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Thread: Old slides and negatives

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    Old slides and negatives

    I just located all the old slides and other photo stuff at my parents' house and mailed them back to myself and have spent the last several days culling slides. I went from over a thousand to 376, and my son and dil helped yesterday with the final culling.

    They said digitize them professionally. I had been leaning towards getting a scanner myself, but they said the pros could do a better job more cheaply, and be done with it. That's my first question--what would you do now, just take them to be digitalized and then be done with them for a while? I would print favorites out for albums because that is how I like to see my photographs.

    The other issue is old negatives. I have some really old negatives, circa 1918, and even some glass plate negatives from family in Nebraska. What do you all recommend with these very old negatives? We didn't even deal with these yet, just finished the slides.

    How do I give these to the pros to digitize without losing my organizational system, which right now is baggies with different categories and the number of slides within?

    I probably have some more recent negatives, from the 50's, but I would probably discard those. . .

    Anybody done this, and have suggestions?

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    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    No suggestions, but wow, what a job you are taking on to deal with all of this content in differing forms!

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    Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post
    No suggestions, but wow, what a job you are taking on so deal with all of this content in differing forms!
    I think I will actually take the slides to Portland to this photographic place that will digitize them, and then I can ask them about the negatives! Will concentrate on slides for now, then printing them out for albums and maybe some prints for the wall.

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    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Gee, whiz, we are living in parallel universes. In NJ, the last box I retrieved was another shoe box of photos, but when I looked inside is was all negatives! I almost tossed it, knowing I would probably never do anything with it, but now I'm anxious to see how your visit with the Portland photo studio goes, and then decide if it will be worth it for professionals to digitize mine.
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    Gee, whiz, we are living in parallel universes. In NJ, the last box I retrieved was another shoe box of photos, but when I looked inside is was all negatives! I almost tossed it, knowing I would probably never do anything with it, but now I'm anxious to see how your visit with the Portland photo studio goes, and then decide if it will be worth it for professionals to digitize mine.
    The one I found is a chain, and they have one in Burlington:

    https://everpresent.com/our-locations/northern-vermont/

    I will let you know if I get hold of them and what they charge.

    There is a mail-off one for 37cents a slide, ScanCafe, which I was going to use. But I'd rather take them in and talk to somebody.

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    When we found boxes of old negatives a few years back, DH used his photo scanner and spent hours downloading them to Dropbox and as a backup to an external HD. Who knows though if any of this stuff will be around even 20 yrs from now? He found that the local photo stores were very expensive and that some of the really old negatives were of a size they wouldn't or couldn't do. It was a good wintertime activity to scan them all.

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    Good point about the winter activity! Here is an article about using your phone to scan negatives?? I need to check this out. Catherine, maybe you could try this and do a cursory and then pay to scan the best ones, but discard first? Not sure.

    https://www.thefamilyheart.com/scan-...th-your-phone/

    ETA: I can't see the picture, Catherine?

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    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tybee View Post
    Good point about the winter activity! Here is an article about using your phone to scan negatives?? I need to check this out. Catherine, maybe you could try this and do a cursory and then pay to scan the best ones, but discard first? Not sure.

    https://www.thefamilyheart.com/scan-...th-your-phone/

    ETA: I can't see the picture, Catherine?
    By mistake I uploaded the wrong screenshot! Then couldn't delete the thumbnail, so I deleted the whole post. Anyway, thank you for the reference to the Burlington photo shop!!

    ETA: here's that photo I meant to upload: My MIL (left) and DH, and the woman on the right is probably my MIL's best friend from Scotland, who just died a couple of months ago at age 95. As I said in the deleted post, I just like this picture for its composition and totally 50s vibe, with the car and the stylish 50s outfits. My MIL used to say that her friends said she always dressed like a store mannequin.

    old photo.jpg
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Catherine that photo is wonderful!!!

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    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Cool picture Catherine! I am no help with the slides or pictures as we just threw them away.

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