If your negatives have been in the envelopes they normally were returned in, they should be OK.

My daughter and I developed a lot of old photos for a family history book. Of course, at the time, we had a darkroom that my husband built, so it was convenient to do so. What fun we had with those books. I'm hoping to do the same with all the great-grandparents and grandparents' photos from all sides of their tree. That way, when a baby is born, they can check photos to see who they resemble.

I would highly recommend that you keep all the negatives, if possible. They can be a treasure.

These negatives were in a wax paper envelope. I've kept them all so far.

Sounds like a neat project for you and something you are committed to. I have pictures of relatives, and unfortunately, some are too far back or too distantly related to identify.

Thanks for your insight

Easy to use with both negatives and slides. Comes bundled with Silverfast software to scan on both Windows and Mac.

$350 on Amazon.

I might not be successful, might not follow through. I just downloaded Helmut, a free scanning app with a negative scanning feature to my android phone. Going to try to scan a couple of negatives.

Thanks for the information.

my brother is also currently scanning all his old slides (about 2000) with this scanner. his slides go back to the 60s and they are coming out beautifully. and the slides are all dated so we know exactly when they were taken.

https://plustek.com/us/of8100/index.php?gclid=Cj0KCQiAiNnuBRD3ARIsAM8Kmlt-B9_zb5C9z1J5aDc9yxK3Uf6l1CMPxxwh7zBD1Nm_PwTv597oxzIaAqp7EALw_wcB

Goat hair is apparently a recent cheap substitute. These are very soft, won't scratch the delicate surface of the film. Don't wipe with anything using applied pressure.

Try searching eBay or Amazon. I've been shopping for camel's hair brushes there. A lot of 'vintage' items are up for sale, as well as more recent ones which purport to be 'improved' versions -- e caveat emptor.

These are just examples, there's a lot of different approaches; I'm not endorsing this dealer or any particular product -- you might have to go to photo forums for actual user reviews: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Film-Cleaning/ci/18802/N/4077265213

You can get one around $200-220 direct from Epson. This V600 is on sale right now: https://epson.com/For-Home/Scanners/Photo-Scanners/Epson-Perfection-V600-Photo-Scanner/p/B11B198011 and the price includes free shipping.

The problem is the Epson software pretty much sucks, but go to the Advanced Setting tab and you can do more with it. Or buy VueScan which is much better software but harder to learn.

As for the reddish (or actually magenta) photos - most photo software can adjust for that automatically. For a period Kodak had a problem with their photo, slides and negatives and they turned. When I run them through my Epson, it corrects much of the color, then I process with Photoshop and the difference is amazing, colors are back where they should be.

I had to get an Epson V800 Photo Scanner since I have medium size antique slides and needed the larger scan area. This is where I have the most problem with the Epson software. Even though the scan area is as large as 8x10" it is a hassle to get it to scan the negative I have, about 4x5", correctly. This is where VueScan saved me a lot of trouble. If all you are doing are standard 35 mm slides and negatives, you will be good. Odd and older sizes, try VueScan.