Oxford Duplication Centre

Digitisation of 35mm Colour Negative Print Film - Converting your Archives

In photography, a negative is an image, usually on a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film, in which the lightest areas of the photographed subject appear darkest and the darkest areas appear lightest. 

There are different types of films today:

Print films are standard, commonly used films. They produce transparent negatives (images with inverted colors) that are printed on photographic paper with use of an enlarger or by contact printing. These films can be color or black-and-white. 

 Color reversal film (or "slide film".) works the same as print film but it doesn’t invert colors. It makes diapositives (transparencies) which can be placed in small metal, plastic or cardboard frames and used as slides in projectors or slide-viewers.

 Color reversal sheet films of large format. They are used by professional photographers in order to produce very-high-resolution images which can be later scanned digitally. 

 Black-and-white reversal film exists but is used rarely.