photos from the 50's & 60's

[dianne_buckerfield]

I have many old photos that I have recently come across. The photos

that are pre 1960 are in great shape, but the photos from the 60's

and 70's are either faded, or worse yet, turning orange. I heard

that it's from the use of inexpensive paper used when developing

film from the Kodak 110 cameras. Does anyone know what causes this?

They have been stored in acid free albums. Please keep in mind that

I am not a camera expert like so many of you.

Thanks!

[eric friedemann]

http://www.geocities.com/thombell/rcvsfiber.html

[john_shriver]

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/book.html

 

Goes into extreme detail, free online book.

 

Probably Agfa's crap paper of that era, it's about the worst color paper ever made. (Although the original 1950's paper for Kodacolor was awful as well.)

 

If you have the negatives, they are probably in quite tolerable condition, and new prints can be struck. If not, you're stuck.

[eric friedemann]

John, thank you for that link. The Wilhelm book is the Bible of print material permanence.

 

 

I disagree somewhat with your statement that if all Dianne has is fading prints, she's stuck. Even sub-$100 flat bed scanners are usually sold with software that allows often impressive restoration for faded prints, i.e. Epson's Easy Photo Fix one-touch photo restoration software that comes with the Perfection 3490 Photo Scanner:

 

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=390888&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

 

 

Now, if photos are faded unevenly, use of one-step software restoration may not be feasable. But for photos with uniform fading, even a beginner may be able to generate a restored image in a computer and use it to make new prints.

[battra92]

Well considering that 110 came out in 1972, I'm going to assume we have more than one format there.

 

Anyway, I hope you still have the negatives. While scanning the photos and restoring them can be done (I am currently restoring family photos that are over 100 years old so it's not impossible) it is much easier if you have the negatives. I understand not everyone kept them but thank goodness my mom did. We found a box in our attic of the negatives from the 70s and early 80s (mostly 126 and 110) and I've been scanning them off and on but if there was anything particularly important to save, I could take the film to the lab and have them print it.

[nullfinder]

if 35mm and 126 are the same size, I wonder if a Frontier would be able to print from 126 or if it would bitch about the perforations...