RE: Old glass negatives

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From: Janet Hubbard (imaginethat@portgualala.com)
Date: 04/18/00-10:52:47 AM Z


Thank you very much for cautioning me about this. You know what they say
about ignorance!

How do you normally clean them? And if I store them wrapped in something
soft in a dark box, won't they be okay? That's how they've been stored for
the past 75 yrs...in fact they weren't even wrapped probably. What is the
worst thing that can happen to them environmentally? moisture/humidity?

Janet

-----Original Message-----
From: James Romeo [mailto:jromeo@iopener.net]
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 6:43 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Old glass negatives

I work a lot with glass negative. I work 2 days a week at The New York
Historical Society
I print a lot of them.
You can not use a contact printer as the pressure on the glass could brake
it.
You can just place the neg on the printing paper the wight of the glass
alone will
contact the paper. I have even done palladium prints from them in this
manner.
To enlarge I use a 8x10 enlarger but only the bottom glass is used in the
neg carrier.
Using the two sheets of glass would damage the neg.
James Romeo
----- Original Message -----

From: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
To: pam@pinehill.com, alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Old glass negatives
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 02:59:16 -0700

I actually also have an old contact printer which I understood could use
contact paper? Would need to get someone to show me how locally. Hadn't
thought of that solution. Thanks!

-----Original Message-----
From: Pam Niedermayer [mailto:pam_pine@cape.com]
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 2:02 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Old glass negatives

I'd recommend contact printing them to start. You could do
it without setting up the enlarger, but you would need trays
for developing the contact prints? Scanning them can be a
reasonable facsimile if you have a good scanner.

Or, if the negatives aren't huge, it probably wouldn't be
that expensive for a lab to do it for you.

Then, evaluate the contact prints.

Pam

Janet Hubbard wrote:
> ...
> Now that he's died I'm left with every negative he ever took (literally)
as
> well as much of his equipment. However, the darkroom and the associated
> equipment was sold several years ago. Now I have the cameras and the
prints
> and negs. Although I have his Durst enlarger which I'm selling, I don't
have
> any facilities for setting up a darkroom here. Nor do I have the time to
> handle photography at that level.
>
> I've discovered a small box about 10 inches high of old glass negatives.
Not
> having a working darkroom, I'm trying to be creative in looking at and
> printing from these. I've tried scanning them on my relatively new HP
> ScanJet 6200C scanner and then reversing it to a positive in Adobe
> PhotoDeluxe. It works well enough to get a good idea what's there although
I
> haven't moved it to the computer with the good printer on it yet. Is there
> an easier way to do this? (short of paying a professional lab to print
them)
>
> My main problem is that these negatives were perhaps stored on the floor
of
> a building that was flooded many years ago. Some of them are quity muddy.
> Others seem to have mildew/mold on them.
> ...

--
Pamela G. Niedermayer
Pinehill Softworks Inc.
1221 S. Congress Ave., #1225
Austin, TX 78704
512-416-1141
512-416-1440 fax
http://www.pinehill.com


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