Managing Film Workloads

Hi all

I was a film shooter from when I first started messing about with a camera in the very late 1980's to 2007 when I bought a Nikon D70s. I've used my digital camera to help me learn without the costs of film development and all of my shots are stored on my PC and backup devices - the best shots I have printed for my portfolio. Now that I seem to know what I'm doing a bit better I want to use film again much more and I have started to do so in recent months.

What I am struggling with though is management of the prints and negatives. With digital it's easy - all the prints are on my PC and the best one's I print. But from my photography from the mid-90's to 2007 I have a shelf full of photo albums that are filled with my best shots, then I have pouches and pouches of prints that were too good to throw out but not good enough to go in the album. Or, if I took a series of, say, 10 shots of the same thing, the best one went in the album and the remaining one's either have to be thrown out (which I always feel is a waste) or just take up space.

So how do you guys manage your negatives and prints? What equipment do I need to invest in to avoid having shelves and shelves of disorganised albums and prints? How do you organise your film based work? I know some people buy negative scanners and scan images into their PC. I don't have a slide viewer or a scanner yet - should I? What advise can you give me on film based management?

Thanks

Ted

I use rubbermaid document bins that hold hanging folders and the like.
Each printfile sleeve of negatives gets a plastic hanger bar through the top and it just hangs inside the bin. I have two bins, one for 35mm and one for 120/4x5. You can use paperclips to attach a contact sheet to the negative sleeve too, or use a hanging folder.

Or, if you have a filing cabinet, same deal. I feel the rubbermaid bin gives better protection against humidity and the like. I drop a few large silica gel packets inside.. works for me.

The 4x5's go in printfile 4x5 polaroid page (which is 4x5 oversized), each negative goes in an individual 4x5 plastic sleeve, which then slides into the oversized polaroid plastic page.

Film and slide pages placed in hanging folders in 4-drawer filing cabinets with film files alphabetically by subject.

I'm up to six 4-drawer cabinets and five 2-drawer cabinets.

I use Filemaker Pro for a database of all negs and images. I got tired of looking in boxes and books for negs. I keep the negs in Printfile sleeves (35mm, 2 1/4, and 4x5) in binders, numbered and page numbered. Prints are kept in boxes, numbered, and tracked in the database. Because of the DBase, it doesn't matter how they are grouped or organized in the books, because I can always find them, by size, location, film, even developer, whatever I remember about the shot.

I know what you mean about prints too good to dump, but not good enough for presentation. Fred Picker always use to say "dump them, keep only the best". I still have many, though, that I'm in limbo about, maybe I would like better if I printed them differently.

It took awhile to create the database, but I have made up the time in finding stuff. I can even find all the images that need printing, for example, with one search. I have scans of my best images showing in low resolution in the database. Obviously, I can keep track of all kinds of info (price, how many sold, etc etc). I have a field for precise printing info, developing, etc. It's great for keeping good records for testing films and developers.

A numbering system is a good start. I use a fairly simple numbering scheme for all my negatives, which I then report onto my proof sheets. My negs are stored in PrintFile and ordered inside large binders, and my proof sheets are stacked up in boxes, according to their number as well.

I never consider my RC prints to be that important, even if they are OK, so I just throw them in various boxes. When there is a print that I think needs to be referenced, I just write the negative # on the back. When I have sales, I use the same #, plus the frame number and/or a descriptive title to reference the shot in my (humongous!) sales record.

I also keep a printing record in a notebook, which helps me to track down the prints I have not readily labelled.

If I were to have a bigger output (i.e. actual sales), I would be much more consistent in labeling prints, and storing them, but as long as my negs and my proof sheets are easy to match, I don't have a problem re-printing old stuff.