Many photographers have boxes of old film negatives they would like to access in Lightroom. While most film scanning software can automatically invert the photos, this won’t work when using a camera to photograph them. So, how do you invert your negative into a positive photo? We’ll look at both processing it manually and how it can be simplified using a Lightroom plugin. The processing is somewhat different to digital photos!!
Scanning the negatives
We photographed our negatives on an inexpensive light box, with a camera mounted on a tripod looking directly down on it. For best results, shoot raw with slight over-exposure. Also, mask out any unwanted areas of light. Sandwiching the negative between two pieces of cardboard (ideally black) helps to keep it flat. An air duster helps to remove any dust to save retouching later.
Here’s the set-up we used:
Using Lightroom
We’re going to look at this using Lightroom Classic, but exactly the same can be done using Lightroom (cloud).
You can use the Develop module to change a negative scan into a positive image by reversing the tone curve. We need to change the direction of the curve and to do this we need to use the Point Curve. In Lightroom Classic, click the button in the lower right corner of the Tone Curve panel to switch to Point Curve. In the cloud-based apps, it’s the white circle. Here’s the before and after:
In Lightroom Classic, some people have trouble moving the two end-points one at a time from top to bottom. If so, try moving the left one halfway, then the other down to the bottom corner. Be sure to grab the very corner, if the line starts to bend then you haven’t got the corner. Then, finish the first point to the top corner.
At this point the photo won’t look right and will need some processing but it won’t be a negative anymore.
Preset
To save time, we suggest saving the tone curve as a preset, so for the next negative you can easily just click the preset (only save the tone curve in the preset).
Editing in Lightroom
After inversion, the photo will probably look very cold but you can use Lightroom’s normal sliders to make adjustments. However, because we reversed the tone curve, almost every slider will work in reverse (Contrast is an exception). Slider pairs are also reversed, for example, Whites affect the Blacks clipping, and vice versa.
To start, just try the Exposure slider – move to the left makes the photo brighter, to the right darker. Same with Temperature, to warm it up you go to the left. Even Vignette works in reverse! It’s quite tricky to start with, so it’s worth processing quite a number of negatives in a session as you do get used to it!
Here is the photo from the beginning with the tone curve adjustment made, then with some color and exposure corrections. In this one we used Split Toning to remove some of the Shadows color cast. Using the individual R, G, B channels and pulling the end points to the ends of the histogram can also be effective.
Using Negative Lab Pro plug-in
To speed up the process and improve the colors, there is an excellent plug-in called Negative Lab Pro. This doesn’t just invert the photo but also makes intelligent adjustments. Negative Lab Pro uses custom designed camera profiles that were made specifically for more accurate negative conversions. The result is closer to typical print lab processing. It’s generally a much better starting point for your editing.
First, open the photo in Loupe view to see a large preview. If using a raw file, crop the photo and do a basic White Balance adjustment (just click on the darkest part of the picture). When you use the plug-in to convert an image, there are sliders for initial adjustments and they work in the direction you expect, which is much easier! Negative Lab Pro also helps you remove the orange cast for a more accurate color. Here’s the same negative we used before with no adjustments.
It uses Lightroom’s sliders to make the adjustments, therefore doesn’t need to create an additional file. The plug-in uses its own Profile to achieve some of the behind the scenes work and some clever tone curve adjustments. Of course, from here we can go further in Lightroom, but it’s a great start and closer to the original prints. Negative Lab Pro expects to get you about 90% to your finished article. In our trials, we’d agree with that. It certainly speeds up the process.
The Trial gives the first 12 conversions free, and only counts ones where you accept the changes, so you can cancel the process on a photo if you don’t like the result.
There’s good video guides on their site too. We have a forum post running on the topic where the plug-in Author, Nate, is contributing to comments and Members are sharing their experiences.
Conclusion
Whether you use the Lightroom tone curve to invert and then process manually, or a plug-in to speed up the process, its lovely to save treasured memories that can then be shared with friends and family!
Additional resources
There are some very helpful community blogs you may find helpful too:
Digitizing Your Slides by Photography
Processing the Photographs of Your Slides
Dealing with Textured Prints when Scanning
Lightroom Queen Forum thread discussing plug-in
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
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Yeah …. woah! Tried the invert in LR classic. I’m comfortable with final color tuning — at least in other apps — so I tried that. But it’s a tough nut to crack with a reversed negative image. Too much to coordinate together.
My advice: Skip right to the “get Negative Lab Pro” step. After a few tries noodling the final color saturation, etc I downloaded NLP and … problems solved!!! They let you try it for free on 24 images, and I saw the value on my FIRST image. Do note that the quick start instructions advise you to try a few NLP presets under the convert tab and experimenting with those does make further improvements. The NLP presets/sliders seem to be specifically geared to precise tweaking of issues you might have with importing color negatives. I had heard NLP was good in various reviews of scanning and that has turned out to be true. It’s simple, effective and well tuned for this particular task.
Thanks for sharing your experience, I’m sure that’ll help others too.
Hi Victoria,
I re-photographed a bunch of old negatives and reversed the tone curve to make them into positives(?). All worked well until I tried facial recognition. Facial recognition did not find any of the faces in the pictures.
I finally had to move the negative images into photoshop, convert them into positives and move them back into Lightroom – which was a painful and slow process.
Does the the Negative Lab Pro play well with facial recognition?
Thanks and stay safe,
Dan
I doubt it, since face recognition works off the originals, and likely isn’t tuned for negatives. You can manually draw in the faces though.
I use NLP “Convert to TIFF” function, then stack the converted version with the negative. Face recongition works on positives only. One more reason to vote for https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/inverting_in_camera_b_w_negative_scans_to_positives_lr4_feature_request
I read your most recent Lightroom Queen newsletter and enjoyed your suggestions for some “indoor” photography projects while waiting out the COVID-19 pandemic. The digitization of old slides, negatives and prints was especially interesting. I undertook that project a few years ago and can confirm that it can be a biggie. I used a Nikon Coolscan 5000 Film Scanner which is no longer made but there are other, cheaper options available today not to mention commercial film scanning services if your only goal is to import the digital equivalent of your analog collection into Lightroom.
If anyone is seriously considering a film scanning project and interested in a verbose version of the two-step project plan outlined in the Newsletter, you can find a series of posts describing my scanning project by selecting “Film Scanner Project” from the category list at https://scanningnegativesandslides.wordpress.com
Thanks for sharing G!
Use the “White balance selector” on the color negative film base outside the image area because that is your “wrong” White balance.
I had recently done some digitization of some slides using the camera + macro setup. I had done this before with a different batch of slides and had used an attached scanner copy white light. Worked great. Scanner light will not fire up now with the new Windows versions.
So I used an iPad set to white. Seemed to work great until I loaded them into Lr.
All of them were ruined by the addition of the small patterns in the light emission from the iPad screen. Guess my macro picked up too much detail.
I’ll have to try again with is frosted/diffused light base.
Also, remember to clean off the slides very well as all the dirt specks show up under macro.
Also, try modifying the setup to create distance between the negative/slide and the iPad screen. This should throw the iPad pixel pattern out of focus, creating a matte white background.
That could be good. I was using an f 5.6 on a 1:1 macro to ensure my manual focus would include everything, but, based on your advice, it may have had too much DOF. Thanks
You might want to experiment using diffusion that we use on film lights. No color shift and easy to just tape on to an iPad. If you know anyone who works on films or commercials im sure they would give you some. Just tape it flat on the screen. Even the lightest should work or use Lee #250 or similar. We use because there is no pattern, just light diffusion.
Thanks. I’ve got the Panasonic Leica 12-60mm lens which focuses pretty close– but at its minimum focus distance the negative only takes up about two-thirds of the viewfinder frame. So it may work but I’ll be sacrificing a little resolution. I guess I’ll learn by trial and error!
Hello Victoria, thanks for your great website and book. Do you use a macro lens to photograph negatives? I’m getting ready to photograph a bunch of old negatives and am thinking of buying a macro lens for my Lumix camera. Thanks!
I used the Olympus 60mm Macro for many of the scans, but I’ve also been quite happy with the results from the 12-100 Pro Zoom, which is pin sharp and focus well at short range.
Thanks! Nice workaround to work with negative film, although, I still find unbelievable that lightroom doesn’t have a “positive/negative switch”. It’s problematic to work with inverted sliders.
I’ve been campaigning for that for a long time, so add your vote to this feature request: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/inverting_in_camera_b_w_negative_scans_to_positives_lr4_feature_request. That said, I’m so impressed with Negative Lab Pro, I may even stick to that even after Adobe adds such a switch.
interesting article, thanks
I have lots of negatives in my collection to do so hope to get round to ….
I like the tripod you show in your setup are you able to share the make/model ?
That’s a Manfrotto BeFree Compact Travel Tripod. Nice and lightweight but not too flimsy, I like it.
Thanks, but unfortunately it seems that particular model is discontinued…. the newer versions don’t appear to as good as this one looks…. guess I need to look for something else…
Just in time! I just inherited 12,000 negatives from my parents to scan…
Thanks!
That’ll take you a while!