Where can I find information on how to clean, repair, and improve the over all quality of old 4 x 5 cellulose negatives?

-- Fred Hemley (fhemley@gis.net), February 08, 2000

Answers

Most of all, find a place where they can't set anything on fire! Personally, I have no experience with this, but I read in a couple of books that one should copy them and dispose of the originaly to avoid any hazard. It seems they are regarded as really dangerous!

Although I am not much in favour of digital photography, scanning them and using image processing software might be the solution.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), February 08, 2000.

The above is a bit alarmist.

Are they Cellulose Nitrate, which is unstable and potentially a fire risk, or Cellulose Acetate, (Safety Film) which is much more durable. If you can determine what sort of film base you are dealing with, then it will make a big difference to the sort of treatment they need. Whatever material they are, your first step should be to scan them into digital images, in colour, even though they're black and white. That way, even if the negatives are ruined by attempted restoration, the images will survive, and it's amazing how much can be retrieved on the computer. The reason I advise scanning in colour, is that stains can be filtered out more easily, and colour scans hold much more information than 8 bit black and white.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), February 08, 2000.

Fred, I don't have any info on how to "clean, repair, and improve the over all quality of old 4 x 5 cellulose negatives?", but can give you a reference regarding how to continue to store them, whether they are cellulose nitrate or not. If you continue to store them, they're always available for whatever duplication methods become available in the future.

In Henry Wilhem's comprehensive (encyclopedic?) book (1993) "The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: ", ISBN 0-911515-00-3, Appendix 19.1 (12 big pages including references) is titled, "Freezer Storage for Permanent Preservation of Cellulose Nitrate Still-Camera Negatives and Motion Pictures".

This chapter discusses characteristics, history and identification of cellulose nitrate films. The stages and mechanisms of deterioration are discussed, as well as some literature references on salvaging and restoring old negs (page 686, reference #12).

Two of my interpretations from this chapter are that 1) fire hazards of small quantities of still camera negs are greatly overrated and 2) cold storage at lower RH DRASTICALLY prolongs the life of cellulose nitrate. Even though it's pretty dry reading, I can't hardly praise this book enough. If it's not in your local library, Amazon lists it at only about $40.

-- Bill C (bcarriel@cpicorp.com), February 08, 2000.

you may want to call the George Eastman House in Rochester,NY . Ask to speak with a conservator... maybe someone can help...

-- (nomei@aol.com), March 27, 2000.