This guide is meant to answer any and all questions related to our Grandma’s Closet Special for developing and scanning your old rolls of film.

So you found a bag of old film in your closet/attic/garage/fallout shelter, and now you want to try and get those rolls developed, but you don’t know where to start. You take it to Walgreens or CVS, only to find out that they no longer develop film in their stores (here are the big drugstores and what they still develop), and the ones that do have to ship it out. 1-hour photo? Forget about it. So then what? What happens if you decide to develop them and there is nothing on the rolls? For pictures you might not even care about? Will they even turn out? What happens if they are unexposed? How will I get my scans? What does scanning even mean? What if the rolls are 20 or even 30 years old; what will they look like? The person behind the counter can’t answer your questions. They might not have even seen a roll of film before. So you take the rolls home and put them back in the closet, but you have the nagging feeling that won’t leave you alone. Well, Memphis Film Lab is here to answer all those questions and to help get those things developed before it is too late.

Age

The most frequent question we get asked when someone is trying to get old film developed usually has something to do with the age of the film. Some might not even realize that film will deteriorate over time, but it does. That little expiration date on the box? It’s real. Exposed film has something called a latent image. Basically, when you snapped that picture at your cousin’s wedding in 1997, your camera let in light that was then stored on the film as an image. In order to see that image, the film must be developed using special chemicals. However, over time the color dyes in the film have started to break down and the image has started to fade. Of course, storage plays a big role in how these rolls will turn out. The biggest factors in film deterioration are heat and humidity. So film stored in a basement will look different than film stored in a drawer or in an attic or in a garage, and so on.

So what will your images look like once your old film is developed and scanned? That’s hard to say for sure without first developing them. Our general rule of thumb is that anything under 10 years is pretty good. You will see some minor color shifts, your blacks will start to turn blue, maybe some indoor shots taken without a flash will be too dark, and so on. 10-20 years will see some noticeable deterioration. You will see those blues really start to take over. The grain size will increase, you might even lose a few shots on the roll. Anything older will be hit or miss and on a case-by-case basis. Of course these are not hard and fast rules. We have seen film that was less than ten years old barely turn out and film that was 30 years old look amazing. Have a look below at some examples from previous rolls we have developed and how they can vary over time.

Color Correction

Many labs will simply develop your old film and send you the scans as is. At Memphis Film Lab we adjust for the age of the film. We use proprietary algorithms to balance out those ugly blue casts and magenta overtones as much as we can. This allows you to get the best possible image available from your scans without having to correct them in Photoshop on your own. More work can always be done, but we do the heavy lifting for you. In extreme circumstances we convert the images to black and white, which, while not desirable, will help eliminate very bad color casts.

Take a look at this before and after:

Prints

For old film, we do not recommend purchasing prints until you have seen your images. Because old film is so unpredictable, you might end up paying for prints you don’t want. Instead we develop the film, scan it, and send you a link for you to download and decide on prints later.

Scanning Artifacts

Sometimes the image will be so faint that you can’t even see it with the naked eye. Luckily our top of the line film scanners are able to capture any image that is still left on the film. This will of course come with added digital noise and artifacts as the scanner struggles to piece together an image. With very dense or faint negatives, you can expect to see some issues arise as the scanners try as hard as they can to produce a workable image. You can expect to see banding and digital noise that might get mistaken for grain, but in reality is an artifact of the scanner rendering. The intensity of these issues varies based on age and condition of the film, but it is a good idea to expect to see them. See above examples for some mentions of digital noise.