Photographing old negatives / workflow

PLShutterbug wrote:

michaeladawson wrote:

PLShutterbug wrote:

I looked on the VueScan site this morning, didn’t find an answer I needed so wrote to Support, and Ed (owner) already responded with good instructions.

I will download his trial later in the week once I figure out my lighting situation and will probably buy it.

ViewScan is good. I used it for many years with dedicated scanners. The ability to convert raw files from negative captures is a nice feature. It also comes with a lot of different film profiles, although I'm not sure how accurate they are.

One of the fortunate things about scanning in old negatives is that you really have no idea what they're supposed to look like. You can't really use old prints as a target as the color has probably changed. Especially the standard 3.5x5.5 lab prints. So you can really just shoot for a color balance you find pleasing.

I've even converted recent color negatives and I still can't reproduce exactly the print colors that came from the lab. But who says the lab was right.

Speaking of not knowing what the colors need to look like ...

Two of the negatives I need to scan are from my parents’ wedding in 1951. I have seen black and white prints of these but when my sister told me she had found negatives and then gave them to me yesterday, to my surprise they are color! They are a strange image size: 2-1/2” x 4-1/4”. I can’t find any reference to the film type. On the top edge it says “Kodak Safety Film 531903”. I know what “safety film” means but my search results on that emulsion number come up empty.

I need to do further research ... somewhere.

Sounds like Verichrome film from a Brownie camera. Maybe 116 or 616 format.

https://www.brownie-camera.com/film.shtml