Unwanted Negative

tecboy

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Do you guys keep all the negatives especially unwanted negatives. I'm thinking about to cut unwanted negatives to save spaces, but I might have a hard times store in the protective sleeves pages.
 
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Do NOT cut negative strips shorter than about 5 negatives. Absolutely do not cut them into single negatives. They are virtually impossible to print that way. Best thing to do is just ignore the bad ones.
 
I think only once or twice I had a roll that was so bad I just threw the whole thing away.

Clipping individual frames isn't going to save you any space, and it's just going to make your life hell if you ever want to do anything with them later - like Scott said.

Mounted slides would be a different story though. If I had a mounted slide that was absolute crap, I wouldn't hesitate to throw it away.
 
Third it.

It would probably be harder for a lab to keep a single frame or a short strip of film in place for printing; in the darkroom it would be hard to hold a single frame in a carrier - I have enough trouble sometimes getting the film to stay positioned particularly when I'm trying to print a frame at the end of the strip.
 
I used to hole punch unwanted negatives... just to make sure they didn't accidentally get printed. But like Scott said, just leave the strips intact.
 
I used to hole punch unwanted negatives... just to make sure they didn't accidentally get printed. But like Scott said, just leave the strips intact.

Not a bad idea, but slightly more destructive than I'd like, lol.

I have these 'film markers' - basically a pencil with some sort of special lead - not like the graphite in a regular pencil, these things can write on anything.
Due to the name, I assume that they were originally intended for writing on film. You could use one of those to put an X on bad frames. If you ever changed your mind, it would come off with some film cleaner.


Untitled by J E, on Flickr


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Apparently they're for writing on x-rays. They say that a damp cloth will remove it (sounds about right, from my experience), and it is graphite, but very soft. And they have been discontinued by Dixon since 2007... Lots of doctors are apparently pretty pissed that they stopped making them and there is no replacement...
 
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Apparently they're for writing on x-rays. They say that a damp cloth will remove it (sounds about right, from my experience), and it is graphite, but very soft. And they have been discontinued by Dixon since 2007... Lots of doctors are apparently pretty pissed that they stopped making them and there is no replacement...
I never tried it, but maybe permanent marker would do the job ?
And the doctors "are supposed to switch to digital X-rays", but I don't know, how this work in reality. :D
 
I'm sure a sharpie would work, but I think the point of these film markers is that it's easy to erase without damaging the film.

And, yeah - the switch to digital x-rays is why these were discontinued - but apparently there are some holdouts that haven't gone digital yet. And they want their pencils back. :lol:

I found all of this out after trying to find a place where I could buy more of these.
 
I think sharpie should be used on base side of the film, removing it from there could be done with nail polish remover easily.
 
Why do you need to mark out some of the frames on a strip of negatives? I've never had a lab print anything other than what I've ordered prints from.

If they print the wrong number frame by mistake it just ends up being an extra photo I don't really want or need and then I just get a reprint of the correct frame. I can't imagine why a lab would want prints of anyone's crappy pictures (that even the person who took the picture doesn't want to see printed).

I have a photo safe pen by Sakura I think that's similar to a sharpie but with a finer point which I've used to write on an end of a strip of negatives (to record the date etc.). I also recently got a photo etcher that's apparently designed to be used to scrape emulsion off negatives - I haven't tried using it yet and don't know that it's something I'd use much except with B&W film perhaps as a correction or to try something creative with it.
 
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I'm not defending the use of these 'film markers' or anything - I actually don't even use them on film. All I was saying is that they were designed for that purpose, and if you wanted a way to mark the bad negs - these pencils are an option. They are nice though, because like I said before - they can write on nearly anything.

All I do with bad frames is ignore them. I don't cut them out, or hole punch them, or anything else like that. The hole punch idea is pretty good if you want to basically destroy the neg without affecting the negs around it though.
 

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