Glass Plate Negatives

We use bespoke, specialist Epson scanners and lightbox. The equipment allows us to place the absolute minimum of pressure on the material and mitigate against any chance of damage. We can scan in a variety of DPI and creating a variety of output formats. We will generally produce image files between 1200ppi and 4000ppi in TIFF and JPEG formats, although we can produce other file formats. Images can be produced in full colour or greyscale and we can enhance or graphically restore them too. As standard we recommend digitising glass plate negatives to uncompressed RGB TIFF files at a minimum resolution of 600dpi and 16-bit pixel depth when creating master files. However, we are more than happy to accommodate any specific requirements you may have, such as differing resolutions or file formats. We also, as standard, convert the negative images to positives and perform contrast adjustments in order to ensure the clearest possible digital images.

All files are captured by our highly trained digitisation technicians using overhead, daylight balanced, non-heat producing lighting, before undergoing a formal quality assurance checking procedure. As specialists in digitising fragile items, our technicians are fully trained in professional handling procedures and employ a gentle, “white gloves” approach at all times, to ensure no harm comes to the materials. Our technicians are happy to remove your glass plates from card sleeves/envelopes during the digitisation process, carefully replacing them in the packaging after scanning. The final step in the process is the delivery of your electronic files by hard drive.

As standard, TWA survey all material prior to any digitisation project being carried out to ensure that it can withstand the scanning process. If there is evidence of fragility, brittleness, and/or mould, or any other signs of damage to your glass plates and lantern slides, then recommendations will be made for how to repair and stabilise the content appropriately.

There are many things that need to be taken into consideration when costing your digitisation project, such as:

• Condition
• Scale of the collection
• Plates and slides needing to be removed from and returned to envelopes
• Any cleaning required

Consequently, it’s impossible to give a definitive answer as to cost, but you can get a rough estimate using our digitisation calculator.

Glass plates and lantern slides are one of the most delicate materials to digitise and care must be taken to ensure pressure isn’t placed onto them. They must only ever be handled by the edges and whilst wearing white gloves. They should also be placed the right side up in order to capture them correctly. We always maintain safe handling procedures to ensure the protection of your material.