Every day is a new learning process and some times I grasp what is in front of me, other times it just takes a bit longer to learn something new. One of my quandaries for some time is the scanning of old photograph negatives. I mean old, not your typical 35mm or 2 1/4x 21/4. These negatives are 6 inches by 3 inches, plus some other sizes, from the 1910s and 1920s.
I have thousands of negatives from that time period. For example I have nearly 1,000 negatives of professional photographer O.O. Winn taken from 1920 to 1923 of the construction and initial operations of the Fruit Growers Supply Company. I have hundreds of Lola L. Tanner’s negatives from 1915-1925 of Eagle Lake and Willow Creek Valley.  Recently, Richard Goudy of Chico asked for assistance with his family photographs of the time era mentioned that are of the Milford and Westwood areas.
My question is does any one have any experience with this, or know some one that has?
Thanks.
Hi, Tim
I have done a little of the negative work but have no tips. They
always look strange in wrong. Example go back and look at the photo of the Fritters place on Eagle lake, it is backwards. Looking South the ridge should be on the left not the right.
Wow! I have used both a bright ceiling light and the sun with some drafting vellum over the negatives and gotten good results. If you also have an iPad there are apps which present a blank white screen. Set the iPad on top of the negatives (turn off the screensaver first so the iPad doesn’t go dark), and scan normally. You can also build a light box- you just need a uniform diffuse white light source. You can also use a DSLR if you backlight the negative at an in-focus distance (I taped mine to a window in front of some vellum)- this works esp. well for large negatives like yours, even with a basic lens. With fragile or glass negatives, I’d shy away from the iPad method; just setting some vellum on top should be fine.