I've scanned my own wet plates just by placing them on the glass bed and placing a black opaque cloth. The wet plate process concludes with varnishing the plate, this protects the image from scratches or deterioration for hundreds of years. Is this the best practice, probably not, but again they were my own. The images produced were fantastic and have hung several reproductions. 

All the best 
Sean Schumacher 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Meeks" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 9:56:13 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Scanning Glass Plate Negatives 




Many scanners come with negative carriers for current popular film sizes, such as for 4x5 film. Perhaps the manufacturer has one that is available for your model and could be modified to hold the glass negative. If the negative is based on the old plate sizes that were used for daguerreotypes, tintypes, etc you might have to have someone to fashion you one out of plastic or wood. Many scanners have the ability to auto or manually focus for items that are not flush with the bed of the scanner and you might have to experiment with the proper setting. 



Jim M. 





From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Hart 
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 8:15 AM 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Scanning Glass Plate Negatives 




Hello All, 


It doesn’t happen often, but we sometimes receive requests for images that require us to scan from the glass plate negatives from our Smith-Telfer Photographic Collection. I use a flatbed scanner with a transparency unit and place the emulsion side up and keep something between the bed and the transparency top to keep it from touching, but I’m wondering if there’s a better way. We had talked about building custom frames to set the plates in to keep them elevated off the bed and set into the frame to keep the top unit off of them. Does anyone out there have any suggestions for a better way to scan from these negatives? We only have to scan them once, after that we create a digital file to work from. 





Thank you! 


John 





John Hart, Jr. 


Assistant Curator of Collections 


Interim Rights/Reproduction and Photo Sales Handler 


New York State Historical Association 


The Farmers' Museum 


PO Box 800 


Cooperstown, NY 13326 


P: (607) 547-1447 


F: (607) 547-1406 


[log in to unmask] 










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