Cleaning negatives

 Yes, I've been lax in posting :)

I've spent the past few days cleaning film negatives so that I can scan them. Close to 300 negatives.

These negatives were in a large box at my grandmother's house and I grabbed them. The box had been outside in the open air carport for a while and were covered in dust and dirt. I had no idea how old they were other than they looked like the 1950s but not being a photographer with no real knowledge of film types I couldn't even be sure about that.

I've held off for a few years in doing anything with them as I needed a way to get them copied. 

Luckily I stopped by the Epson booth at RootsTech back in Feb and I saw they had a good flatbed scanner that has the ability to scan negatives. I couldn't afford it then so I started saving my money and finally purchased the Epson Perfection V600.

So, to prepare the dirty negatives for scanning I watched a few videos, read blog posts, and asked people with knowledge of film. The best answer was to use 98% alcohol and clean non linty cloth. 

Steps to clean the negatives:

1. If you use 98% alcohol open windows and run a fan! The vapors are strong. You want the higher alcohol content as it evaporates without leaving water droplets behind. I ordered it from Amazon.

2. Gather old rags that are clean and free of lint. You don't want to clean them and leave lint behind 

3. Place some sort of rack (I used a clean cookie cooling rack) to place the negatives on to dry.

4. Dip your rag in the alcohol and then wipe in one direction across the negative. Only rub hard if there is debris that won't lift off

5. Let negatives dry.

6. Start scanning.

I've now got 300 pictures of my dad's parents, grand parents and extended family from as far back as 1936!

This is a genealogy gold mine!