How To Restore Photos and Photo Negatives

Photos can hold precious memories and a lot of sentimental value. And whilst many pictures are now kept across electronic devices and social media there’s nothing better than holding and admiring a physical copy. However, hard copies fade over time, wear and wilt, so sometimes they lose their beauty. Fortunately, that doesn’t need to be the end of your visual memories and it is possible to restore and regenerate your old photos. In this article, we’ll discuss how you can restore photos and photo negatives using your home scanner.

Your Old Photo Collection

Those old photos lining your drawers, or negatives passed down through generations are likely to be looking old, worn and possibly damaged, you may even have reams of negatives that you can’t even find the prints for. But don’t fear, you can regenerate, restore and reframe these images

What Equipment Do You Need?

There is a range of photo negative scanners that won’t just restore aged and damaged prints, but also turn your negatives into positives.

The Epson V850 is a photo scanner that includes two high-quality film holders, making it perfect for scanning negatives. What sets this scanner apart is its advanced restoration features. It offers an optical resolution of up to 4800 DPI for photos and up to 6400 DPI when scanning from film holders. Additionally, it has the ability to remove dust, hair, fingerprints, and even scratches.

Key Features

• Image clean-up – Removes dust, scratches and general wear and tear for a new fantastic-looking print.
• Backlight correction – Balances shadows in a heavily backlit picture.
• Colour restoration – Reads the colour temperatures in your original image and restores the saturation, hue and vibrancy.

How To Convert Old Photo Negatives To Digital?

This has been tested using the Epson Perfection V850 scanner, whilst instructions will be similar, for an accurate way to scan negatives, we recommend consulting your scanner’s user manual.

1. Remove the reflective whiteboard from inside the Scanner bed.
2. Load the negative into the correct-sized film holder
3. Place the loaded film holder on the scan bed, so the connection slots into the scanner bed
4. On your PC/Laptop, under scan mode, select “Photo Mode”
5. In the Main Settings, select the following options:
   • Document Type: B&W Negative Film
   • Image Type: 16-bit Greyscale
   • Resolution: At least 3200 DPI (Or as high as possible)
   • Scanning Quality: High
6. Press the “Preview” button, the scanner will now show a preview of what is on the Scanner bed
7. In the “Preview” window, click and drag a rectangle around your chosen frame
8. Open the “Colour Management” setting and change the “Colour Management” to “None”
9. Next, click “Advanced Settings – Detailed Adjustments – Histogram”
10. Adjust the Histogram to ensure there is no clipping on the current scan, for Black and White scans, you only need to adjust the “RGB” histogram
11. Once the edits are done, change the “Image Format” to .TIFF
12. Save the scan to the destination of your choosing
13. Press “Scan” at the bottom, the selected files will now be scanned and saved.

Scanning Negatives vs. Old Photos

In terms of scanning negatives vs. scanning old photos, it’s generally considered better to scan the negatives if you have them or if they’re in a good enough condition to scan.

Scanning the negatives rather than the prints could lift more detail into the final photo with some examples of photos showing more elements and range in the original negatives than what was in the resulting print version. Go back to an old negative, compare it to the print version, and see if you can tell the difference.

However, scanning prints can still deliver a superb result and that’s why picking up one of these great machines can benefit a wide variety of needs.

Another great possibility with these scanners is the ability to make larger prints. If this is your goal, make sure you look at the resolution, which is usually expressed in dots or pixels per inch. Look for a higher resolution for more detail when creating larger prints.

Image Quality

The remaining key thing to consider is the actual quality of the image. When you start reading product descriptions including phrases such as D-Max or Optical Density figures then this is what it’s referring to.

A rating between 3 and 4 will usually give you a higher quality image but it’s safe to say that the higher spec, more expensive models will deliver better results for larger prints or high resolutions.

Verdict

Restoring photos, or printing negatives is much more accessible than it was a few short years ago, there’s plenty of software and hardware available to bring your memories back to life. Whether it restoring pictures of a lost loved one or reminiscing on an important event. Don’t let your memories fade away.

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