BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph

Subject: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Bobert
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:17 PM

Okay, I ***know*** that someone out there in Mudburg knows the answer to this question but I have like amillion or so 35mm negatives and unless I know which piccure I'm looking for I can't much tell one from another so...

Is there a moochine that you can put yer old negatives into so you can look at 'um and see kinda more like what they is???

If not, can nayone here invent one???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:22 PM

A light table would work.

A slide scanner is a lot more work, but would work.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:28 PM

Yes...my dad had one...then I had it for years....not sure what happened to it....but it's a white translucent plastic tray with ridges for the slides, and a light bulb behind it.....maybe look for a slide viewer?

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Bobert
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:31 PM

I gotta na slide viewer... Lemme look fir it but I don't think you can stuff a negative into it widout cuttin' the negative up???

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:35 PM

Gadget

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:36 PM

I wouldn't try it.

Do this instead: if you have a piece of glass (like a shelf or an unused window) put it horizontal on a table or counter top. Use one of those little portable fluorescent lights and put it underneath. Either tape on the bottom side or place on top some sheets of typing paper to diffuse the light, and lay the slides on the glass and look through them.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Bobert
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:42 PM

You be da' man, G-man!!!

Thanks fir the ol' timer light table SRS but fir $11, how can I loose??? But danged good jerry-riggin'... You obvioulsly have seen my farm...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 May 08 - 08:44 PM

I made my own light table for slides. I didn't use paper, though, I bought a piece of glass and a lightweight plexiglas piece to slide under it as a diffuser.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 May 08 - 09:20 PM

Invest in a flat-bed scanner (I like Canon). They come with an attachment for viewing and even printing slides and negative. As a bonus, you get a copy machine.

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Gurney
Date: 11 May 08 - 12:11 AM

The unlettered part of this screen acts as a light-table, and with a magnifying glass on a stand.....
I just tried it, and it sort of works. Still negatives, of course, and if you have a lot to view it might pay to tape a mask over the unused part of the VDU, but it would help to eliminate most of the bunch.

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: RangerSteve
Date: 11 May 08 - 12:37 AM

My father had a gadget for viewing slides. It was a plastic rectangular box, you put the slide in one end, pressed a button that lit the slide from the back, and viewed it through a magnifying lens set in the other end. I don't know what they're called.

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 May 08 - 02:24 AM

It may make some difference which kind of negatives you have. If they're from "slide film" they'll have been processed via a color reversal process so the colors will be as in the scene. If they're print negatives, the negatives will likely be in "reversed color" so it may be very difficult to tell what the images are.

If you have a scanner of any kind, you can make (color) scans of the negatives. You don't really need a "film scanner" to get good quick-look results. I'd suggest using at least a 600 dpi scan - maybe 1200 dpi if your scanner can do it (negatives are pretty small). In many photo editing programs, you can "reverse the colors" to get a fairly easy "true color" image you can examine on the screen. (In Photoshop Elements, Image|Adjustments|Invert will do it nicely.)

With experience, you can learn to interpret reverse-color negatives fairly easily; but without some experience the results can be "error-friendly."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 May 08 - 06:00 AM

In the old days, and Jik didn't mention this, some 'colour negatives' also not only reversed the colours, but also added an 'orange mask'.

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Bobert
Date: 11 May 08 - 10:20 AM

Well, I ordered the $11 slide/negative that John suggestede... We'll see...

...or not???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 May 08 - 10:40 AM

I don't recall my folks ever recieveing negatives with slides....just the slides came. Course, you can load em backwards.....in the cartridge thingie.

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Amos
Date: 11 May 08 - 01:14 PM

Jeeze, Bobert, get a Mac and a scanner. Spend some evening running them into iPhoto and you can view them, stretch them, make slide shows out of the, and anything else you want to do.

Bum them to a DVD for back up and you're home free.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Bobert
Date: 11 May 08 - 01:16 PM

lol...

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 May 08 - 03:37 PM

Bobert has negatives, meaning he had prints made from them. Slides didn't come with anything but slides because you're getting the positive film processed and mounted. Slide viewers are generally different creatures than negative viewers. I have a slide scanner that can do either. (I need to get it repaired.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bobert's Dumb Question #1379: Photograph
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:02 PM

We have a slide viewer (yes, we have lots of slides) AND a box type that can show lots of slides at once. But the computer can print out a print of the slide OR a negative with very little trouble -- far less than you used to have to go through to get a print made from a slide.

Some things HAVE improved with technology.