Negatives to Digital Photo Rig

Digging through some old photos I realized I had the film negatives still in the envelope but a few of the photos I must have sent to the young friends I met in Space Camp over 34 years ago. I wanted to make them all digital so I could share the fun photos on line, so I made this quick and easy "Negatives to Digital Photo Rig".

This will allow me to back light the negatives and then take a digital photo of each photo on the film.

I will describe the quick build of the rig and how I used a free photo editor that is on line to crop, inverse and correct for color to then save the photo as a digital image.

It helps to have the negatives be in good condition, no scratches and dust free.

Shoe box

Light bulb

Light bulb holder with cord

Light diffuser (I used a white plastic container)

A razor or a knife, to cut a hole in the top of the shoe box lid

Masking tape

Be careful when wiring an electric cord to the bulb holder, place electrical tape over the metal connections. Be sure to use a low wattage bulb so that the box and plastic doesn't melt or burn.

Place the light bulb into the plastic diffuser and place into the box.

Cut a small square hole just bigger than the film negatives.

Place the negatives over the hole and use masking tape to cover the rest of the hole to keep light from coming out.

Place your newly constructed Negatives to Digital Photo Rig into a dark room and plug in the power cord to turn on the back light.

You are now ready to take some photos of the negatives.

I used a digital camera on the detail setting to take a few photos of the negatives. Slide the negatives to the next frame and continue until you have the negatives you want to convert.

I use a free on-line photo editor that is very similar to Adobe Photoshop. The website is free and you can upload an image to edit and download the final edited file in many formats.

www.photopea.com

The photos and the steps below I will describe what I did to the image to correct the negative to a normal color photo.

Upload

First upload your photo of the negative.

Crop

Using the crop tool on the left side of the photo editing software screen, you can select the negative and crop the stuff not needed.

Zoom in

Typing Ctrl ++ zooms in, Ctrl +- zooms out.

Inverse

This is in the drop down menu, 'Image', 'Adjust', 'Invert'. This will bring you negative to a color photo and will just require a bit of adjustments to get the best color.

Correct for the color

Using the 'Curves' selection, each of the Red, Green and Blue levels can be adjusted.

Save and Download

Save and download your new digital photo!