How do you store your negs & prints?

[M. Valdemar]

I have a big bunch of dirty plastic shopping bags filled with slides, negative and prints, some of them 45 years old.

Every blue moon I get the urge to root through them and I always find some interesting forgotten thing to scan.

It's like resurrecting the dead.

 

[Doug]

A better numbering system than mine for sure Doug- I use a negative book number, roll number, then a decimal and a negative number- so the print is marked #4521.14

No real information included in my number other than where the negative is, but to change now would muddle me more!

I've been there, too! The first year or so I didn't do any record-keeping, so the only data was the processor's date-stamp on slides and prints.

Then as I got more into processing my own film in the mid-1960's, I began using a 3x5 file card for each roll, reconstructing data on older shooting from memory and date-stamps. The file system then was simply a sequential roll number + frame number following a letter code for the film category: BW, CN, CT for B&W, Color Neg, and Color Transparency, and LBW, LCN, LCT for medium format. Seemed to make sense at the time! For example, one of my few film scans from the old days is a 6x7 Ektachrome shot of kids jumping into the ocean from Black Rock in Ka'anapali Maui, numbered LCT048-12.

That system is still in place, but all the old file-card data is now in the computer database file. After a shooting dry spell in the late-80's & 90's the newer shooting used the current numbering system. Not reasonable to go back now and renumber all that older stuff, including neg files, slides, contact proofs, and prints of various sizes, some framed.

 

[benmacphoto]

I use two boxes, one for good negs and chromes, the other is for film to not look at again. My prints however are everywhere. Most are in the roll paper boxes, while others are stacked up. I need to invest in a better storage system. Im actually in the process of rescanning all of my good film. Just got a 500gb hard drive.

 

[Brennotdan]

They will also custom cut window mats, free of charge, when you order their matt boards. However, you will need to enter the dimensions online.

Here is the link to this, since it can be tricky to find:

http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/servlet/OnlineShopping?DSP=52000&PCR=30000:230000:237100:237110&IID=CUSTOMMAT

They also have frames, framing hardware, etc . . . It is a great company with excellent customer, and high quality products.

I hope that helps!

I'm almost certain that they charge a cutting fee. Also, this company has been known to have unreliable shipping lately.

 

[Steve Williams]

I've been reading this thread with interest. As each New Year rolls around I swear a solemn oath to finally get all my negatives organized and filed away safely. Looking at the copious amount of material dating back to 1969 I can see various methods I undertook. It's like looking at strata in a road cut through sedimentary rock.

However I have made some simple decisions. Each roll is numbered when processed with the date I processed it . A roll might linger a few days in the camera, sometimes longer. So if I processed a roll today it would be 080125-1. The end number would increase if there were more rolls. That number would be written on the back of the contact sheet and on any prints I make plus the frame number.

Pretty simple if I don't get lazy. But here is the problem.

How do I find a negative if I don't have the print or contact in my hand? As someone suggested I do need an actually filing system. I have had a number of systems on computers over the years but they all died as technology advanced and I didn't. I have a sweet system that runs on a Commodore 64.

Does anyone have a specific software suggestion that may be sustainable over time? Or a system of hard copy journaling that works? I use Extensis Portfolio 8 at work for digital images but it's not suitable for my collection of 35mm - 8x10 negatives.

I'm having a moment of clarity right now so I am open to almost anything. But it fades fast....

Thanks!

 

[sepiareverb]

Filemaker is a good, flexible option, that can even contain an image. I've never managed to keep anything on the computer going either. I have several indexes on paper that work pretty well, organized by keyword/subject/place/person.

 

[Doug]

Filemaker is a good, flexible option, that can even contain an image. I've never managed to keep anything on the computer going either.

I use FileMaker for this too, with a roll-numbering system like Steve's. I adapted an asset-management template sample supplied with the program.

Even the Commodore 64 data should be accessible... Export as tab-delimited text, bring the text file over to your current computer, massage it with a text processor so that the number and order of fields matches your current database, and import it. I've done this a number of times for address books and other data types over the years. Plain text is a great basis for interchange...

(Further, I save all important WP files as text for universal future access. If fancy formatting and graphics are essential to the doc, then nowadays "printing" in .pdf format is a fine archival solution.)

 

[Steve Williams]

Even the Commodore 64 data should be accessible... Export as tab-delimited text, bring the text file over to your current computer, massage it with a text processor so that the number and order of fields matches your current database, and import it. I've done this a number of times for address books and other data types over the years. Plain text is a great basis for interchange...

Now which button do I push for that to happen?🙂

I don't have the Commodore 64 anymore but I still have the cassette tape that the data was stored on. Not sure how I would get that into my PC or MAC though. I fear that sort of process is beyond my expertise.

I keep leaning towards just making entries in a journal or ledger, maybe with a fountain pen. Hell, if I am going to be working in film with a Leica why not embrace some other mid-20th century technology as well.

Probably what it most important is to consistently number, label and file. If I do that then I will be light years ahead. Paper and I have always had a better relationship than I have with technology. But I will look at Filemaker. I have it at work for a PC but haven't looked at it in years. And my iMac has something in it too that came with iWorks.