poor quality wedding pics

<p>Hello, I am new so I hope I have the right forum.<br>

I got married almost 5 yrs ago and I am now trying to set up my wedding pics.<br>

The photograper was a drunk and did not complete the work. I took my negatives from him and did not finish pay him for the contract.<br>

He gave me some prints and the negative. I scanned some pics and they are really bad.<br>

Is there a way I can use the negative to get better quality pics than what he gave me? OR can I use the negative to change the pics to digital (if that is even possible).<br>

I am trying to create the album for our 5 year anniversay and I would really like to get better quality pics. I tried to scan the pics using picasa so I can create a book at picaboo.com.<br>

Please help.<br>

Thanks Jessica</p>

<p><strong>Moderator Note:</strong> Jessica--sorry about your situation. However, I've removed your attached file since it does not show up in the thread, and more importantly--it isn't an image you took yourself, which is a rule we have here at photo.net. In any case, it really isn't necessary as an illustration for your question. I'm sure you'll get good answers without it. If anyone wants a sample, they can ask you for one via the e-mail facility that is in place when they click on your name, and you can e-mail the file to them.</p>

<p>Yes, negatives can be scanned. In fact, it is preferable to scan negatives than to scan the prints made from them. Many professional photo labs do this kind of work. However (1) the prints may be bad because the negatives are bad. The image you showed looks like a really bad exposure. Digital processing might help, or not, depending on the extent of the problem. (2) A professional lab will be reluctant to scan your negatives, or simply refuse, unless you have permission to scan from the photographer.</p>

<p>Your alternatives are: (1) to find the photographer and ask him (or pay him) to assign the copyright to you, (2) to attempt to convince a lab to scan them (not a good choice, because without permission it is copyright infringement) or (3) to buy a scanner and learn to scan them yourself. If you select 3, you can get advice on scanning from here.</p>

<p><em>"(2) to attempt to convince a lab to scan them (not a good choice, because without permission it is copyright infringement)"</em></p>

<p>This is technically true, of course, but if the photographer handed over the negatives and the contract (I'm assuming that there was one) wasn't honoured anyway (job unfinished and no payment), I'd say the pictures are pretty much up for grabs. Was the photographer a professional and is he/she still in business?</p>

<p>A quick way to assess the negatives would be to look at them on a light box with a loop. Can you see more details in e.g. blown highlights than in the prints? If there is no there there in the negatives, then no amount of processing will help.</p>

<p>I'd probably try to get the negatives scanned at a high resolution and see whether the images are salvageable. The scanning itself is not a difficult procedure, but professional labs can still charge quite a bit for a job like this. If the images are workable, the post-processing work will probably be very time-consuming and require a fair bit of skill. Are you experienced with Photoshop or a similar tool?</p>

<p>I was a victim of automatic spell-checking. That was supposed to be 'loupe', not 'loop', sorry.</p>

<p>Jessica - I don't think you'll get much mileage from examining the negatives unless you know much about film processing.</p>

<p>Being able to read a negative (recognise density, tonal range, highlight and shadow limits and point of focus) is an acquired skill, especially with colour negatives. Everything is inversed and viewed through a dye mask and you need some practice to be able to decode what you're seeing, even with a loupe.</p>

<p>I suggest you try scancafe.com. It's a specialist outsourced service that scans and corrects film. If there's any potential in the original image they can fix it - even if it wasn't processed or exposed correctly. You send the negatives by FedEx and get them back with a disk of scanned images around three weeks later. Their rates are very good - about as low as you can expect to pay for a quality job.</p>

<p>If you want to buy a decent scanner and do the job yourself you should expect to pay around $4000 - which is the going rate for a Nikon 9000 ED, pretty much the best film scanner available in the sub $5k bracket. Or you can send your negatives to scancafe and they'll do it for around $10 a roll using the same scanner.</p>

<p>What Neil said. </p>

<p>I would add that with color negs. you may be able to recover more than you can see under a loupe. Once in the digital realm, you may also be able to do some creative editing to make them shine a little more.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

<p>thanks guys for your comment, I will try scancafe with a few negatives and see what happens. If i am satisfied I will continue.<br>

Yes I do have the contract and all the negatives and all the work he did which is nothing. The job was undone and we cancelled all other payments.<br>

Thanks for all the answers they were very helpful.<br>

Once the negatives are scanned will I still have them or they will be gone forever?</p>

<p>I'm sure scancafe will return them to you. In fact, they probably have specific methods for sending them, because you <strong>don't</strong> want to lose the negatives.</p>

<p>The negatives are returned secured, insured and trackable through FedEx.</p>

<p>Thanks again.<br>

A friend told me about ritz camera, is this a good idea? will the quality be as good?<br>

I called Ritz and they told me they do have a specail on 100 negative strips for 49.99 to be digitialized onto a CD.<br>

Forgive me but I do not know the process of scanning negatives to digital and all the work they would have to do, whether they will have to look at each photo and try to fix, I am clueless.</p>

<p>Problem is you don't just need scanning. You need scanning and image correction <em>of each individual frame by hand, </em> not automated batch scanning. There are hundreds of places that will do the latter, but very few that will do the former.<em> </em> Scancafe is the cheapest and as far as I know the only people who actually offer that hand service. Many people also think they're the best. Try them... don't try them... your choice. But you won't find better in my opinion.</p>