I recently received a box of exposed photographic dry plates shot in the late 1800s. The plates, made by the M.A. Seed Dry Plate Company, are photographic negatives on glass since plastic didn’t exist at the time. We can date them because, in 1902, M.A. Seed became part of the burgeoning Eastman Kodak Company. Plates sold after 1902 would have borne the Kodak brand.
Remarkably, despite being around 130 years old, these plates have held up well. They were faded with age and showed some minor damage from handling and fungus. Each plate was meticulously cleaned and restored before being scanned.
Each plate was carefully inspected and cleaned using a solution that will not harm the delicate emulsion.
Once cleaned, each plate was placed on a special light source for digitizing negatives. The plate was then captured in a series of very close images spanning the entire surface of the plate. This resulted in a digital file equivalent to approximately 400 megapixels.
Each high resolution digital image was then brought into ON-1 Photo Raw where it was carefully examined and using the wide variety of tools in ON-1 chunks of missing emulsion and scratches were repaired.
Finally each plate was printed to make a final hard copy of the image.
Here is a gallery of the plates. We don’t yet know who these people are. Their names may be lost to time, but we’ve had instances in the past where someone recognized a face, allowing us to eventually reunite the photographs with the descendants. It’s quite possible that these individuals were a family that lived in the Vancouver area around 1900.
If you have any tips or think you recognize anyone in these photos, please contact me.
Jim Sollows Photography
https://www.sollows.ca
Wonderful article and info about your restorations! You certainly applied very careful handling. Your setup with the lighted surface under each and then precisely photographing worked very well.
With my own restorations of negatives and prints I’ve used ON1’s Black & White Effects and sometimes used Blend Mode of Luminosity.