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Tossing Negatives After They've Been Scanned

RezaLoghme said:
Not keeping out of focus or wonky negatives is "throwaway society"??
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Of course not.
Although the negatives that you think are "wonky" now may very well reveal hidden value if you work with them later.
It depends on how "wonky" your "wonky" is.
See this thread for an idea of what time and inventiveness can reveal when one is working with a negative that, in this case, might be argued to be slightly over-developed: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/lets-all-print-or-maybe-scan-one-negative-2025.215648/
 
I have a large collection of "wonky" negatives, where I have found compositions hidden inside. We can learn so much from our wonky negatives.
 
"Wonky" Negatives - a great idea for a new Photrio print exchange!
 
RezaLoghme said:
Not keeping out of focus or wonky negatives is "throwaway society"??
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No, that is good housekeeping!
What I submit is that knowing our digital data is not reasonably accessible for 50-100 years (and digital storage IS less permanent that that) and assuming it does have that longevity is an attitude of 'throw away' value of things, (or being an ostrich on the topic). So destroying our negs because we have digitzed them is a pollyanna view if the permanene of the digital data access.
And while we as hobbyists photographers might have little chance of value of our images after we have passed, other photographers -- like those whose profession is is record/document human events and our surroundings -- suffer from the same problems of digital data permanence...Years of professionally recorded music that were 'archived' to digital have ALREADY been lost!
 
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I don't really care if my negatives get thrown away when i am gone, but i am thankful that my parents negatives did not get thrown out. I was able to print some 620 negatives from my parents wedding that had been taken by a guest and had never been printed...from a time before i was born.
I am glad Vivian Maier's negatives had not been thrown out.... after all they were just hobby snapshots by someone's spinster nanny....
 
Well it seems the answer is going to be the usual boring “middle of the road” cautious approach. Assess your likely need of the materials in future, consider the ability to reproduce them given changes in computing, how much anyone would bother, how important or valuable the images are to you or future generations etc…

Negatives have similar vulnerabilities to changes in the availability of tech.
If all photographic paper went away you could still make teeny tiny alt prints from 135 and 120 but thats about it right?

And if you take pictures with an end goal in mind is it truly irresponsible to dispose of the intermediate material?
 

If commercial enlarging paper went away.... you could still coat your own. Or hunt for old silver chloride paper. I've made contact prints on Azo paper from 1949.
 
GregY said:
If commercial enlarging paper went away.... you could still coat your own. Or hunt for old silver chloride paper. I've made contact prints on Azo paper from 1949.
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When commercial photographic paper goes away, there are alt processes and spray paint.
 
Andrew O'Neill said:
I have a large collection of "wonky" negatives, where I have found compositions hidden inside. We can learn so much from our wonky negatives.
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Exactly. You don't know if the negative is wonky until you try to print or scan it. I keep detailed notes both of negative exposures, development, etc. as well as how it was printed, dodged, burned, bleached ... That exposure information alone can later serve as a guidepost when refining technique.

I had one last month that looked pretty grim on a light table. The negative looked terribly thin but with appropriate printing magic in the form of split VC, I found a rather nifty image therein. I had, in fact, exposed it just right, you just couldn't tell from the negative. It was taken looking into a darkened barn:



[Oct. 2025] Leica M2, 50mm f/2 V3 Summicron, FP4+, Pyrocat-HDC, scan of silver print
 

A close friend and photographer of mine has been mining through the photographs and negatives of his father taken when the man was in service as a US Marine in WWII. These old negatives have opened up a door of his family history previously unknown to him. They have served for him to better know a man now dead for many years. He was able to do this, in part, because he could scan/print negatives shot in the 1940s.

One rather doubts a found hard drive or DVD in a shoe box approaching 90 years of age would have been as useful.

I keep meticulous notes of my exposures, either at the individual level, but certainly at the whole roll level, and how I approached printing the ones that made it to silver paper. There is no particular ego in this. These notes have saved my own bacon when I go back to reprint or refine a technique. It would be nice if someone in the future could use this information to keep the craft alive, but I rather doubt it
 
In a photo forum largely populated by people who love working in their own darkroom, there is going to be a strong bias towards keeping negatives and archiving them and all.

In the real world, most people care about that one photo that tells a story. I mentioned the pokemon or baseball cards earlier. People usually overestimate the value of things they prefer.
 
I've recently come into possession of an envelope of negatives from the mother of a friend. From what we could determine the photos were taken in Canada in the early part of 20th century. Maybe 100 negs in total.

By measuring the frame sizes and the overall negative widths the films appear to be either sizes 116, 122 and a few 120 although the 120's are not 6cm by 6cm, more like 9cm wide, (or the inch equivalent).

I am planning to use an Epson V700 scanner but most of the negs won't fit the stock film holders. may have to make up a mask that I can lay over the 4 x 5 inch film holder to hold the negs at the correct height over the glass platen. Or failing that just scan the negs directly on the glass.

Should be a very interesting exercise.
 

It would be interesting to see them!
 
I've just been out and bought a sheet of thin black plastic which I plan to cut out to fit a 4 x 5 inch film holder and then cut out to fit 116, 122 negs.

There are a couple of paper envelopes from the film processors in the day, one is from McCutchon's in Edmonton which was for develop and print roll of 116 film, 6 shots - 10 cents for development and 30 cents for the prints. Another envelope is labelled Clarence Stearns Photographer, Rochester Minn.

Exposure and processing looks quite good on most negs, a bit of fogging around the edges of the frames, film not wound tightly when removing from the camera. Detail in the negs is also quite sharp so should be able to get some good results.
 
tokam said:
There are a couple of paper envelopes from the film processors in the day, one is from McCutchon's in Edmonton which was for develop and print roll of 116 film, 6 shots - 10 cents for development and 30 cents for the prints.
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My grandparents were both born in Edmonton and lived their whole lives there, so I'd love to see the photos if you can post them somewhere once you have scanned them!
 

122 could be original US postcard size that used 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" . An 11x14 cuts into 8 cards. Contact print
 
I've already started on the 116 negatives, very hard to guess the time period but I would reckon 1915 -1925 from the look of the cars I've seen so far.

I thought that the other negative sizes were 122 and 120. I was going to start with the 120 using standard Epson holders in the scanner. Turns out the films, I think, are 108 format and not 120. The images there might be quite early.

@mschem You're right, 122 negs are going to be a bit oversized to fit into a 4 x 5 scanning holder. If I can't scan them directly on the glass I may have to trim off a bit of the negs?!
 

....like worshipping cameras, but not images....
 
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