Glass Plate Negative Scanning

Does anyone on the forum have any experience or know of the best way and

equipment to scan b/w glass negatives? A bit distant from our usual posts, but

I thought some of the digital experts might be able to provide guidance here.

The negative plates are in good shape and have historical significance.

Hi Christopher , I think the best way to do this is to copy on 120 film and scan the negative.

Your best bet is probably a high end flatbed scanner like a Creo, Heidelberg or Fuji Lanovia.

You will need a good flatbed, as drum scanners and the Imacon scanners have to bend the

negatives to do the scan...this obviously will not work for glass. Same thing for the slide

scanners and normal film scanners...they just don't have enough scanning area. A flatbed is

the way to go. As your local pro lab, you may luck out and find they have a high end flatbed

scanner. Another place to check is at larger museums and universities, though you would

probably need to have a contact there in order to get permission to use one. I assume that

the plates are 4x5 and larger?

Manfred's point is well taken. In general, even fine 35mm with the right optics will record everything that's on a large plate. If I were doing it, I'd begin with Fuji Asti in 35mm and see if that didn't do the trick when inverted and post-processed in Photoshop. That'd be easy and wonderful, using any of the good dedicated film scanners.

 

120 might be good as well, assuming the right flat field optics.

You might also consider making a contact print from the plate on photographic paper, then scanning the print.

I have done extensive scanning of glass negs on the better Epson flatbed scanners and

gotten exceptionally good results with superb detail in highlight and shadow areas.

Shooting on film first seems to me like an unnecessary

step inviting quality degreadation via the extra generation.

Hello!

 

Based on a experience hundreds of glass negatives scanned, id suggest direct scanning to a reasonably good flatbed scanner, as Pablito said. Also, provided the quantity is not too large to become a prohibitive strategy, you could print these negatives on paper at the best quality you can get - Al suggested this one - and either scan or copy them on other negatives etc.

 

If we're talking time and money no object and you can afford it, you should go with similar techniques but at the highest degree of attention to the processes: negative copy, printing and scan etc.

 

I used a flatbed for a larger quantity, with excellent results and establishing a good workflow up to the point where particular restoring care is necessary to each and every negative. Which is another story.

 

I asked the same question a few years back here and got great advice, I think on the Large Format forum.

 

Liviu

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009YG3

I scan then quite often on an Agfa DuoScan T2500most of the time they scan OK but the bullit proof ones I have a contact print made and then scan from that. When the negs are too dense the noise get to be too much so making a contactprint solves that problem.

I've gotten fine results with my Epson 2450. You need to space any negative away from the glass on the Epson, especially glass ones since you don't want Newton's rings. The Epson 49XX scanners should do better, as would the V700.

 

Yes, if they are really dense in the highlights you will have noise problems there. You may need to do multi-pass scanning. If that doesn't help, the practical solution is probably contact prints. If you don't want to do wet processing, get printing out paper, contact print onto that, skip fixing and just scan immediately.

Here I commerically just use our Epson 2450, with the glass plate shimmed up a grunt above the scan glass. A direct scan will capture the greatest tonal range. Using a 120 intermediate is not going to gain info, but a internegative might be wanted as a second physical copy if valuable. just cut off the subtle shadows and highlights. For most all old glass plates we get to scan, the Epson 2450 is total, total overkill in the resolution area. Many ancient glass plates only require a 300 to 600 "dpi setting", with 1200 used on rare ones. <BR><BR>A scan of a contact print made for the glass plate works too, its just more costly in a production settup and adds a delay and degrades somestimes the subtle details,<BR><BR>IF you do make contact prints, experiment with matching the paper grade/paper contrast to the glass plate. You want as much suble shadow and highlight detail to be "mapped" to the contact print, for a better scan. Having a light table or box will allow one to see if you are hacking of some details!<BR><BR>Scanning a contact print means a simple stock flatbed settup, plus one has a cool contact print too. With some care one can approach the quality of a direct scan, but dont assume its automatic. <BR><BR>With a historical glass plate, often we do several scans to pull extra info, often combining the scans in Photoshop as 2 layers, to increase the tonal range with originals that have NON uniform degradation. One make get one that has damage, residual fixer fading etc. <BR><BR>With a modern glass plate a flatbed will not have enough real resolution. This can be specta plates, astro plates, or oddball folks who bought tech pan plates and used them to shoot with a modern view camera. Most all the ancient old as dirt glass plates I have seen dont have the greatest resolution, and a flatbed works well.

Thanks for all the posts. The glass negatives are 100-140 years old, but in very good shape considering the collection age. Over 1500 negatives split between 4X5's and 8X10's. Historically significant, but never indexed or archived. Grant money is available to acquire scanning equipment and professional for onsite work. Any idea as to the cost and time to do a project this size?

As an aside, has anyone ever seen a scan of a glass plate from one of Eric Salomon's Ermanox shots? If I recall correctly, he was one of the poineers of available light photography.

I've seen Salomon's photos in books and magazine articles but they were published before scanners came along. The half tone negatives were shot with a process camera, probably from prints made from the original negatives.