[pure-silver] Re: Damage to old negatives and prints
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 23:35:54 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Healy" <emjayhealy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 7:52 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Damage to old negatives and prints
I'm wondering whether I might solicit some feedback about
old negatives, their
condition, what happens as they age under unfavorable
conditions, what can be done
about problems that arise.
When my father died this summer, I had the privilege of
gathering together his life's
collection of negatives and slides, and shipping them here
to Phoenix. They date back
to his first shots as a teenager in 1947. Among them I
also found packets of original
negatives shot by my mother's father in the early- and
mid-1940s. All of these negs and
slides spent 50+ years enduring the weather of Illinois
and Nebraska - summer temps in
the 90s and 100s, humidity far beyond the tolerance of
tolerant human beings.
One of my concerns has been their physical condition.
(His ektachrome slides from the 1950s and 1960s surprised
me. Many have undergone
considerable shifts in color, which looks to me like it's
actually a fading and loss of one
color layer, usually the blue, since these now lean toward
orange or magenta.
Inexplicably, however, other rolls from the same period
are in perfect condition, with no
loss or change of color at all. Weird.)
Regarding his black and whites: I've encountered three
issues so far.
(1) what looks like bronzing of the emulsion side of
certain negs. Is this a problem? I'm
trying to guess what might have caused it, and the only
thing that occurs to me is
inadequate fixing. But that doesn't make a lot of sense to
me: these are 50 and even 60
years old. Inadequate fixing should have killed them
outright years ago. Note that I have
not yet tried printing any of these, so I can't say what
influence this bronzing will actually
have. Scans (done in color) do produce some interesting
colors; but they scan fine.
(2) An odd condition in a number of my grandpa's negs.
These were snapshots only,
and the negs were carelessly stuffed into paper Walgreen's
sleeves (Walgreen's photo
finishing in 1952! Shows MY lack of years....). A number
of them show two different
densities across the neg. There is a diagonal line, and on
one side the neg is denser by
half or even a stop. Like half of it faded in the sun. The
effect is exactly as if you printed
it to paper as a test print, and did the neg at one
exposure, then did only half of it for
another exposure. I've never seen anything like this. What
could possibly have affected
the neg itself like this?!
(3) Prints: One packet of prints (done in the late 1940s)
were simply pasted to the pages
of a photo album - all pages being black construction
paper, presumably with Elmer's
glue or some equivalent. Many of these have come away from
their page, taking paper
with them. I'm thinking of resoaking these prints to
remove some of the paper. While it
would NOT remove glue that had seeped into the print, it
would get rid of the patches of
black paper that remain attached. Is there a problem with
doing this? Is there a reason
why a 60 year old print cannot simply be soaked and
re-dried? BTW, all of these were
ferrotyped. Would soaking undo this effect, or did this
treatment permanently alter the
physical properties of a print's surface?
My dad also left some 30 rolls of 35 mm b&w film
unprocessed, which he shot from
about 1965 to 1970. I'm going to have to float a few
questions about these, too. But for
now, I figure that another six months won't be their
undoing after all these years!
Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Mike Healy
If these pictures are of any value I would talk to a
professional conservator about treatment. Definitely do NOT
use any sort of water treatment unless advised to by someone
who really knows. The problem is chemical changes in the
emulsion which can cause it to become extremely fragile with
time.
Color negatives and transparencies can often be fixed by
scanning and using various procedures in Photoshop or a
similar program. This is frequently done to restore old
color photos. However, keep in mind that is a color layer
has completely faded it may not be possible to correct for
it.
I can't guess about the density differences, if the
negatives were not like this to begin with its possible they
were affected by some process from which a part was
protected.
Commercial photofinishing was generally done using
partially automatic machines. Quality varied from very good
to awful and was not very well standardized. Most prints
were dried on a heated, chrome plated, drum yielding the
glassy "ferrotype" finish. When ferrotype prints are
resoaked and dried the gloss is lost unless they are again
dried in contact with a ferrotyping surface. The gloss is
from compression of the surface gelatin overcoating and did
not make any permanent change in the emulsion. Again,
resoaking is NOT recommended, at least without testing,
because of various chemical effects which can make the
gelatin very delicate or even soluble.
Bronzing is generally caused by oxidation of the image
silver due to oxidizing gasses in the atmosphere. Well fixed
and washed negatives and prints are quite vulnerable to this
effect. It is sometimes possible to remove a part of it but,
since the source of the bronzing is the image there will
inevitably be some image damage.
Images can sometimes be recovered from old, unprocessed,
film. Normal techniques will sometimes bring them out but
there are special techniques which have better success. A
company called Film Rescue http://www.filmrescue.com/
specializes in this and may be able to help. They are not
cheap and there may no longer be a developable latent image
but they are worth consulting.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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- References:
- [pure-silver] Damage to old negatives and prints
- From: Michael Healy
Other related posts:
- » [pure-silver] Damage to old negatives and prints
- » [pure-silver] Re: Damage to old negatives and prints
- » [pure-silver] Re: Damage to old negatives and prints
condition, what happens as they age under unfavorable conditions, what can be done
about problems that arise.
When my father died this summer, I had the privilege of gathering together his life's
collection of negatives and slides, and shipping them here to Phoenix. They date back
to his first shots as a teenager in 1947. Among them I also found packets of original
negatives shot by my mother's father in the early- and mid-1940s. All of these negs and
slides spent 50+ years enduring the weather of Illinois and Nebraska - summer temps in
the 90s and 100s, humidity far beyond the tolerance of tolerant human beings.
One of my concerns has been their physical condition.
(His ektachrome slides from the 1950s and 1960s surprised me. Many have undergone
considerable shifts in color, which looks to me like it's actually a fading and loss of one
color layer, usually the blue, since these now lean toward orange or magenta.
Inexplicably, however, other rolls from the same period are in perfect condition, with no
loss or change of color at all. Weird.)
Regarding his black and whites: I've encountered three issues so far.
(1) what looks like bronzing of the emulsion side of certain negs. Is this a problem? I'm
trying to guess what might have caused it, and the only thing that occurs to me is
inadequate fixing. But that doesn't make a lot of sense to me: these are 50 and even 60
years old. Inadequate fixing should have killed them outright years ago. Note that I have
not yet tried printing any of these, so I can't say what influence this bronzing will actually
have. Scans (done in color) do produce some interesting colors; but they scan fine.
(2) An odd condition in a number of my grandpa's negs. These were snapshots only,
and the negs were carelessly stuffed into paper Walgreen's sleeves (Walgreen's photo
finishing in 1952! Shows MY lack of years....). A number of them show two different
densities across the neg. There is a diagonal line, and on one side the neg is denser by
half or even a stop. Like half of it faded in the sun. The effect is exactly as if you printed
it to paper as a test print, and did the neg at one exposure, then did only half of it for
another exposure. I've never seen anything like this. What could possibly have affected
the neg itself like this?!
(3) Prints: One packet of prints (done in the late 1940s) were simply pasted to the pages
of a photo album - all pages being black construction paper, presumably with Elmer's
glue or some equivalent. Many of these have come away from their page, taking paper
with them. I'm thinking of resoaking these prints to remove some of the paper. While it
would NOT remove glue that had seeped into the print, it would get rid of the patches of
black paper that remain attached. Is there a problem with doing this? Is there a reason
why a 60 year old print cannot simply be soaked and re-dried? BTW, all of these were
ferrotyped. Would soaking undo this effect, or did this treatment permanently alter the
physical properties of a print's surface?
My dad also left some 30 rolls of 35 mm b&w film unprocessed, which he shot from
about 1965 to 1970. I'm going to have to float a few questions about these, too. But for
now, I figure that another six months won't be their undoing after all these years!
Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Mike Healy
- [pure-silver] Damage to old negatives and prints
- From: Michael Healy