Organizing Your Negatives

[Prosaic]

The scans are stored in my computer in a subfolder with the date (e.g. today would be 012109). The individual scan files get a letter at the end (e.g. 012109a, 012109b). The negs are sleeved with the same subfolder name and put in a binder. The CD and index print are labeled and put in a CD storage book.

Wouldnt it be smarter to start with year in the filename instead of month? 😀

 

[Spyderman]

As soon as I process my negs, I cut and put them in sleeves, and assign the film a number in format YYYY-MM_X where X is the number of the film within the month. Then I scan the whole film and individual files are named YYYY-MM_X_# so I know when it's been scanned and on what film I can find the original frame. I only make digital "contact sheets".

 

[smotchx]

I do a YYYY-MM_RollNumber on my negative sleeves. Scanned files get YYYY-MM_RollNumber-FrameNumber

 

[Leigh Youdale]

I've got two systems.
August 1958 to June 1986 each set of negatives are in letter size envelope along with a proof sheet. each envelope is sequentially numbered with the date and subject matter written on the front of the envelope.
Post June 86 I use Paterson negative binders in 120 and 35mm size. On the white strip of the glassine neg files I write the sequential number, details of the film and camera used, and development data, subject matter and date. Interleaved with the glassine sheets are the proof sheets related to each, numbered the same as the neg files and then each neg that has been judged worthy of further enlargement has its number recorded on the margin of the proof sheet.
Seems to work for me.

 

[ChrisN]

I'll lift this quote and my reply from an earlier thread, which explains my system. There's a lot of different approaches to this! 🙂

Hi all;

I'm considering changing the way in which I store my 35mm B/W negatives.

Currently they reside in 3-ring binders, in Print-File type sleeves, where the negatives are in strips of 5-6 images each. It seems the most efficient way to organize and label them using this old system is chronologically, since one sheet represents a complete roll of film.

The problem I have with the current system is 1) locating individual negatives and 2) having to risk scratching the 'neighboring' images when removing a strip of film to print or scan just one negative.

I've thought that perhaps mounting each individual negative in its own slide mount might be a better way to go, as they could be organized in 'random access' order, ran than serial order; and they could also be cataloged in slide storage boxes by other criteria than just chronology (such as subject matter, etc.) I'm also concerned about possible scratches to the negs when pulling them in/out of the plastic storage sleeves, thinking therefore that slide mount storage could be better. Also, getting a slide mount negative carrier for my enlarger would simplify the handling of each negative when wet printing, reducing the risk of scratching the image or damaging neighboring images in a strip.

What thinks ye? Have you done this, or considered doing this, yourself?

~Joe

You don't need to do that to achieve the ability to locate an individual negative. You have already mentioned the word catalog, which refers to setting up an "intellectual access" system that links to a physical storage system. That is the key.

First, each negative is assigned a code that describes and controls the physical arrangement and storage of the negatives. In my case I number all rolls serially, and negatives within the roll serially. My most recent roll is therefore coded BW147, and the negatives are numbered _n, so the 10th negative is fully described as BW147_10. Like you, my negatives are stored in plastic sheets held in binders, all in numerical sequence.

To locate a particular image requires a catalog. Library book catalogs are typically for Author/Title, and for Subject Headings. This gives you three access points - the name of the author, the title of the book, and the subject headings (which are assigned from a controlled list of headings - a thesaurus). With modern technology we also have access via free-text keywords (your typical google search).

For my negatves I assign keywords (subject headings) from a growing list, which describe the technical attributes (camera. lens, film, developing), locations, persons, and the subject matter (eg cloud, tree, architecture, etc). I try to be generous and describe the content of each image with enough keywords to achieve both exhaustivity (describe all aspects of the image content) and specificity (describe the specific content of the image).

The software I use allows me to search by each of these keywords, and logical combinations of keywords (eg camera type = "Leica M4" AND Location = "Darling Harbour").

I actually use Adobe Lightroom as my catalog, and I think this is its most powerful feature, after it being a good RAW converter for the digital stuff. I scan all my negs at low res, and only scan the best at high resolution, for printing. The catalog allows me to quickly retrieve a negative for scanning at high resolution when desired. Lightroom gives me a powerful and flexible catalog, linked to a small surrogate for the negative (the digital image is the surrogate) and the link to the location of the physical negative.

And, can I put in a plea for you to keep the negatives in their original time sequence? When your work is famous, and you are long dead, archivists and historians will learn much about your methods and development as an artist from studying your images in context - what else you shot at the same time, what else you tried and explored. Your negatives, stored in time sequence, reveal this. Destroy this time sequence and you destroy a great opportunity for learning, even in your own lifetime. For me this is one of the greatest evils of digital images, their wild, transient, mutating, impermanent nature.

If you have read this far you have probably guessed that I once took training as a librarian. The funny thing is I never worked in a library after receiving the qualification, but the training has been handy in other ways.

 

[WDPictures]

Then do you put your negatives in something fireproof and/or waterproof like a safe?

 

[ChrisN]

No, if the house burns down while I'm at work, the negatives will go too. However I will have at least one one backup of the digital versions with me at work. "Fireproof" safes rarely are; many Canberra families learned that in January 2003.

 

[ljosha]

I while ago I wrote a program to manage all my films. It is accessible from ordinary web browser and work pretty much like a normal website. I store all development information, dates and other info about each film. I guess I am "organized" from general RFF perspective. I mark each film cassette with date, EI and light conditions after shooting. Develop them and file into my database.

I was considering making a public website for storing such data, but didn't get much interest from the public.

 

[fwellers]

Wow ! That's all I can say.
The ocd side of me read every word in this thread and enjoyed the heck out of it, just waiting for my first film camera and to be able to have a system of my own.

Now, would any of you experienced photo archivists care to post any pictures of some parts of your system ( like the sleeves, binders, drawers, contact sheets etc.. ) for the newbie ?

The thing is, I can understand only to a certain point, but trying to visualize it and see it through, so that it sticks with me requires a visceral experience ... a picture.

Thanks in advance !!

 

[WDPictures]

Wow ! That's all I can say.
The ocd side of me read every word in this thread and enjoyed the heck out of it, just waiting for my first film camera and to be able to have a system of my own.

Now, would any of you experienced photo archivists care to post any pictures of some parts of your system ( like the sleeves, binders, drawers, contact sheets etc.. ) for the newbie ?

The thing is, I can understand only to a certain point, but trying to visualize it and see it through, so that it sticks with me requires a visceral experience ... a picture.

Thanks in advance !!

Depends. Just narrowing your question down to types of negative "holders" there are as many as there are types of cameras... Suggest going to a photography store ("camera" stores may not have a selection or even what you want/need) if you have the option then you can choose what you like.

Maybe only buy minimums quantities until you figure out your system and decide what you like...

Pre-buy research can also be done on Light Impressions website. Note the general insistence on archive materials throughout. Welcome to the world of film.

 

[fwellers]

I was just giving photographers another opportunity to take a picture that would help someone.
See, I'm always looking out for the other guy. 😉

 

[johannielscom]

Not a clue why this thread shows up in the front page listing since last post is over a year old, but I can contribute.

Article on my website on storing negatives and digital files in a cohesive system, to be read here

 

[Steve Bellayr]

All my negatives NOW after many years are organized by camera, then by year. The negatives are placed in a sleeves and coded in the upper right hand corner. N for Nikon, L for Leica, C for Canon, etc. The negatives are then placed in separate binders based upon camera. A computer list (here's where computers are best.) made of each catagory with dates, lenses used, and subjects names and locations, & film stock. The new negatives are added on the bottom and separated by years. A print out is made an updated after each entry is completed and placed with the book. It may sound complicated & difficult to do but it is not and only takes about an hour for 10 rolls. The benefit is that I can locate a negative easily for reproduction.

 

[Arjay]

Film/digital integration ist still a problem

Film/digital integration ist still a problem

I put my negatives/slides into three-hole Print File sleeves and store in binders. I'm in the middle of a miniproject to rescan old negatives. To make it relatively easy to find the exact frame I want to rescan, I took a digital picture of each sleeve on a light table. I wrote a Photoshop action to convert negative images into positive images. This method turned out to be much faster than making traditional contacts or using a flatbed scanner to create digital contacts.

+1 That's how I do it too.

• Film sleeves are numbered in the order I processed them.
• Contact sheets have the same number.
• I only scan the 'keepers' of every film and file them in a directory bearing the same name as sleeve & contact sheet.

Naturally, that's still an incomplete solution: I also have gigabytes of digital images that I have archived in a slightly different system.

• Digital pictures are archived in a folder per shooting session.
• Digital image file names are issued in relation to the events I shot.
• Shooting info is contained in EXIF metadata.
• Some image files also contain IPTC annotations.

All text above describes what I already have implemented.Below follows a description of my future plans, which aren't yet completely implemented:

So I have two archiving systems that are not directly compatible with each other. I am planning to integrate both on a digital level by using an asset management system like iMatch. This is a database of all image files with automativcally generated thumbnails. In this database, I am planning to tag all image files with tags (system TBD) to make them searchable..

The database only contains thumbnails, and links to the physical location of storage media (ext. HD drives, DVDs etc.), so the actual storage media do not need to be permanently on-line and can be stored in a safe place.

For a better information collection for my films, I keep a digital voice recorder in my camera bag. During shooting, I am dictating notes about date, time, events documented etc. At home, I plug the recorder into my computer and store the audio notes. I then run those notes through my speech recognition software and automatically convert them into text documents that I can link into the asset mgmt database.

 

[JayGannon]

Personal work goes in one ring binder per year, commercial work in another.
I record when developing usually, I have a spreadsheet with the date developed, developer times etc and some comments on the development and on the roll itself. Then on the neg sheet I write the neg sheet number which is..

NEG-OCT-2010-001

For example and that links back into the spreadsheet. Color Negs have a page in that speadsheet seperate with COLOR before the neg name and Commercial work has another speadsheet of its own same naming convention but with COMM before the neg name. Works for me, I write the neg sheet number on anything I print or proof so I can come back to the same page in the binder at least and find the individual neg inside the sheet.

 

[Riverman]

A question for those of you with organised archives:

If you shoot both colour and black and white, as well as a mixture of formats do you keep separate archives for colour and b&w and for the various formats that you shoot or do you just mix everything together chronologically?

 

[Taynt3d]

I get scans with my processing from my lab, cut negs into sleeves into binder, import scans to lightroom, print digital contact sheet and place into binder with negs, then tag the binder sheets with date-codes, and tag the scans in lightroom with keyword using same date-code. Makes it super easy to find images in lightroom (using other metadata entered) and then link them back to the negs and contacts for wet printing work.

 

[gchpaco]

I store formats and types comingled, with contact sheets. (which has led to some arguments with the color labs in my area--no, thank you, I don't want it scanned, because then I'll just have to print it myself and if I like it I'll scan it myself, goddammit) Means if I have a roll-frame # in mind from someone asking for "one of these", I can just find it.

 

[flip]

I feel inspired to add an index number to the default data in lightroom and sticker it on the negs. Thanks!

 

[Riverman]

I store formats and types comingled, with contact sheets. (which has led to some arguments with the color labs in my area--no, thank you, I don't want it scanned, because then I'll just have to print it myself and if I like it I'll scan it myself, goddammit) Means if I have a roll-frame # in mind from someone asking for "one of these", I can just find it.

Intuitively I don't seem to want to mix up my formats but thinking on it a bit more, it actually seems like a good idea. So the archive becomes a real chronology and I can see how my preference for certain formats waxes and wanes over time.

Since last year I started to try to digitise some of my old negatives (about 2000 frames). My efforts have been largely futile. Of course, I managed to scan lots but the digital files are as poorly organised as their physical counterparts. Different resolutions; no consistent file naming etc. etc. I also haven't had a clear view about whether I should try to scan every frame on a roll, or just select the best. What's worse is that I have been scanning without properly calibrating scanner and monitor for consistent color or making profiles for different films.

Inspired by this thread, I've spent a few hours this weekend putting my negatives in order. I've realised that I will get absolutely nowhere in my efforts to make a digital archive unless I first have a well ordered physical one. I was surprised to see how jumbled up negs from my early days shooting in the late '90s were. Strips from different films oddly cut and all mixed together. Clearly large chunks of some films are missing - probably sitting in boxes or envelopes back at my folks' house.

I've decided to put all my digitization plans on hold until the physical archive is sorted out. Once that is done, the digitization will start from scratch - with proper calibration and a more systematic approach. I'd be interested in hearing whether people scan entire rolls or just selected frames?

In many ways I think scanning whole rolls could be quicker in the long run because editorial triage is in itself a time consuming process.