fetzler Loc: North West PA

I will indeed get the book. It looks to be informative. Thanks.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

I will buy the book. It looks to be informative. Thanks.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

For what it may be worth, I went down this road myself about a year ago. (https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-534400-1.html)
Check out the pair of images on page 2. As time went on, I got better at it and am quite happy with the images I got using the D850 as my copier.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Those were two of my favorites back in the days I used film. Their negative-to-digital conversions look good.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I've used a DSLR, Macro Lens, Tripod, Light Box, Side Arm for the tripod and tripod head, and some means of flattening the negative or positive film. For 35mm strips a roll of masking tape works as a weight ring. Sheet film can curl. Also I have a bellows with a slide copier attachment. I also have and use an Epson V550 Scanner, should have held out for a 7xx or 8xx model.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I use anti-newton ring (ANR) glass with both of my scanners to flatten the negative but I just avoid any really curly films.

Ilford and Kodak products and a few others are easy to work with but there are a several films on a really thin acetate base that are almost impossible to handle.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

If you want to make great digital copies of negatives, I highly recommend using Negative Lab Pro as a plug-in in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Free downloadable demo at https://www.negativelabpro.com

It's $100, but well worth it if you have a lot of negatives to convert. The color accuracy is remarkable.

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

I needed to scan slides of artwork. The company that I sent them to recommended, and scanned at, 4000 ppi. Later, with VuScan and Nikon Coolscan, I did my own, between 4000-5000 ppi. I've printed most at 12 x 16 (Epson P800), and had a professional printer print a few at 24 x 32--all looked quite fine, exactly what I wanted. I saved in Adobe (1998) colorspace.

Bill P

My experience with fading is against yours. I have Kodachromes from the 70's that look pristine, and other that look like an old Ektachrome. And I have ektachromes from the same time that are pristine and others that aren't. I have Agfachromes, a great landscape film, that have turned almost clear and others that are perfect. As to Ansco, i never has one that would last out the month.

Pine Warbler

Timely subject! I was looking for the latest info on converting photograph albums to digital, and am convinced I need to set up a camera and lens system. Any tricks on setting up such a system...worried that if I hold the camera in my hands, I lose time setting the albums. Any tricks for handling lighting when photographing from albums? I don't have any negatives so not worried about that aspect.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I'm convinced it's all process-dependent. Kodachrome was a rigidly controlled process. It was very consistent, and there were just a handful of labs qualified to do it. Most Kodachromes since the 1930s are in decent shape, if kept under controlled conditions (room temperature range, 50% relative humidity, in trays or archival boxes or sleeves).

But Ektachrome? Well... E6 was done everywhere. I souped thousands of rolls of it myself, back in the 1980s, in a deep tank sink line process with temperature control and Nitrogen burst agitation. We used Kodak E6 chemistry, which was an eight step process:

First Developer
Reversal Bath
Wash
Color Developer
Bleach
Fix
Wash
Stabilizer

That last step was pretty critical! Unfortunately, for a long time, it was formaldehyde-based. At some point, formaldehyde made its way onto a hazardous substance list, so Kodak changed it.

Many labs left out the stabilizer. They got tired of contact dermatitis and other bad things happening to lab workers. It was also an expense many labs felt they could eliminate. I wore gloves, and the stabilizer still made my skin peel.

Despite following Kodak's instructions to the letter, nearly all my Ektachrome slides from 1979 to 1988 are cyan-blue. So are Ektachromes from the late 1960s processed by Kodak in Atlanta.

Several other companies made/make E6 compatible kits. Who knows what is in them. I used one that was just four solutions. The colors came out very weird.

Anscochrome? I dunno. I have some from the early 1950s that are excellent. They are in Ansco mounts, so probably were processed properly. My uncle liked that film. Slides of me at age 2 were made with it. They're decent.

therwol Loc: USA

If you're going to digitize photos rather than negatives or slides, just use a decent flat bed scanner and save a lot of trouble. Even the scanner on an all-in-one printer will give decent results on objects as large as a typical print. My Canon all-in-one printer even comes with software that will correctly outline as many as four prints as individual files, so long as the prints are aligned well with the scanner.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Epson scanners also allow you to auto-select several prints on the scanner bed, and scan them in sequence.

However, for most work, I've found that a decent copy stand setup with a dSLR or MILC and a short macro lens is MUCH faster. Raw capture allows plenty of adjustment options in Lightroom Classic (etc.).

I have copied thousands of prints, books, artwork, forms, and other items that way. I can do one setup per print size, and copy many prints, or do a custom setup for each odd-sized item. Scanners are slooooow.

The only time I use my scanner is when I need Digital ICE with color restoration. THAT is indispensable.

The copy stand can do double duty for copying slides and negs, if you add a color-correct lightbox.

I got my first copy stand in 1979, and found it indispensable as well. I wish I still had that beast — it had an 18x24 baseboard and a 48" column. But with my preferred 24x32" soft box lights, it took up too much space. My current setup folds flat and has a 23" column. But 11x17" is about the copy limit.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Good tip, Bill. But personally, I never shot any film other than Chromes.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The process for Kodachrome (K-14) was different but even Ektachrome (E-6) slides developed by Kodak did not have the longevity of Kodachrome.

The Kodachrome emulsion was designed differently and the colors were developed using a totally different approach.

Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) prints also outlast conventional color prints because the structure of the emulsion is different and it used 13 layers of azo dyes.

But both E-6 and the Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) process were simple enough to use at home.