Do you keep 'bad' negatives?

[Scott Kathe]

When I started with 35mm photography I must have thrown out 90-95% of my slides and only kept the really good ones. I think I have almost every 4x5 negative and transparency I shot good and bad. I think it's time to get rid of the film that is never going to be used to make a print. The proportion of my 'keepers' has definitely gone up over time but I must say I keep making mistakes. Mistakes are frustrating but it's part of the learning process. So, I guess my question is: do people have a file with 'great negatives', another with 'maybe I'll work on these someday' and the third file being the 'circular file or trash bin'?

I don't want to suffer from the "I'll fix this in photoshop philosophy" but I bet there are quite a few photographers who have spent a lot of time in the darkroom trying to make a decent print from a bad negative;)

Scott

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

It all depends, if you think you can squeeze a good print out of the negative then keep it. I have a couple like that, mostly, those that I think are no good I throw them away.

[j.e.simmons]

I used to keep absolutely everything. Then I got a scanner and a shredder. I scan my negative and look at it closely. If it has glaring errors, scratches, poorly focuses, poorly conceived, etc. I shred it immediately. I've found this saves me an enormous amount of time and effort because I don't try to get good prints out of obviously bad negatives.
juan

[BrianShaw]

I don't know why, but I keep all negs... all in the same file. I also keep contact proofs and mark them up with printing notes, etc.. As storage space becomes more constrained I need to reconsider this habit.

[Ralph Barker]

There may be some value in keeping bad negs as examples of mistakes, once the problem has been fully diagnosed and documented. Such things would come in handy if you were to write a book or teach a class, for example. Otherwise, frugality of storage is an admirable trait, I think.

[Brian Ellis]

I used to keep all my 4x5 and 8x10 negatives. When we moved I culled them, tossed the ones I clearly was never going to print. There is, however, some merit to keeping them all except the ones that are unprintable because of mistakes. Many of us have experienced the phenomenon of thinking a recent photograph isn't any good because we didn't accomplish what we wanted to accomplish with it, then we look at it a few years later with fresh eyes, forgetting whatever it was we thought we missed, and see qualities in it that we didn't see before.

[Mark Sampson]

I have one image like that, that sat as a 'mistake' in the file for 23 years before I finally figured out how to make it work (visually- there were no technical issues). Better late than never!

[Hugo Zhang]

A quick question:

I developped some 8x10 negatives last night and four of them have those pinholes due to the poor quality of the film (J&C Pro 100).

Can I scan the negatives and let the Photoshop software eliminate those defects on the negs?

Thanks.
Hugo

[Daniel_Buck]

A quick question:

I developped some 8x10 negatives last night and four of them have those pinholes due to the poor quality of the film (J&C Pro 100).

Can I scan the negatives and let the Photoshop software eliminate those defects on the negs?

Thanks.
Hugo

Yea, you would be able to do that easily, if you don't mind printing digitally :)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Depends what the issue is. If I think it's an interesting shot with enough exposure but the contrast is too high or too low, I keep it, because it might print well in a different process than I had originally intended, or I could intensify or reduce the neg.

If it's got some technical problem that would be very difficult to fix or if it's something like a portrait with eyes closed, then I toss it. It's hard enough to find time to print all the good negatives. The bad ones are just in the way.

[butterflydream]

I throw them away.
I can take again all the time again.

[paulr]

I figure I can learn from anything, so I keep all of them. And besides, the more I do art, the less my goal is about "good" or "bad." I'm exploring something ... my subject, myself, ways of describing things photographically.

Just as a painter might require a dozen sketches before feeling ready to make a painting, I might have to make a dozen negatives before feeling ready to make a print. The ones I don't choose aren't necessarily failures; they can be important parts of the process that got me from there to here.

They form an interesting record--a record of the process, and also of the things I've looked at. Some of those old images are interesting now for reasons I couldn't have anticipated. Very ordinary pictures of a place take on a new significance after that place changes. Or after my way of thinking about photography changes.

[Jiri Vasina]

I keep all my LF negatives - because of the learning process - I keep returning to them and study them again after some time, and I have so far found I always learn something new.

But true, I don't have so many LF negatives yet, as I've been on this track only some 2-3 years.

[Richard M. Coda]

Yea, you would be able to do that easily, if you don't mind printing digitally :)

Not entirely true. You can scan at a high enough resolution and send your file to Chicago Albumen Works (http://www.albumenworks.com/lvt_notes.htm). After you fix your defects they can output a perfect negative for you to process in your own darkroom. Have saved a few negatives that way, and also had a 4x5 neg made from a "di@ital camera file :eek: I have to tell you, I printed that negative in my darkroom and it is one beautiful silver print. (It's the flag from my website).

A little expensive, but if your image is worth it, cost doesn't matter.

[Ron Marshall]

If I'm positive I will never want to make a print from it, nor use it as a learning tool, then I ditch it, just to save the storage space.

[Vaughn]

I use to -- but after 30+ years of LF, I now have the courage to toss out the obviously un-printable negs. I have already made almost all of the mistakes one can make with B&W negatives :p

Vaughn

[Preston]

I will round-file transparencies that are obviously fubar. One thing I have noticed is that as my PhotoShop and scanning skills have improved, I may be able to rescue images that I previously could not.

-PB

[Kirk Gittings]

A quick question:

I developped some 8x10 negatives last night and four of them have those pinholes due to the poor quality of the film (J&C Pro 100).

Can I scan the negatives and let the Photoshop software eliminate those defects on the negs?

Thanks.
Hugo

????No. But you could fix it using PS. Photoshop does nothing automatically. It requires a operator, with some degree of knowledge and skill to do anything.

[Scott Kathe]

Depends what the issue is. If I think it's an interesting shot with enough exposure but the contrast is too high or too low, I keep it, because it might print well in a different process than I had originally intended, or I could intensify or reduce the neg.

If it's got some technical problem that would be very difficult to fix or if it's something like a portrait with eyes closed, then I toss it. It's hard enough to find time to print all the good negatives. The bad ones are just in the way.

I think I will follow this general philosophy. I threw out a series of 35mm bracketed twilight slides made with Fuji Velvia and kept the one that looked best on the light box but I can't pull enough detail out of the shadows-of all the mistakes I've made that's the one that haunts me the most. I don't want to make the same mistake with my 4x5s.

David, I especially like the last two lines you wrote: "It's hard enough to find time to print all the good negatives. The bad ones are just in the way."

Scott

[Geert]

I only throw away the negatives that are technically bad. And that's about 10%.
The rest, even if less attractive at the moment, get archived along with the negatives of that series that get printed.


I have already made almost all of the mistakes one can make with B&W negatives :p Vaughn
Even processing in E6 chemistry?
I did ;-)



G

[Frank Bagbey]

Often, a blown slide will still have a photograph in it. For example, I shot a scene that was really pushing it and wound up with a poor transparency. But, in part of that big
4x5 was a great photograph! And it was still bigger than a 35mm slide and made a great enlargment. In an old Pentax book, it was illustrated how there can be 4 or 5 great pics inside a pic, that just makes for a greater overall photograph. So, I think the lesson to be learned is to really look around your scene. And really "look around" your big neg or transparency before culling it or throwing it away!

[George Stewart]

I made a MF image many years ago, that through some error (shutter bounce, development, or something else) had some type on line of different exposure and/or color balance right across the middle of the image. Therefore, the result was one side was normal the other side abnormal. The image was great so I couldn't bare to discard it. I thought, some day it may be salvaged. Then about eight years later, the digital era arrived and I got my first scanner. That film was the first through the machine and today is my best fall foliage image.

I had another image that was out of focus, that I also saved and now is another great shot that has a very impressionistic feel.

I'll only discard that which I know I'll do nothing with. If I feel even the slightest warm toward the thing, I'll keep it. Remember, something can always be thrown out, but can't always be retrieved.

[Gary L. Quay]

I keep everything in proportion to the distance it was from my home. The farther away, the greater the likelyhood that I will keep it, even it the neg has problems.

--Gary

[jnantz]

i save everything.

bad might not look good now, but
after being scattered on the floor of
my basement, and after a few years of being
walked on and damaged, bad can look much better.

[Ralph Barker]

Yea, you would be able to do that easily, if you don't mind printing digitally :)

Another option is to have real silver prints made from the scans via the system that Bob Carnie (Elevator Graphics in Toronto) uses.

[Ken Lee]

.. or make Platinum/Palladium prints, or even Silver prints, from a digital negative. Depending on the "dot size" of the digital negative, your resolution will vary, such that Silver prints may be pushing it.

You can not only fix the spots, you can make an infinite number of corrections, improvements, and enlargements. With an 8x10 negative and even a modest scanner, you can also make lovely prints from a portion of the negative.

[Richard M. Coda]

Another option is to have real silver prints made from the scans via the system that Bob Carnie (Elevator Graphics in Toronto) uses.

I have found the digital copy negatives from Chicago Albumen Works to be far superior to the digital silver prints from any Lambda. Plus you have control in the darkroom versus a lab, as good as they may be. Just my 2 cents.

[Richard M. Coda]

.. or make Platinum/Palladium prints, or even Silver prints, from a digital negative. Depending on the "dot size" of the digital negative, your resolution will vary, such that Silver prints may be pushing it.

You can not only fix the spots, you can make an infinite number of corrections, improvements, and enlargements. With an 8x10 negative and even a modest scanner, you can also make lovely prints from a portion of the negative.

I did this for the first time the other day at a colleagues place. He makes VERY large palladium prints using PDN. He scanned one of my 8x10 negs in at 3600 dpi (on an Imacon Flex scanner) and made one of his "green" negs on his Epson 3800. We then made a palladium print from it.

I have to tell you, I was absolutely NOT impressed. My silver prints beats the pants off this method, or any method that uses inkjet negatives. If I can see inkjet artifacts it's useless (to me). Also the print was extremely soft... not sharp as a contact print should be.

Again, if you want a digital neg... better to go to Chicago Albumen Works and have it done that way. Just my 2 cents again.

[Filmnut]

When I first started shooting, as a teenager in the early seventies, I kept absolutely everything. But as other posters have said, the amount of film becomes enormous, if one shoots very much, that is. A move is usually a good thing, as one then has to make decisions, but sometimes it can all get put in a box to sort "when I have time" and forgot about till the next move!
I have culled a lot of the bad stuff, and am more discerning now, one of the problems of having too much stuff, is when you want to find something, you have to go through so much crap to find the good stuff, its' annoying. Mainly for this reason I started to be tougher on myself.
I will also agree that time lends some perspective to many images. Especially historical and or family interest. Otherwise unremarkable happy snaps of children and relatives become more valuable than I ever thought possible as people have grown up, grown old, and died.
My father practiced photography here in Toronto, and he has skyline shots of the city taken in the thirties from his small fishing boat that now have historical interest. Ditto for some he took in the Army in WWII.
So as the reasonable guy I am, if the shot is bad, screwed up or such, it goes, unless I need it to determine what has gone wrong. I sort good and bad composition out and toss the bad, but leave some in, you might change your mind as to which ones you might need. Depends how bad it is!
On the good shots, unless a bracket is really off, I almost always keep it, as sometimes you might go one of the others when printing, also it's good to have an extra if something bad happens to the "ideal".
So you could say that I err on the side of caution, and still keep too much stuff!
Keith

[Jon Wilson]

I keep most of my negatives and chromes 35mm, MF, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10 & now 11x14. I also try to keep records as to developing the B&W negs, references to specific lens used, and hope that when I review them it helps with subsequent prints. Jon

[r.e.]

I am increasingly ruthless about what I will shoot in the first place and absolutely ruthless about throwing away negatives that don't cut it.

I have kept some negatives that I would otherwise throw out, as scanned digital files, because I want to return to the subject and they tell me how not to do it.

[Richard M. Coda]

I wish I had kept some 35mm negatives from my hometown that I did for a project when I was in college... I photographed the entire main street, printed them all about 5x7" and dry mounted them into one HUGE panorama... God, I wish I knew where those negs were...

[Andrew O'Neill]

When you say bad are we talking composition? I usually keep all my negatives because 5 or so years down the road I may look at it again and like it...or see something within it.
If a negative is badly underexposed or ruined by some other means (streaks, mottling from stand development for example) I cut them up and throw them out just after I drop a few f-bombs...always remember when mixing pyrocat that it's equal parts A and equal parts B...not equal parts A and equal parts A, like an esteemed colleague of mine did last weekend in my darkroom....heh heh heh ;)

[keith english]

I'm glad I kept some 4x5 negs that I didn't print conventionally, because of dust spots (snakes in the sky) that I couldn't effectively retouch at the time. Now with photoshop it is easy to retouch.

[Scott Kathe]

I think a lot of it comes down to storage/access. Digital shooters have huge numbers of files and sorting through those, if there isn't a good filing system, has to be a nightmare. I don't have that may sheets of film but I am going to have to come up with a method of filing them so I can find the correct negative in a reasonable amount of time. I think the bad ones just get in the way.

Scott

[nolindan]

I am absolutely ruthless about throwing away negatives that don't cut it.

I was that way. Every now and then I would go through the pile of negatives and chuck those that weren't good enough. It's a one-way street though: once a negative doesn't pass muster there is no pardon. I found every negative I had was judged not good enough at some sorting session or other. As a result 99.999% of the negatives I took between the ages of 7 and 35 are gone.

Now I don't chuck anything, but it is much too late.

Negatives cost zilch to store. They last darn near forever. Not many things in life that are like that. Put them in envelopes, toss them in a cardboard box and keep them someplace dry. Forget about them for 50, 60, 100, 200 years. Whores, politicians and photographs all become respectable when they get old enough.


Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

[Frank Petronio]

I toss about 90% of what I do after a few years. Even so I still have a ton of crap I've been hauling around for 25 years now... But I really don't feel bad about tossing a stack of archival selenium toned fiber prints that took me all day and a box of paper to print... if it's still an ugly, dumb photo after several years (and I have some howlers) it gets canned.

When I edit my film I toss all the missed focused and off ones, and sometimes the really dumb ideas. But because I shoot people I often have 5-10 4x5s of a situation and I have to scan all of them to figure out which is the best.

When I print inkjets I keep odd prints in an archival box and that gets edited every year or so, once the images become "cold".

I really doubt my family wants to have to rummage through 1000s of mediocre prints and negs -- I am trying to leave everything edited and in a logical organization for the future. If I'm lucky I might end up with a dozen good images by the time I check out.

[Shen45]

An ideal, no turning back solution is a shredder. I find it gives me a chance to shoot again.

[r.e.]

But because I shoot people I often have 5-10 4x5s of a situation and I have to scan all of them to figure out which is the best.

You don't know how happy I am to hear that somebody else has to do this.

I sometimes wonder whether I am the only person doing scans, and spending the time that it takes, to figure out which is the right shot.

The only upside is that when I've picked what I think is the right one, I get to trash the others. Having spent my time scanning several negatives knowing that I'll keep one, at most, it blows off a little steam to destroy the negatives that I wasted my time on :)

[nolindan]

I really doubt my family wants to have to rummage through 1000s of mediocre prints and negs.

Sorting is different from chucking. I have my 'keepers' neatly organized in files. The 'other' is in glassine sleeves with the subject and date scrawled on the side and tossed in a box.

The ones posterity will honor with resurrection aren't the ones anyone would pick at the time:

Big Happy Funhouse (http://www.bighappyfunhouse.com/)
Swapatorium (http://swapatorium.typepad.com/)
The Boat Lullabies (http://tbl.squareamerica.com/)
Square America (http://squareamerica.com/)

We are simply not competent to judge our own works and should refrain from doing so.