Tool to find negatives with a physical print

[jackp510]

Hi,

I have hundreds of badly organized negative strips and thousands of prints. I wish I had a tool to take my scanned negatives and file them digitally (as well as label the neg sleeves physically). When I need to find a negative associated with a print, all I need to do is take a snapshot of or scan the print and it will tell me where to find the negative.

Would you guys pay for a tool like this?

Jack

 

[rogue_designer]

the first part of your query already has several tools out there. You can use any digital asset management package, and create a filing system to label your negative sleeves/binders, then associate your file system numbers as keywords in the Software.

As for the second part - TinEye - works in that manner, looking for derivatives and usage online. I expect the algorithms used would be pretty easy to integrate into searching local file structures. http://tineye.com//

What I would pay for an all in one? Probably about what I pay for a Digital Asset Mgmt tool now... $100 ish.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Make contact sheets of all your negatives, number the strips on the contact sheets to match the negative strips, mark them by year and month, with perhasaps some more info on the back of the contact sheets, such as who, what, where. I store 100 contact sheets and 500 glassines holding negatives in a 250 or 500 sheet 8x10 paper box. The front of the box has numbers and dates to match the contents. If I have the least inkling of when a photo was made I can quickly flip through a bunch of contact sheets, locate the negative, and I'm in business.

I started the filing system in 1961 and it still works. I'm not sure that I'd have the ambition to suddenly start filing half a century's worth of negatives now, though! You could get started now with your current shooting and work your way back a little at a time.