Tip for Storing Your Developed Negatives

Now that you’re a master at developing your own film at home, where do you put your developed negatives? Read on for tips on how to store and organize your film strips!

When you process your own film at home, you’ll need a place to store your negatives. Believe it or not, if these negatives are stored properly, they can be used for print in the years to come.

Usually, when you get your film developed at a photo lab, your negatives will be packaged in a way that there is no chance for you to accidentally touch the negatives. Not that it’s a bad thing, but there is a chance that your negative will be compromised from the oils that your fingers generate.

But if you process your own film at home, it would be wise to purchase covers to hold your developed negatives. Usually they will have sleeves with holes on the side that you can store it in a binder. Consider heat, humidity, and light when storing your negatives, because these can damage your negatives in the long run. Store your negatives in a dark, cool and dry place.

When you’ve processed so many negatives, you will have to use a system to organize your negatives. You can store them by date. Some people sort them by categories, such as events, people, etc.

If you want to take your negatives to make reprints, make sure you use the same care as you used to store them. Handle the negatives with clean dry hands and hold them by the edges only. If you do notice a speck of dirt of debris on your negatives, you can try to clean it up with special materials that you could probably find in photo supply stores.

Another Tip: Although you might say that some photos may not seem to be special, you might want to save them anyway. Who knows, future generations might enjoy your lazy Sunday shots! Think of it this way, as you spend a little time to properly store your images properly, you may be on the road to spread smiles for generations to come!

written by ilkadj on 2012-10-01 #gear #tutorials #tips #tipster #development #film-strips #film-processing #storing #developed-negatives