What to do with those boxes full of old photos?
It’s been more than a decade, and probably closer to two decades since pretty much all of our photography and image creation has gone digital — although film photography does seem to be experiencing a resurgence, especially with Gen Z. But, if you’re like me, and you started before the digital revolution, then you’ve likely got a physical collection of photos. In my case, it’s quite literally several boxes full of old prints and envelopes of negatives sitting under the stairs in the basement of my parents’ home up in British Columbia, Canada.
The problem is, having all these eggs in one basket exposes you to the risk of a single catastrophic loss — in my case, quite literally “the house burning down”, as every summer there have been more and more wildfires up in B.C. and some of them have been getting pretty close. I have been putting it off, but dealing with all these old photos is something that I need to address.
The task of “digital archiving” is to take that physical collection of photos and negatives and digitize/scan them. There are 2 main reasons for this >>
- Convenience >> it’s much easier to view and enjoy digital photos on your screens and devices, versus all those boxes full of old prints, much less negatives
- Redundancy + Risk Management >> if you just have your original negatives then you’re exposed to risk of loss or destruction // see Don’t be the turkey // a “belt and suspenders” approach to Personal Digital Asset Management
Here I will outline the options and relevant considerations for “digital archiving” ex ante, and then I will follow up once I’ve actually gone through the process myself, to provide additional insights. As with many things, there may not be a “one size fits all” best approach to digital archiving. There are multiple trade-offs, and the best approach for you depends on several factors, including >>
- volume of photos in the archive… hundreds? thousands?
- mix of prints vs. negatives?
- what proportion are selects vs. rejects?
- how much time can you devote to the project? I would be hesitant to ship my negatives off to an online vendor, but for some this might make sense
- what’s your budget?
Quality vs. Cost Efficiency
With scanning, there is a necessary tradeoff between quality and cost efficiency: ranging from cost efficient “machine” scans up to more expensive drum scans, with camera scans somewhere in between.
Especially if you have a very large collection of photos to digitize, and particularly if you expect a low ratio of selects (ie. a large proportion of rejects), it might make sense to consider an iterative, “multi-stage” process >>
- process a comprehensive digital archive of your entire collection, using a relatively economical film/slide “machine” scanner at a local lab
- review and organize your digital archive, using a tool such as Lightroom >> see Don’t be the turkey // a “belt and suspenders” approach to Personal Digital Asset Management + Diving deeper on Lightroom + setting up LrC to reside inside Dropbox
- process high quality drums scans or camera scans of the selects (ie. best photos, “keepers”)
On the other hand, if your collection is smaller, or if most of the assets are very important, then it might make sense to go for a more expensive but higher quality approach for the entire archive, such as camera scans from a fine art lab.
Scanning prints vs negatives
An important distinction to call out, before getting into the types of equipment, is that there are two types of photography scans >>
- scanning prints
- scanning negatives
Let’s back up for a moment. When you’re making a photographic print from a negative, that process inherently introduces some distortion — the print is not exactly the same as the negative, whether it’s contrast or exposure or some other form of distortion. So your print necessarily introduces a first layer of distortion. And then any sort of scan — whether high quality or low quality — that process also introduces some distortion (less and more, respectively). So if you’re scanning from a print, you’re going to have two layers of distortion versus scanning from a negative. Therefore, to the extent possible, I would recommend going to the source and scanning directly from the negatives for best results. In digitizing your overall collection, you may end up doing a bit of both (scanning negatives and prints), since you may have some prints for which the negatives no longer exist — in my case there’s a handful of those, unfortunately.
So what type of scanning equipment can be used to scan photos?
Flatbed scanners
The simplest device is a flatbed scanner — these can be used to scan both prints and negatives. Flatbed scanners can range from $100 to $4,000, and up from there (figure 1). I’ve tried the Epson V39 for scanning prints and it’s ok FPO (if you just needed some basic scans for reference to view on screen), but for negatives you’d need something better: at the very least the Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner ($350), but probably the Epson Perfection V850 Pro Scanner ($1,300). That being said, when it comes to scanning negatives, there are other better options, whether optimizing for quality or efficiency.
Film/Slide “machine” scanner
Dedicated film/slide “machine” scanners where the negatives are fed in will greatly improve efficiency when scanning a large number of negatives.
You can get a cheap Kodak SLIDE N SCAN Max Digital Film Scanner ($200) but just by the looks of it, I doubt it’s very good. The Plustek brand seems pretty popular on B&H, from OpticFilm 8200i Ai Film Scanner ($500) up to OpticFilm 120 Film Scanner ($2,300).
Moving up from there, you have machines like the Noritsu HS 1800, which is used by a handful of consumer-oriented photo labs here in SF — it can produce a 16 MB file approx 2,000 x 3,000 pixels, which is almost 4K screen resolution. The cost can range from $0.3-$1 per frame, depending on resolution and vendor.
There are several labs in SF that offer Noritsu negative scans >>
Drum scans
Drum scanners (especially those made by Heidelberg) are considered the “gold standard” for scanning negatives. They use PMT sensors, with superior dynamic range versus flatbed scanners using CCD sensors. The negative is wet-mounted inside of a cylindrical drum, and the distance between the sensor and the surface being scanned remains constant offering the least amount of distortion — as opposed to flatbed and dedicated film/slide scanners, where there will be slight distortion due to the effect of parallax. However, drum scanning is a very elaborate and laborious process: the negatives have to be wet-mounted inside the drum in a mineral oil emulsion. Kindly refer to the video below (figure 3) to see a drum scanner in action, courtesy of Lightsource SF. Cost starting around $40 per frame and up, depending on resolution and vendor — not economical for hundreds or thousands of negatives, but rather makes sense only for selects.
There are several labs in SF that offer drum scans >>
Imacon
Hasselblad’s Imacon scanner employs a “virtual” drum scanning technology, whereby the negative is placed on a flexible magnetic holder that curves it into an arc, ensuring the film remains flat and in focus throughout scanning. This design replicates the accuracy of conventional drum scanners without requiring wet mounting. Imacon uses a CCD sensor and produces very high quality scans. Cost starting around $25 per frame and up, depending on resolution and vendor — not economical for hundreds or thousands of negatives, but rather makes sense only for selects.
There are several labs in SF that offer Imacon scans >>
Camera scans
As the quality of digital camera CMOS and CCD sensors has improved significantly in recent years, digital cameras with properly dialed rigging and lighting can now be used to take very high resolution photographs of negatives (and prints). While drum scans are still considered to be the “gold standard”, properly excecuted camera scans can offer comparable results while vastly more efficient and hence less costly — $1–5 per frame and up, depending on eq setup, resolution, vendor, and volume. Moreover, camera scans are less invasive to the film — whereas drum scans need to be wet mounted.
There are several labs in SF that offer high quality camera scans >>
Agency/Operator
Regardless of equipment, from an “operator” perspective there are 3 approaches to the process of digital archiving >>
- Remote/Online services
- Local labs/services
- DIY
Remote/Online services
There are services out there that you can send your stuff to and they’ll digitize it for you. I’ve got to say up front, I would be pretty reticent to send off my original negatives of which, a priori, I don’t have a redundant copy. But I understand some people may not have a lot of spare time to devote to a project such as this, so it’s an option to consider, especially if convenience is a high priority.
Following are a handful of such services that show up with a quick Google search — kindly note I have NOT researched or vetted any of these following, and am providing off the cuff, for reference only.
Local SF services
Ranging from high-end fine art photo labs to more consumer-oriented, there are several labs in SF that offer scanning services, as detailed in the following google sheet >> SF labs // photo scanning
If you live in another big city such as NYC or LA, there would be plenty of comparable labs to consider as well. When I previously owned and operated a fine art photography gallery in New York City, I worked with Laumont Photographics, they are the best of the best for fine art (but also priced accordingly).
DIY
What if you wanted to do it yourself? If you look online, you can find plenty of scanners, some less expensive, more expensive. Amazon is a great place to look, of course!
But there’s also B&H Photo: their bricks-and-mortar showroom is the go-to for photo and video gear in NYC, while their website is also a great resource. For one thing, everything B&H carries has been vetted, they don’t carry any garbage. Furthermore, the site also features extensive user reviews. Pricing and shipping/returns are competitive with Amazon.
As explained above, the simplest thing is a flatbed scanner which can scan both prints and negatives. However, a camera rig would yield much better results while also being vastly more efficient for a large quantity of negatives.
But if you dig into the flatbed scanners (eg. reviews on B&H Photo), you will find plenty of challenges and a steep learning curve — keep in mind, a scanner or process is only as good as the operator. A camera scanning rig represents an even steeper learning curve to get the rigging dialed in properly (lighting, stand, film tray, etc.) — though ultimately this would be the preferred approach (quality + efficiency).
Regardless of the equipment setup, I would recommend getting RAW captures and then using the Adobe Lightroom plugin Negative Lab Pro to achieve nondestructive scan processing >>
Even with the right equipment and software tools, there is a steep learning curve for the camera rig. To give you an idea of how much there is to learn, following is an excellent deep dive into the specific topic of what settings to use in Negative Lab Pro >>
By the time you factor in the cost of high quality equipment and the steep learning curve, IMHO you’re probably better off to outsource your digital archive project. Buying your own equipment might make sense for continual ongoing use, and if you’re serious about learning all the ins and outs. But otherwise, my preference would be to outsource the project, preferably to a local lab (as opposed to a remote/online service).
So that’s it for now. I’ll come back and give another report once I’ve gone through the process of digital archiving my own collection. But in the meantime, these are my thoughts on how to approach such a project.
As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments >>
