View Old Negatives and Slides

Before digital cameras took over, negatives and slides were what allowed people to capture their precious moments. However, in today’s age, most people have simply dumped their old negatives into their basements without even remembering what pictures they actually contain.

Digitizing your negatives is the best way to preserve them forever. For this, you will have to get them scanned. Either you could scan all the negatives or you could classify and see which ones you want and then get only those ones scanned. As obvious, the first option is quite costly while the latter is pretty time-consuming.

Let’s just fast-forward for a while and assume you have got all those retro images transferred to their digital shape. But you’ve discovered tons of duplicate and similar images. And who would want to spend any energy and money on duplicate images? But then you will wonder how to filter out the unwanted images? PictureEcho holds the answer. This is a software program that will run a powerful scan and detect + delete duplicate and visually similar images.

In this article, we will guide you about three methods that you could use to view your negatives/slides without scanning them. Using these methods, you can classify your negatives/slides and see which ones you want to send for digitizing.

 

1. Smartphone Apps

Fortunately, there are a ton of smartphone applications that you can download and use to view your negatives/slides as real pictures. One great example is LightBox Free.

Some phone cameras also have the ability to invert colors. This feature could be easily used to view pictures hidden in the negatives. You’ll have to explore the settings and features of your smartphone’s camera to see if it has this ability or not.

 

2. Loupes (Small Magnifying Glasses)

Loupes are a smart way to see your negatives or slides. The best part is that this is a pretty inexpensive method too. It only takes around $5 – $10 to buy a loupe but this can definitely save you from having to spend hundreds of dollars on scanning them all.

Viewing slides is even easier than viewing negatives. All you have to do is hold up a slide in front of the light and magnify it using the loupe.

If you Google “single slide viewers”, you can also find loupes designed especially to view slides and negatives. Usually, they have a switch button for an illuminating background, along with an extra slot to hold the slide or negative, which makes the task more convenient. Such loupes cost slightly more than normal ones but are definitely worth the investment. You could easily buy these from Amazon, Carson Brand of Lumiloupes, or Adorama. There is not much difference in terms of quality or price.

 

3. Lightbox

If you have thousands of slides or negatives, it would be a daunting task to manually magnify and view each one of them. In such a case, it is recommended that you invest in buying a good quality lightbox, which will allow you to view your pictures in batches.

A lot of photo organizing companies use the E-Z View Slide Sorter for batch processing of their clients’ pictures but of course, there are tons of other good options available in the market. Such devices are super handy and make your task simpler as well as quicker.

With devices like E-Z View Slide Sorters, you can not only view slides before scanning them but can also sort them into groups. Sounds cool, no? This is super useful during the scan phase since scanning a disorganized collection is nothing but a hassle.

Depending on the size and additional features, you can purchase a lightbox for around $30$ – $80. Anything you find at around $50 is expected to be of a sufficiently decent quality. If you are willing to spend some extra bucks from your savings, you can also go for light panels to enhance your viewing process.
Way to Go!
In conclusion, we would suggest that you do things step by step. First, organize everything, then scan the selected ones and finally, preserve the best ones! No matter whether you have decided to take this task upon yourself or you are outsourcing it to a photo organizing company, being selective about what to digitize will simply save you a lot of time and of course, money!