Hi. Great video.. I have several boxes of glass plate negatives circa 1955.. These have been stored in a dusty cupboard for many years and some of the images are very clear. However there are a number of these glass plate negatives that are stuck together in their Kodak storage boxes. Can you advise a suitable method of separating these glass plates (if it is possible) without breaking and destroying the glass plate? I am hoping to salvage as many images as possible as these have good historic value. Thanks.
There are a number of trusted archival suppliers who sell four-flap enclosures and boxes, such as University Products, Gaylord Archival, Talas, and Hollinger MetalEdge, to name a few. NEDCC does not endorse any supplier in particular.
The easiest way I have found of doing this is placing the glass negative on a light board (light inside a box with white plastic on the top side where you place the negative). I then mount a digital camera over it on a tri-pod (camera tilted down to face the negative that is sitting on the light box). Put the camera in B&W mode and then take a picture of the negative (zoom in to fill as much of the screen as possible with the negative but without cropping it). Then load the picture into photoshop or some other tool that has the ability to convert a negative into a positive. You then have a nice digital picture of very high quality. I've printed as large as 20"x30" (poster size) from 5"x7" glass negatives with amazing results. I first thought using a scanner would be easiest but you first need to get a scanner that lights from the top down instead of from the bottom up. Then you have to keep the negative up off the glass a fraction of amount to avoid weird circles showing up on the scanned image. In the end, I just found the camera method to be faster and the quality was more than acceptable. I had 2,000 glass negatives to scan, so waiting the 20 seconds or so for the scanner to do its thing was just too long. I should point out that if you want something real quick (instant gratification) then just take a picture of the negative with your phone (negative still needs to be back lit) and then download free software from your app store that will convert a negative into a positive. I did that first just to get an idea of what some of the pictures were of. Its super fast but not what I would consider archival quality.
Hi. Great video.. I have several boxes of glass plate negatives circa 1955.. These have been stored in a dusty cupboard for many years and some of the images are very clear. However there are a number of these glass plate negatives that are stuck together in their Kodak storage boxes. Can you advise a suitable method of separating these glass plates (if it is possible) without breaking and destroying the glass plate?
I am hoping to salvage as many images as possible as these have good historic value. Thanks.
Nice info! I have some but where I can find those papers and boxes? Thanks!
There are a number of trusted archival suppliers who sell four-flap enclosures and boxes, such as University Products, Gaylord Archival, Talas, and Hollinger MetalEdge, to name a few. NEDCC does not endorse any supplier in particular.
@@nedccenter thank you very much!
Hi. How do you go about say, transfering the image from a glass plate to a digital file?
The easiest way I have found of doing this is placing the glass negative on a light board (light inside a box with white plastic on the top side where you place the negative). I then mount a digital camera over it on a tri-pod (camera tilted down to face the negative that is sitting on the light box). Put the camera in B&W mode and then take a picture of the negative (zoom in to fill as much of the screen as possible with the negative but without cropping it). Then load the picture into photoshop or some other tool that has the ability to convert a negative into a positive. You then have a nice digital picture of very high quality. I've printed as large as 20"x30" (poster size) from 5"x7" glass negatives with amazing results. I first thought using a scanner would be easiest but you first need to get a scanner that lights from the top down instead of from the bottom up. Then you have to keep the negative up off the glass a fraction of amount to avoid weird circles showing up on the scanned image. In the end, I just found the camera method to be faster and the quality was more than acceptable. I had 2,000 glass negatives to scan, so waiting the 20 seconds or so for the scanner to do its thing was just too long. I should point out that if you want something real quick (instant gratification) then just take a picture of the negative with your phone (negative still needs to be back lit) and then download free software from your app store that will convert a negative into a positive. I did that first just to get an idea of what some of the pictures were of. Its super fast but not what I would consider archival quality.