Where Can I Get Prints from Old Negatives Nowadays?

[romantico]

I've been going through some old pictures at my Mom's house. She literally has every picture she or anyone in our family has taken dating back to the 60's to up to a few years ago before digital cameras became popular. I have negatives by the hundreds of all different sizes. My question is, does anyone know where in this day and age I can go and have prints made from negatives? My goal is to do away with the old negatives all together and put them on discs or make reprints and store them in a photo album. I know CVS or Target or Wal-Mart don't have the equipment to do them and last I heard, Kodak was going out of business. Any suggestions on how I can make prints from these 30 year old negatives?

[Major Nikon]

1. There are plenty of places that will scan negatives

I haven't used any of them lately, so I'm not going to recommend any one in particular, but a google search of negative scanning should point you in the right direction.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

2. Is Moto Photo still in busness?

Check the yellow pages. Also, you might consider buying a negative scanner. I have an HP scanner that cost me $200 that came with a negative scanner attachment.

[Denninmi]

3. Buy a scanner for your PC or Mac.

Someone gave me one of these for Xmas about 2 years ago. It worked great. She got it on clearance at Target and only paid about $30 for it. It does slides and 35 mm negatives.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=photographic+negatives+usb+scanner&hl=en&prmd=imvns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1152&bih=773&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=3274037298002480410&sa=X&ei=twFET8r2NdHmggeEpbyUCA&ved=0CL8BEPMCMAg

[woodsprite]

4. If you have some really off-size or the old large-sized negatives,

you can use them on a flatbed scanner, as long as there is a back light. I had a TON of negatives from the old 2x2", 5x7" and the really small 110 film (and everything in between). My Epson flatbed scanner had a neat frame we were able to get that fits right on the bed. It can be adjusted to work with the various size negatives. The scanner and frame were about $99.

So far I've digitized about 600. It was like a treasure hunt. We had no idea some of the pictures even existed.

Best of luck!

[HopeHoops]

5. Post this in the Photography group - somebody will know.

[csziggy]

6. Skip getting prints

Have them scanned to disc, or if you have the time, do it yourself. It is time intensive, though. I've scanned about half my negatives to digital and need to finish doing it, but it takes a lot of time and ties up the computer.

If they are all 35mm, you're in luck - there are a a lot of options for scanning that size to digital. Dedicated scanners will do a better job than flatbeds with adapters, though those are getting better.

Look for one with Digital ICE or similar software to reduce the post scanning editing to remove scratches and dust. You probably will need to carefully dust the negatives anyway to reduce the amount of dust on them before scanning.

A good place to learn about scanning, including scanning negatives and adjusting color is http://scantips.com/ His scanner and software reviews are old but the handling of the negatives and basic processes are still worthwhile.

[romantico]

7. Thanks

Thanks for the advice. I've never tried scanning them but I should look into that. I have negatives all different sizes so that will be a challenge. I discovered we have a Moto Photo near my house so I may take some down and ask them. Thanks again!

[HeiressofBickworth]

8. Scan them if you must

but DON'T get rid of the originals. I worked for an engineering company. We went through the exercise of reducing paper files to other media. In the 1970's (I wasn't there at the time), they used various forms of microfiche, later it was other media, winding up with CD's. What we found was that the older the media, the less likely we were able to access the images thereby rendering them useless. Paper or other hard-copy was more reliable in long term retrieval.

For businesses, the cost of long-term storage is an issue. The firm I worked for had rules -- specs and drawings 50 years, instructions from clients 25 years, other things and shorter life spans in order to keep the costs of storage down. I was with the legal department. We had certain original legal documents that were on permanent storage. Scanning them made them easier to read, but for long-term, storing the originals was best.

As a genealogist, I believe the same thing. Scan whatever you wish, but don't get rid of any original documents such as birth, marriage, or death certificates and certainly not any pictures.

Scanning has its benefits -- you can easily share with other individuals and if you have a substantial collection, with careful indexing, specific items can be located. But if you are looking to protect heritage items, look into methods of archival storage.

[applegrove]

9. Every downtown of any city has a photography store that does all things. I got some gorgeous

slides of my mom on the beach scan onto a disk a 8 years ago. I'm sure there are many places that specialize in photography of all kinds. If you have many to do why not check online to see if you could send away to have it done. Might save some money that way.