Digitising Glass Plate Negatives

Capture - Digitising the Negative

The glass plate was captured at high resolution with our adapted scanner set up to handle glass. The images were then imported into photo editing suite and prepared for the client to view.

After each negative is digitised and adjusted in Photoshop, we then carry out a Quality check on each negative. This means ensuring that all  information has been captured correctly and the image quality meets our capture standards.

Many slides, negatives, transparencies and photos can become damaged easily, so it is worth preserving them before they become unusable. Scanning your slides, negatives, and photos to high resolution images protects the history which has been preserved on these valuable mediums.

Project: Digitising Glass Plate Negatives

Glass plate negatives were in common use between approximately 1880 and that late 1920's. Also known as silver gelatin dry plate negatives.

Glass plate negatives have a light sensitive emulsion with a binder thinly layered on one side of a glass plate. These emulsions are very fragile and need to be handled with great care.

This project involved sorting and scanning a rich family history captured on glass negatives.

The negatives had been stored in old newspaper - which in itself was also offering insights into the age of the film.  Amongst the glass plates were pieces of old photographic advertising and information on various paper types and photographic chemicals that were available at the start of the 20th century. A great insight into the world of the keen photographer.