Old photograph negatives onto Disc?

missy_kitten

Hi all,

I'm a student and have a bin liner full of old 6x4 photographs and their negatives, which I've been carting around each flat move over the last 6-odd years.

I'm wondering how I can get them put onto a disc so I have them on my computer and which way would be cheapest?

Your help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much!

Notmyrealname

Plenty of Negative Scanners you can buy. They tend to go for not a lot of money on Ebay as many photographers are selling them as they switch from film to digital.

You scan them the same as you would a document.

Owain_Moneysaver

Your uni library or print services very probably have a photo and negative scanner which they might let you use, or do the scanning for you at cost. If you really do have a bin-liner full then a scanner with a strip / sheet feeder will be faster.

You can buy scanners quite cheaply but most do photos OR negs - not both; Pandigital have some that do both 6x4 and negs but the reviews aren't good. Some flatbed scanners had negative adapters but didn't usually have the resolution for scanning negs.

Please save the images with filenames which will mean something in 20 years time

googler

Get the best quality negative scanner that you can. You don't want to be doing it again a few years down the line when you get a better scanner.

Canon, Nikon, any of the recognised makers....

Amazon, Jessops, eBay...

jtk174

Having scanned quite a few old negs myself. Be aware that the negative needs to be placed the right way up into the scanner, otherwise you get a "mirror" effect, i.e what was the right side of the object appears to be on the left.
Your scanner instructions should indicate which way round the negative should be placed. ( I bought a second hand scanner and didn't have the instructions ! )

jayme1

Question: do you have to use a special negative scanner or will any old flat-bed do? obviously I think you would need to set the DPI to maximum along with configuring other settings as needed, if any.

ukcarper

You need a negative scanner or a flatbed with negative attachment as the negatives need to be backlit and you need a high resolution. Scanning negatives can be very time consuming and any scratches or dirt on them will really show up. If you have prints it will probably be easier to scan those although it won’t give you the same quality as a good negative scanner and clean negatives.

There are places that will do it for you but they are normally expensive.

flashg67

OP says they also have the 6x4 photos so a standard scanner should give reasonable results. Time consuming, but standard scanners, or all in one devices are fairly cheap?

missy_kitten

Thank you very much everyone!