Any advice damaged/dirty negatives

[scruffypup]

Hi

I've been scanning old negatives and noticed some had what would look like water damage, a dull film on the rear of 110 negatives others have chalky pale cream areas on them also on the rear of the film, they are around 20-30 years old and were stored in a box, tried scanning but they are way beyond any form of photograph restoring, I have nothing to lose by trying to clean them so any advice would be welcome. 

The photos are of my family including me so I know the rules about living people I will post a few photos showing  the type of damage that shows on the scans without featuring any living people, to show how the photos would be beyond any photo software cleaning, unless you guys know of a good programme (easy to use, not that up on photo restoration) that I could try on the photos and then bin the negatives

[stevew101]

You may find some help here.

http://photorepairinstruction.fujifilmusa.com/

Steve

[diesse]

Thanks for the link stevew101 - very interesting and worth trying.

Cheers,
Di

[relatedtoturnips]

Hi

I've been scanning old negatives and noticed some had what would look like water damage, a dull film on the rear of 110 negatives others have chalky pale cream areas on them also on the rear of the film, they are around 20-30 years old and were stored in a box, tried scanning but they are way beyond any form of photograph restoring, I have nothing to lose by trying to clean them so any advice would be welcome. 

The photos are of my family including me so I know the rules about living people I will post a few photos showing  the type of damage that shows on the scans without featuring any living people, to show how the photos would be beyond any photo software cleaning, unless you guys know of a good programme (easy to use, not that up on photo restoration) that I could try on the photos and then bin the negatives

Hi there,

I would scan them digitally, then at least you have raw copies to work with. You can then learn how to clean them "digitally" your self, or ask others here to try for you. Either way, its worth a shot.

Cheers.

[scruffypup]

Hi Guys

Thanks for your replies.  2 years ago I bought one of the negative scanners at Maplins, it was a bit hit and miss as it was mainly aimed at old 35mm negatives and not 110 like mine, made a cardboard holder which sort of worked at the time, but by chance last week I saw a Veho scanner in a charity shop with a 110 negative holder, I really only wanted the holder but paid £6.99 for the scanner to get the holder, a bargain I know looking at Ebay prices.  Some of the old negatives were a bit ropey first time round, but they have deteriorated in the last 2 years, I had  an Haminex 110 camera back in the 80s/90s it was all I could afford back then, it wasn't the cheapest model it had a flash built in   probably cost about £12 from Argos originally.  Luckily I have most of the old photos still, but the gloss finish makes them hard to scan to any detail.  I'll try the Fuji tip, if it works I'll let you know.

Thanks for your replies, they are much appreciated

Julie

[scruffypup]

Hi Steve

Finally had chance to try the Fuji tip and it worked brilliantly, some negatives are completely restored, one or two still have marks but I can live with that, thank you so much, I'm going to be brave and try it on my old black and white negatives from the 1960s they were loose in a box for years, still have the original photos from when I was a tot so nothing to lose but it would be great if I could do something with them as the original photos are about 3 inches across, thankfully the negatives will fit in the scanner not sure what format they are they look a bit bigger than 35mm, but 50 years of dirt and dust have taken their toll.

Regards

Julie

[stevew101]

Hi Julie,

Really pleased with your success.

Kind Regards
Steve

[scruffypup]

This is the section on the bottom photo managed to pull some of the colour out of it as well as restoring it, there's still one or two marks but it was much easier to work with on the scanner software when I rescanned it, most of the others turned out even better, before there was nothing to work with to try retouch or clone tools on arcsoft that came with the scanner, that's why I couldn't do anything with them

As you can see it does look much better now, it's a pity you can't put full photos of living people on here but as it was one of me with my son I can only show a small segment or the post would have been taken down from the site.