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Want to copy some old prints on negative

Dali

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Hello there!

I have several hundreds of family pictures in B&W and I would like to copy them on negative as archiving. Most of these pictures are 80+ year old and some of them are in pretty bad condition...

What film and developer would you use? My guess would be a low contrast / fine grain combination...

Every experience is welcome, thanks!
 
What kind of a camera do you have? 4x5 would be ideal. Rollei has two films that would work well for this: Ortho and ATO.
 
35mm for convenience and if I want to frame properly all the prints (they don't have all the same size, from 2 x 3 in. to 8 x 12 in.).

I also have a Mamiya C330 which can focuses closely but there is the parallax issue...

To be honest, I would favor the 35mm solution if it can give good results.
 
Good Afternoon, Dali,

My favorite copy film for old B & W photos is Kodak Commercial. Unfortunately, it is no longer made, but it occasionally appears on E-Bay. Don't be afraid to get a well-outdated box. I've used sheets which were fifteen years old, not frozen/refrigerated, and had excellent results. It's slow (E. I. around 8 under tungsten), but development is quick (under three minutes in HC-110B).

Konical
 
dali,

I have used TMAX 100 with HC-110 or D76(very similar developers from what I've found and read), and allows you a lot of lee-way in terms of contrast adjustment in development.

shoot 4x5 if you can, it will show in the final prints. M/F if you can't get the 4x5. Always shoot a step wedge(or a frame of a colorchecker chart) in the frame too, helps with density adjustment, if you use a densitometer...

cross polarize if you can with lights from both sides. there are numerous threads here on shooting dupes of art(same technique as shooting prints)

I use some of the clamp-style lamps with 75w daylight balanced GE cfl bulbs from Wal-Mart. Total investment for lights and bulbs, along with 2 sheets of polarizing gel(for lights) from my local pro camera shop? ~$45. so getting up and running can be quick, and relatively pain free.

works for me. you will have to do some experimenting with time and agitation(contrast) adjustment to fine tune your process though.

-Dan
 
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35mm will work fine, just use the slowest film that you can get. I used to use APX25, now that it is gone I use Pan F. With copies you have to be careful of building too much contrast, especially with slow films. I would use a compensating developer, or a highly diluted one, Rodinal 1:50, or 1:100 will do the job for you.
Tony
 

35mm is not good enough for archiving. 4x5 is too time consuming and too expensive for several hundred pictures (do you really want to do this?). Not realistic.

I would borrow a 4x5 with a 6x9 roll-film back (better yet, find someone who has one and let him help you do it), set up the lights, do a test exposure and development, an run them all through at once.
 

I take it that you are saying that the original prints are in pretty bad condition but you don't say what this means in specific terms and maybe you are only interested in the right film and developer and maybe that will "cure" the problems of a print in a bad condition. However if there are serious problems with the prints such as creases, dog-eared etc then presumably you need advice on restoring the print to enable the neg to reproduce a reasonable facsimile of a print which has been doctored to disguise the faults in the print in the first place.

I can't tell you what needs to be done unfortunately but I am simply wondering if your thread may have lead members to concentrate on dev and film when restoration of the print needs adressing as well.

pentaxuser
 
I know it's blasphemy, but I'd record the images on film for archival purposes, scan the film and do the retouching digitally, if that's what the OP wants to do. Then put the originals away in archival folders and boxes. I'd recommend against restoring the originals. If they're stored properly, they'll keep much as they are for decades, color excepted. Copying to film is a good idea. Film is a very good data storage medium if it itself is properly stored.

I, too, would recommend a larger roll film than 35mm. 35mm results in reducing detail too much, and visual data will be lost. 6x7 or 6x9 roll film would be much better. T-Max 100 is good copy film. I copied several old family pictures onto 4x5 TMX, and the copies were excellent. I processed them in HC-110B, reducing the developing time slightly to reduce the contrast increases inherent in copying images.

Peter Gomena
 

Sounds like a reasonable approach to me.
 
What Peter said.

It's a matter of using the right tool fo the job, and in this case digital should be a part of the workflow---even on APUG.
 
Usually in flat copy work, I have run into the problem of far too little contrast in my initial tests, not too much, which is why I suggested the ATO. I have used it twice so far, and got good, accurate results in HC dilution H copying litho prints from books and magazines. There are good options other than this film, but my initial impression of it was favorable for this sort of work.

If you are going to digitize anyhow, why not just scan the prints directly to do that? Sure, copy the photos onto film as well, but why copy them onto film and then scan the film? I think professional flatbed scans done at a professional lab would be a better option for digitization.

I agree that 35mm would be a real waste in this case, especially when you have the Mamiya right there. Invest in a Paramender. They are probably around $100 if the lever model in nice condition. It will be worth it.
 
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Dali said:
I also have a Mamiya C330 which can focuses closely but there is the parallax issue...
Click to expand...

There is the best way to go. The Mamiya C330 has built in bellows and will give you a nice sized negative. You need to get a paraminder to correct the parallax when the camera is mounted on a tripod. You frame and focus with the upper lens, then crank the camera up the full amount that the paraminder will allow and then the lower lens is in focus and properly framed for the exposure. They show up rarely on eBay and KEH.com. I had one when I sold my Mamiya C330 camera, three lenses and every accessory known to mankind.

Steve
 
i have done this using plus x and they turned out really good ( 35mm )
i also did this with a thing that uses 1's and 0's and it worked very well too
it came in handy when i restore jewel-tintypes, silver prints
and cabinet prints that were badly deteriorated ..

have fun!
john
 

******
I used Verichrome Pan souped in D23. For faded, yellowed images souped in D19.
 
I was going to suggest the OP just scan them and archive to disk, but that's not what this forum is about.

I used to work for the Oregon Historical Society scanning their originals for a digital archive. If it's mostly prints you want to archive, then a good flatbed scanner is the way to go. You will be amazed at the capabilities of digital imaging to fix up battered, faded images. 300 or so images is very small as archives go, but it is a time-consuming process if you do it correctly. Then you have the issue of how to store the digital images. I'll not go into that here. I'd recommend reading a book about digital restoration. There are several out there.

To best preserve images for the next 100 years, it is a great idea to rephotograph them on black-and-white film. The bigger the negative, the better. Read a text on photographic restoration. It helps to know which filters to use to reduce stains and color shifts that result from age. (Kodak used to have a good booklet on copy work and restoration. I'd look there first.)

Peter Gomena
 
pgomena said:
I was going to suggest the OP just scan them and archive to disk, but that's not what this forum is about...
Click to expand...

... nor is it very archival.

pgomena said:
...I used to work for the Oregon Historical Society scanning their originals for a digital archive...
Click to expand...

Many archives have given this up. It's a never-ending and increasing workload. The growing archive must be constantly copied, because of software, media and equipment getting out of date. I still have an 8 1/4 floppy disk with a Wordstar document on it. I'm sure the bits and bytes are still good, but it is close to impossible to get to the information off of it or to find a software that can do anything with it. Who knows if tif, jpg, psd or whatever they are called, will still be around when we want to read the 2010 CD in 2050. And who knows, if it will fit into any computer. What about the metadata? If you are looking for that ONE picture, and you have 50 DVDs with tons of pictures, how are you going to find it?

Negatives don't have these problems.


There you go!
 
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