Scan negatives - so it'll work

To archive your analog photo collection, you can scan your negatives. We present three digitization options.

Digitize negatives with the flatbed scanner

The quickest way is to scan the negatives with the flatbed scanner at home. The big disadvantage here is that the scan turns black and white.

1. Place the negative on your flatbed scanner.
2. You now need uniform backlighting. A cell phone, smartphone or tablet with a white background at the brightest level is ideal for this. Apps like the Android app Tiny Flashlight do this for you. Hobbyists can build passive lighting themselves using simple instructions.
3. Place your tablet or cell phone on the desired negative and scan it.
4. With freeware like GIMP or Paint.NET, or the Photoshop trial, you can now easily reverse the colors and get a positive. Click here for the special practical tip on reversing colors.
5. You can find GIMP as a free download for Windows, macOS and Linux. Likewise Paint.NET for Windows and the 30-day trial version of Photoshop CS6.

Scan negatives with slide and negative scanners

You can achieve a significantly better result with slide (positive) and negative scanners.

1. You can find slide and negative scanners online from around 50 euros, but for quality you have to dig a little deeper and can count on double. Alternatively, you can also photograph slides and negatives using the DIA duplicator.
2. As a rule, external scanners are connected to the computer via USB and bring their own software for the scan and image processing.
3. CHIP has tested some high quality devices.

Scan services for photo negatives

Many photo shops and service agencies offer digitization of film negatives for little money:

• Photo Porto
• Photo Vital
• Most photo shops around the corner also offer this service.

Digitize Super 8 films yourself - Instructions

In another article on digitizing slides, we show you three cheap providers in comparison.