Old film negatives

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Dennis
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Hi, i have discovered my parents have kept a lot of old film negatives , they are mainly family shots but my mother believes that they have the ones i took with a borrowed film camera from my traveling days around europe back in 1981...my dad died recentlty and this as prompted my family to start digging out old photos etc,all i want is a bit of advice on getting them scaned were i can try and do some procesing with them,as i have never done it before and i would like to get the best out of them.Thanks
 
If you want to scan them yourself, have a look at this link. The right answer for you will depend on what the final use will be (share on the web, print small, print large), how many negatives there are to scan and the time/cash budget (there are companies that provide a scanning service, but if you have the time it may be cheaper to do it yourself - including buying a scanner - depending how many there are).
 
if there are LOTS.....I've read posts here to say scanning is the MOST boring, time consuming, mind-numbing job

I'd go commercial in bulk
 
Yardbent said:
if there are LOTS.....I've read posts here to say scanning is the MOST boring, time consuming, mind-numbing job

I'd go commercial in bulk
Click to expand...

I agree. And it's not just the scanning, there's a lot of post process fiddling needed to get the best from them.

A lot of folks get them done in Asia, if it's hundred or thousands, at reasonable cost and high quality, though it does require a leap of faith ;)
 
If these images mean something to you ( and i am guessing they do by your post about your dad passing away and old photos resurfacing) then I would not go commercial. Mainly because if they lose or damage your negatives (or the Royal Mail do) then you will most likely not be compensated much and such images can never be replaced anyway. I would (and I have done this myself when my father died with 50 odd images) scan them at home, create your own high quality archive and consider it a labour of love.
 
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Hi thanks all for the replies,....my dad was a footballer and my mother believes thier are quite a few pics of some well known footballers at the time ,the 1950's looking forward to scanning them,thier is literally shoe boxes full of them.
 
I scanned a shoebox full of negatives mostly while browsing the forum. Have the scanner set up next to the computer, fit a negative, press scan and then read for a couple of minutes while it scans, repeat as required. took about 6 weeks :) (based on normal web browsing time per day)

Oh and I numbered every neg strip with the file number so I could find it again if I wanted more from the scan
 
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