Laptop as a negative viewer!

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84
Name
Peter Randall
Edit My Images
Yes
As I have been a photographer since the late 50s I have hundreds of negatives and slides at home that need cataloguing and scanning into the computer.

I looked around for a light box that I could view said negatives then a thought struck me why not use something I already have, my Laptop!

Set up a new user account and in Photoshop opened a new white document, saved it as a JPG then saved as my desktop, laid the screen flat, upside down and there you have it, a light box!

Lightbox.jpg
[/IMG]
 
and in Photoshop opened a new white document, saved it as a JPG then saved as my desktop, laid the screen flat, upside down and there you have it, a light box!



why did you not just change the background colour to white instead of making an image :thinking:


good idea for the neg viewer though :clap:
 
Great idea - wonder how good it is to then take a digital image of slides, rather than scanning ?
 
Not that it matters to anyone these days, but a PNG or GIF will be a tinier file size.

There's no need to save the image as a Desktop: use any image viewer with fullscreen e.g. IrfanView.

Can use it to help tracking down the burrows of your dust bunnies.
 
I just ran across this suggestion when I was on the verge of either buying or making a negative light box. Thank You! I didn't think of this ... having a couple of old laptops lying about, I immediately grabbed the one that had a screen that would lie almost flat (in relation to the keyboard), turned it on ... went to the screensaver option of the desktop (I am a Windows guy) and adjusted the desktop "Personalize Options" to "High Contrast Black and White". That gives you an almost perfect negative vierwing panel.

Appreciate this suggestion from almost ten years ago!
 
@cosmicma - thanks for that. Not sure if it is the same one (I searched Google Play) and now have one installed on my phone. Ideal for my 6x7 negs (one at a time).
 
Anybody else using the colour flip option on iphone/ipad? I do have a lightbox, but the colour flip thing works absolutely brilliantly for whizzing over the negatives for a quick view.
 
Anybody else using the colour flip option on iphone/ipad? I do have a lightbox, but the colour flip thing works absolutely brilliantly for whizzing over the negatives for a quick view.

Yeah, sometimes I put negatives on my iPad (blank page in Pages) and then invert colours on my iPhone and open the Camera app.
 
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