically scanned at 300 dpi as scanning at a higher resolution does not bring out any further detail other than what is on the original print. The only time that scanning a photograph at 600 dpi, or greater, would be if the original was either very small or if it is going to be edited at a later date.

The size of a typical 35mm negative is 24mm x 36mm or, roughly, 1.0in x 1.5in. This means that the film was essentially scanned at 1200 dpi in order to produce the 4×6 print in the above example.

Most 35mm film negatives are capable of being scanned at up to 4000 dpi. This is especially true for the slower speed films (100, 200). When scanning negatives the general rule of thumb is the higher the resolution, the greater the detail.

For example, a negative scanned at a lower resolution of 2000 dpi may not be able to clearly display the time on a clock in the background or the fine print on a paper or sign when the photograph is blown up. By simply rescanning the same image at 4000 dpi you are providing 4x the resolution of the original scan. This type of resolution can display these details much more easily and clearly, especially when a larger print is be made.

Another reason for choosing to scan the film negatives instead of the photographic print is that the original film contains much more contrast and detail as compared to a photographic print. This is because prints tend to fade over time due to exposure to sunlight, etc. Negatives, if they have been stored in a dry place, are much more immune to this behavior.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

A photographic negative is a very delicate thing. It can be permanently damaged by the slightest fingerprint or piece of dust. Scratches cannot be removed from a negative, yet they do show up on a print made from the damaged negative. If you have negatives in your home, you need to make sure that you store them properly to preserve them. You just might need a reprint from it when you least expect it.

Negative Preservers

One option you have to preserve your negatives is to place them in archival quality negative preservers. These are 8 ½ by 11 sheets divided into sleeves that are the right size for a strip of negatives. If your photo lab cuts your negatives, you simply slide the negatives into the sleeve and stick the sheet into a binder. Use lint-free gloves when handling negatives so that you do not accidentally put a fingerprint on them. Be sure that the sheets are made from acid-free materials so that your negatives will last for many years.

Glassine Envelopes

Glassine envelopes are traditional negative storage devices used by professionals. The envelopes are translucent and are made from non-plasticized paper that is acid-free and pH negative. Both negatives and photographs can be safely stored in these envelopes and can be used as long-term storage options. One benefit of glassine envelopes is the fact that they come in a wide range of sizes, making them ideal for the professional who shoots on a variety of formats.

Uncut Sleeving

Some photographers prefer to leave their negatives uncut. This can create a difficulty when storing negatives, but it does lower the risk of damage on the developing end. Roll sleeving is the best storage option for uncut negatvies. This is a continuous roll of plastic sleeving that the photographic negative roll can be fed into. The sleeve can then be cut and rolled for storage. Again, these storage sleeves should be acid-free.

Digital Storage

Another option for storing negatives is storing them digitally. Professional negative scanning services can scan negatives and make high-resolution positive images from them. The resulting images are burned onto a CD, which can then be stored. Future reprints can be made directly from the CD.

Digital storage eliminates the need to hang on to negatives for years and years. Photographers who have many years of shooting under their belts know how much of a challenge it can be to keep all of the negatives in order from various photo shoots through the years. With digital negative storage, many images can be stored on one compact CD.

Regardless of the storage option you choose, never leave your negatives in the sleeving from the developer. Unless you are using a professional lab, the sleeving will not be acid free. This means that the acid in the plastic or paper can damage your negatives. Some labs will not sleeve negatives at all, leaving them open to fingerprints, scratches, and dust. Choose the storage option you prefer, and store your negatives in a safe way in order to properly preserve the images they contain.