[nik at work]

Hello photography smart eggs, a litter poser for your collective knowledge.

I need to make a copy of several photographs af varying ages, some old (50's/60's) some not so old (70's/80's) and some recentish (90's/00's). I could just scan 'em all into my computer but what I want is a duplicate set of the photographs which looks "right". So the older photo's printed on the right sort of paper and such like so the duplicate have the same feel as the originals. Does that make sense?

Is it possible to do this? And more importantly can anybody suggest a firm who would be up to this task? And an idea of price (there are a fair number of photo's, lets say ballpark 100)?

It is very unlikely that any of the photo's will still have the negatives with them, but if some of them did would I get a better result using whatever negatives I can find, or is that just adding a layer of complication?

Over to the resident Ansels...

[dave]

I've not done much scanning of prints, but it aught to be possible to get a reasonably faithful "copy" done. Any cheap flatbed scanner should do you if you want to do it yourself. Scans of the negs would be better but assuing you're talking usual small print sizes (7x5" etc) then the extra resolution won't do you any good. Either way, expect to have to spend a bit of time tweak each and everyone to get it close, and you'll probably never get it exact, especially as what you'll see on screen won't equate to what that same file looks like printed (ask PaulB....)

In theory if you've got the negs for some you could get somewhere still doing R41 that knows what they're doing to print them directly and colour match them to your other prints.

[Yossarian]

It would cost a lot to do 100 photos, if you get someone to do them for you that is.  There's a lot of time involved. 

I had to copy a set of old black and white prints that we needed to have reprinted for a particular project.  I scanned them on a high res flatbed, corrected the bad scratches, etc in PS, then they were sent to Metro in Clerkenwell for lambda printing onto nice fibre based paper.  For 20x16 the prints were about £40 each.  If they'd had to scan them and correct too then I imagine it would've cost twice that.

[Paul B]

To be used for?

I might be missing something here but the prints you have surely exhibit the characteristics of whatever they were shot and printed on. You're not going to remove this by scanning the image in and relative to each other the printed output (if the same printer is used) will remain the same? If you're searching for 100% colour and printed accuracy then just start smashing your head against a wall now. It'll be less painful.

[Johnny Brown]

Getting a 99% match on a copy of the print should be a lot easier than getting a print to match a screen.

Not sure whether it'll be worth trying to match the paper though. What is the paper like? Gloss/ matt etc?

[nik at work]

Thanks for the thoughts so far folks.

The situation is that there is a set of family photographs covering the last few decades. For no doubt fairly standard modern family strife type reasons the "family" now has two distinct parts. Part A has the set of photos and is unwilling to give them up readily, part B feels that if the photos stay with part A they will soon end up thrown away/forgotten/destroyed and so is keen to acquire the photographs.
My solution is to have a copy of the photographs made so each group can have a set, I'm just trying to establish if this is possible (without excessive cost impplicaations). I don't want one set to be scans on a computer, but rather two physical sets that are ideally indistinguishable from one another (obvioulsy hopeful thinking but something to aim for).

My question re: matchign paper sources is with particular reference to some photo's that I'd guess are late seventies where the paper appears to be slightly textured (kind of bumpy for want of a technical term), I'm not so bothered about this it's more of a "would be nice".

When you say

Getting a 99% match on a copy of the print should be a lot easier than getting a print to match a screen.

What do you mean JB? I'm a photo know nothing. Do you mean scan a photo, then print a copy, then see iof it matches the original, then tweak things(????) on the computer, then reprint and see if you have a better match. Repeat until success/mental instability is acheived?

For the record I'm not personally fussed about the photo's, this is an attempt to appease others.

[robertostallioni]

I have not one, but two solutions.

1) Simply cut each photo in half, approximating closest family members to each half, obviously. or

2) invite the 2-4 most senior family members around to yours for a winner-takes-all monopoly/cluedo/trivial pursuits game-off. maybe best off three across all three diciplines.

logic.

[Johnny Brown]

The textured stuff may well just be standard matt paper - is the grain of the bumps pretty fine (<1mm)?

I would pay someone else to do it. Try a local printshop, maybe do ten or so first as a check. I daresay any differences will not be obvious unless you have the luxury of side-by-side comparisons.

With the print/ screen match thing, I was referring to digital photographers struggling to make prints that match what they had on screen. This is (mainly) due to the big differences in viewing a backlit lcd screen compared to inks on paper. What you're doing is essentially high-end photocopying, ie it shouldn't be an issue.

[nik at work]

Cheers JB, I'll just go for a local copy shop then.

Although I like the sound of a winner takes all game of Risk...

[dave]

Sounds more like textured paper rather than matt. That type of thing is still available for darkroom and inkjet papers so shouldn't be a problem to replicate.

[Grubes]

2) invite the 2-4 most senior family members around to yours for a winner-takes-all monopoly/cluedo/trivial pursuits game-off. maybe best off three across all three diciplines.

where did you get the idea from?

[robertostallioni]

no way, evil Luke.

would be more like  this, I bet.

[dave]

Sounds more like textured paper rather than matt. That type of thing is still available for darkroom and inkjet papers so shouldn't be a problem to replicate.

[nik at work]

I have to say that personally I have no real interest in the photographs. I can remember what the people in my immediate family look like, and I can remember "great days out" without the need of a poorly focused line-up of people looking awkward and ill-at-ease.
As for the older images, I don't know the people and get no real connection from a photo (especially the standard family photo genre, perhaps a really good pro shot would be more evocative for me?). I'd be far more interested in a written history, but for my family this is non-existant. Any-hoo, I tend to agree that it is easy to get guilted into feeling you should care deeply about these scraps of paper. Living next door to a graveyard has made me realise quite how rapidly the bulk of the dead get forgotten* (within a generation in most cases I'd suggest), but I certainly don't criticise this. Anyway I feel this has gone wildly OT..

* when I say forgotten I probably don't mean forgotten but rather that the outward displays of memory stop (flowers on grave etc).

[nik at work]

Crack on, I've got the answer to my question so bring forth the debate.

FWIW I agree with you (assuming I have fully understood your standpoint), I think everyone has their own way of remembering or celebrating people/things/whatever and it is a great shame that as a society we seem to insist that people grieve in the "right" way. I'd far rather my wife took our kids on a massive world tour in a camper van doing cool stuff in my memory than she sat around wearing black and crying (although a bit of crying would be OK ). Luckily evidence suggests I'm immortal (I haven't died yet, so see no reason why I should suddenly start) so it's all a bit acamdemic...

[robertostallioni]

I'll bring the board round then.