Should i save negatives

They are priceless and the cost of restoring is expensive but so worth every penny! I have enjoyed all your articles you have on your website. They are so easy to follow and thank you for that! You are a wonderful genealogist who shares what you have discovered along the way and writes about the topic. Thank you so much Sandi, you are very kind! And I fully agree with the value of professionally digitizing and restoring photos as well.

Larsen Digital has done that for me too. I purchased an Epson Perfection V80 several years ago. It is the best investment I have ever made. The V scanner can scan these very small negatives with enough dpi to have an 11 X 14 size picture with excellent crispness. The larger color negatives are clear and crisp also.

Sometime the color is a little faded due to the aging of the film. This scanner is easy to use. The program scans to the computer. You can next adjust the photo with your photo program. Sounds like it worked out great for you! Thanks for sharing. Elderly family members need to be asked for that information while they are still available.

Saving and digitalizing old pictures is useless unless future generations know who is in them. Username not email. Signup Here Lost Password. My aunt at home in the s. Sandi Angerami on November 26, at pm. Lisa Cooke on November 26, at pm. Roseanna M March on November 26, at pm. Ron Burda on December 28, at am. Search Search for:. Writing Family History YouTube. Privacy Policy Privacy Policy.

And for some, hopefully not too many, I am sure they would say it's okay to throw away many if not most photos before they were scanned and preserved. Not too long ago, I finished up a nice video review of the Logan Slide File 35mm slide box.

It's an archival quality metal box that is safe to store your slides in. Even though my Uncle has shot thousands of slides through the years and is in the process of scanning them, I really didn't think she would be interested in the subject of the video. I just thought she would enjoy seeing video of her brother and I working on a family photo project together. About a day or so passed when I got an email back from her. She was very complimentary of my work as you would expect your delightful Aunt to be.

Thanks Aunt Karen! We thought your video was very good. But I have to ask WHY we are storing all the slides???? Well first, I wrote her back and apologized.

And she told me later she didn't think I was. Secondly, I have to admit, that's a pretty logical and fair question she asked! I mean, why should the average person go through this huge job or expense of scanning all their photos, just to have a second set of them? So, I knew I had to write my Aunt back. I couldn't leave a monstrosity of a question like this hanging out there — especially when she used like 4 question marks in one sentence.

But, it's funny to me that I had to think about it for a day or two before I could even come up with a complete and possibly persuasive enough answer for her. If the scans aren't of high enough quality to warrant being able to toss the originals, what is the point of even scanning them besides sharing a few of them around with friends and family on social networking sites and email? Isn't everyone sentimental???? Disclaimer: I think we maybe should just go ahead and get this out of the way.

If you haven't guessed it already from reading this website, I'm on the side of the fence that can't help but practically gasp when I hear someone talk about throwing their original photos away. That being said out loud, I still felt I should send my Aunt Karen any non-sentimental logical reasoning that would at least explain why I personally would never want to toss out my family's original photos. I'm sure over time, the list will grow longer. But that week — silly, stupid, genius or pathetic — here's what I came up with.

What if I discovered I had made some mistakes scanning some of my photos and wanted to rescan them. It's like when you write something and go to proofread it for mistakes.

No matter how many times you re-read your work, you always seem to miss a couple things. This has happened to me several times as I've scanned my collection. I realized I had rushed through my workflow too fast that morning and a couple of slides were cropped too much and I was missing information from the original image. I like the peace of mind knowing I can return to the original if I ever want or need to.

How will I feel when new technology comes out that can scan and extract even more quality and detail from my photos than I was able to the day I scanned them. Storing the originals — especially film negatives — gives you technological opportunities later.

Keep those ring binders or envelopes in a cool location, preferably below 68 degrees Fahrenheit 20 degrees Celcius. Avoid moist locations or locations that have great fluctuations in humidity or temperature no garages, basements or attics! An interior closet is usually the best location. Throwing away your negatives is not harmful to the environment. Kodak has a statement on its website that offers advice. This makes sense, since negatives are almost entirely made up of gelatine, with only a minute amount of chemicals.

Unless you have a gigantic amount of negative to get rid of, the environmental impact will be negligible. Using embroidery on your scrapbook layouts will add texture and dimension to your pages. And it look cute and fluffy and very cool too.

You can make your embroidery as simple or as elaborate as you So, how can you do Project Life on a budget? Here are some tips:Invest wisely in just one core kit. Go photo-centric. Make monthly spreads, not weekly. Use freebies. Put your own kit together from Skip to content. Whether you decide to keep your negatives or not, make digital copies! Do I keep my negatives or throw them out? Why throw away the most detailed source you have?

There may be scanning errors. For instance, the negatives were dirty when scanned or they were scanned at a wrong too low resolution. Should your digital negatives turn out not to be scanned properly, you could always just scan them again. Post by Bobby » Thu May 23, pm I'd throw them out! You'll feel great taking the burden off your shoulders. Post by » Fri May 24, am 35 mm negative film is the same size and general quality as that used for the majority of commercial film production of that era.

There are enough pixels to fill a theatrical screen in front of an audience of thousands or a drive-in screen as an alternative. I am of the school that every one of those negative frames is as close to "life" as you will ever be able to get.

Toss them? I don't think so. Post by Watty » Fri May 24, am It doesn't really matter but the quality of the old 35mm film images is not as good as some of the posts mentioned. They are probably around 20 to 24 megapixels at best, but there are also some other factors than just the equivalent megapixels. We have probably 30 years worth of old 35 mm pictures Post by lthenderson » Fri May 24, pm I have around 50, slides or so that I scanned onto my computer backed up onto the cloud.

They are all stored in a medium size plastic tub on a shelf in the basement. The reasons I keep them is that technology may change someday to where I might want to rescan then.

The kids might want them. They may become historically significant to someone someday. I may lose all my digital data in an electromagnetic pulse attack and decide I still want those pictures. At the end of the day, the one plastic tote holding slides is nowhere near the low hanging fruit when it comes to lightening the load of stuff we hang onto.

I can think of more things I would rather invest time and energy ridding myself of before the slides. Post by Nowizard » Fri May 24, pm A huge issue when you have inherited over16, negatives that are over 75 years old, in great condition and with historical value. Scanning is quite expensive. If of emotional but no monetary value, consider scanning selected ones to a dedicated hard-drive and destroy the rest or give them to a local, historical society if they reflect changes in the locality.

If of potential, intrinsic value, you can scan and post on a for-sale web site, though this is not likely to produce income. An appraisal and donation to an archive is a potential possibility. My family negatives from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's are like gold to me, those memories and histories worth as much as anything else I own.

Sometime we Americans don't have a sense of history beyond our own time, perhaps because our history is so young. KlangFool knows of his family history for past generations, I would like my future generations to know about our own family.

For some reason, we always got double prints, so now we've got thousands of pictures of someone's thumb, the sky, the ground, some random plate of food all in duplicate.