How to scan 35mm or 120 negatives without a scanner. 

I have been a photographer for over 45 year, spent big bucks for gear and you use two tuna cans, 2 sheets of glass and a box . You are the MAN .

I had to laugh when you said, "Now ya take 2 cans of Tuna…", but it works! Great tutorial man!

We need more people like you on youtube

I just spent a whole frustrating evening trying to setup my camera on a tripod, putting film in a specially designed loader/holder (which sucked) and taking shots of my negatives. And here you are with a box and two cans of tuna. I love it! Thank you sir for pulling me out of a rabbit hole!

In the UK we had a children's programme screened in the 60s and 70s called Blue Peter, one of my favourite programmes when I was a kid. They would do things like this twice a week., showing us young children how to make toys and games out of cardboard and empty squeezy bottles that held cleaners and dishwashing liquids, toliet rolls, sellotape and anything else around the house. I loved it. You've just taken me back to my childhood and you've helped me solve my own negative scaneing problem. All power to you. Great tutorial. I especially like the tuna cans solution.

I have to say that i was looking to buy a $150 to $190 scanner... but this i just Aswesome, and no i'm not being sarcastic, it works, and you sir have saved me good money, thank you :)

this man is a genius who saved me 200 euros

you could pass as a look-alike for Ron Swanson from the TV show Parks and Recreation LOL!

For home and family use, it sounds fantastic. Your explanation of how color works is great.

Those cans of tunas are legit game changers

I love all the household solutions for scanning negatives there are. The low-cost, store-bought slide scanners just don't do these old priceless photos justice. I used a tripod head, with a clamp (so I could turn it 90 degrees), attached it to an LP record stand, and set a daylight simulator (for enhancing mood during the winter months) underneath it. I just like seeing other people's solutions so I might improve my own. Well done!

One of the Best Practical RU-vid I have ever seen on any subject. Great way to prototype and use what is around you. You saved me money. I was going to get my film developed with print for $12 dollars and now I can just get the Negatives to $6.

I've been doing something like that but I've had the pixels from the ipad bleeding through. Thanks for the tips!!! I have larger negatives than any of the machines that I've found, but don't want to spend so much money on a new expensive scanner that will do them. This looks perfect!

Thank you so much! My film was so old that no store would scan it for me. I've now been able to salvage it myself into some (not too terrible) looking images from my vacation!

This is amazing!! I've saved so much than buying a pricey scanner and even developing in stores! Thank you so much!

Jeff, you made my day. I'm going to make one of these tomorrow. All tutorials should be this much fun

What a fantastic video. Everything is so simple and basic, and even someone as lo-tech as myself found it so easy to use. I can't thank you enough, it has saved me a fortune!

Give this man a gold medal !! 🏅

You are the kind of man I want to be for my children. A practical genius.

thank you so much for your tips, my dad was a keen photographer, he developed his own films and printed them, I have quite a few 59 plus year old negatives which i would love to share with the family and at last after seeing your video I might be able to do this. Thank you again

Sir, you are my people! I'm notorious for doing stuff like this, but I had not yet figured out a good way to digitize my negs and slides, and you've nailed it! Thanks so much for this video, and for getting right to the point! So many videos start out with 5 minutes of yakking about nothing. Great job! You're a genius! :)

Jeffrey you are a genius. In a just world you would be able to retire as a minor national hero on an idea this simple and effective.

Jeffery. You are love. You are light. But seriously, thank you for this tutorial!

This is exactly what I needed to digitize the negatives my late father brought back from India during WWII that he took with, I think, a Brownie camera. You can imagine what this might mean to me. And I love DIY that's cheap and works and is faintly ridiculous but did I mention it works? I couldn't even find a commercial unit at any price that seemed to fit the job. Well done!

This is brilliant. I have a scanner but it's a hassle to unpack and use, and the phones are so good now that the images will be totally useable. You solved the 'squareness' problem so simply. Thanks!

I love this, a guy with real ingenuity, this is for many people on a budget a real WORKING solution, thanks for sharing!

Thx,Mr Jeffrey. I have tons of negatives,both colour ñ b/w. I will try this. I have seen other scanner procedures but this one is easy and triable. Lemme see,thx. Your pic looked really good ,I must say. Clear, with good tone and texture. Memories are so priceless and valuable. Moments don't come back but still through these pictures one can relive them. That's magic.thx.

Hello from Ireland. Thank you Jeffery - great video. Simple engineering - I love it!! Super helpful. I hope you and yours are well. Stay safe.

Total genius tons of old negatives to do and I can't wait to try this

Good ol' Yankee ingenuity is alive and well. I love it. Thanks a million, Jeff.

My good man that was a terrific solution, not to mention free. It’s so quick compared to any other process that I’ve tried. Thanks so much for your efforts.

I thought this was a piss take at first. Its pure class. Some man

This is so simple and yet so effective! Thank you. The tuna can part made me laugh, but that's some great improvising!

This is by far the BEST practical advice I have ever seen on RU-vid regarding slide scanning. And it WORKS. I have over 500 slides that I took on a trip to England, Scotland and Wales 25 years ago. At the time, I had 100 of the slides converted to Kodak PhotoCD, a process no longer available. Somehow I managed to misplace the PhotoCD and have no other digital copies of the 100 slides. So as I was contemplating sending a couple hundred of my precious slides off to ScanCafe and laying out another $100+, I came across this video. Using a light table (which I already owned), a ceramic coffee mug for the stand-off, and my iPhone 7 Plus, I was able to confirm that Jeff's technique works very nicely. I haven't tried this with film negatives, but I'm guessing a small pane of glass added to the mix to keep the negative flat is all that's missing. Thanks Jeff!

Just saw this video. wonderful innovation. Can't wait to try this. Got 35 years of negatives. Will get back after I have tried scanning some negatives. Bangalore, INDIA

Pure genius. Thank you Jeffery!

THIS is what I was looking for! Incredibly ingenious! Thanks for sharing this!

I love you, Jeffrey! You are a "hands down" genius! Because of YOU I'm revisiting slides of my artwork from @35 years back, and am able to easily share their images with my five grown children (37 > 24 yo)--who have never seen artwork I did "in my prime", before I had to work full-time to raise my family!

Real men of genius!!!! Upon seeing your hat, I was like this guy definitely drives an old Grand Cherokee Woody. I was mildly disappointed to see the black and white of the Commander lol. Regardless, you are awesome! I teach high school film photography (which is quite difficult during covid) and this saved my remote learners and is going to allow them to scan at home without major investment. I gave all of my virtual students the Ilford mailing envelopes from B&H and I failed to realize that physical prints were not included in the price, so you my friend saved the day. Thank you!

great video about scanning! always nice to see how others do it. love to find other film photographers on here!

I was told today each scan would cost me $5 :-o Very happy to try with some cans of tuna!

This method works amazing. I was trying other methods and pictures were dark or blurry. I followed this setup and the results are clear, proper colors, and bright. I found a "white background display" online to use on my tablet. Thank you for the video, fantastic!!

oh, my GOSH! i just found a cache of old negatives from my childhood and before and I've been trying to figure how tf to cheaply get them digitised ... and i find you 😁 thank you SO MUCH for sharing this info with the rest of us! ♥️

Brilliant! Just brilliant! I was looking to scan some negatives and thought, there has to be a FASTER and CHEAPER way to do a bunch. This checks all the boxes, and the investment is a couple cans of tuna (cat food in my case)! Thank you for taking the time to post this.

"Regular" tuna cans, priceless! LOL! Love this, many thanks for sharing this great tutorial!

Reading through the comments smiling the entire time, I decided to see if there was anything negative...and apparently there are 157 people who suffer from dyslexia and mistakingly pushed the thumbs down button. So congratulation's on 100 % likes. I look forward to trying this out. Thank You and God Bless you for taking the time to share your knowledge

It is rare to see an instructional video that marries common sense, intelligence and humor. Well done, Mr. Howard!

“Two cans of tuna are enough for your iPhone” it’s something I definitely would love to hear from Tim Cook at an Apple launch event 😂

Jeffery, you're a star. Take a bow! Thank you for a great, informative video.

I just got a nice nice slide scanner. I'm glad I waited until I could afford one because now I have all these slides and I'm finally going to do this the right way so I don't have to do it again. At my age that is priceless.

Can’t wait for the winter with more time to experiment with the old slides I have. I enjoy trying to work out practical solutions, I’m 83 so it was what we had to do all those years ago here in the UK, I guess it was no different “over there”? I thank you for the video, I think it’s brilliant.

Oh what a brilliant idea! Thanks for sharing.

Grassroots approach, well done sir.

Sound!! I look forward to giving this a try!

I am SOOO happy right now. I have boxes of 120 format slides - which are 2.75" x 2.75". NONE of the scanners support this slide size. There's a service online that will do it for $2 per slide!!! This just saved me so much money!

So $2 for picture frames and maybe $7 for a few cans of tuna and I’ve saved $150?! Count me in! This is brilliant. Thank you. 🙂

I have an old old scanner that does the film but I just happened upon this video and loved it. Thanks for posting

This was the exact problem I was having. Thank you very much for this video!

I'm about to become a legend in my family! Thanks for the knowledge Jeffery

Thanks for the additional and very helpful info Jeffery on the slide process, it's definitely a method I'll try via iPhoneI

Thank you so much for posting this technique. I just used it ....and took and awesome picture of my dad from 1971 off an old slide. And it came out beautifully.

Not sure you will see this comment since your video is two years old. I found an old projector of my parents with slides at least 75 years old. The projector no longer worked. I tried your little contraption and could not believe how easy it was to work and how well the pictures turned out. Thank you

Jeffery or should I call Yankee Ingenuity, this is one of the best easy to understand and easy to Do It Your Self videos available recycled box and tuna cans, plus picture glass from the 99 Cents Store or Dollar Tree, it is truly Yankee Ingenuity.

Very creative use of common parts.

Sensible, to the point, informative. Damn near perfect video!

That was fun... got some ideas for my slides scanning. Thanks a lot!

Loved this video ... very down to earth explanation . Well Done!

This is great and informative. Thanks for the tutorial!

I just saw this video and thought it was great, i have a ton of negatives to scan from relatives that have passed and I will use this process to see how it works. Thank you for the video.

What a brilliant tutorial, thank you for all your time spent designing and putting the video together, good man. Subscribed

I used a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone with my MacBook Pro and Photoshop with awesome results. Easy and fast! Had to improvise on the props for height and plane but the focus was right on! High enough resolution for the purpose (PowerPoint presentation through a projector). So Genius! Thank you, Mr. Howard!

great stuff Jeffrey

I'm definitely trying this! thank you!

Great tutorial, gave it a go the other day ,just hand held for a one off frame , quite impressed with the result .

So great! Thank you for this awesome tutorial!

Very ingenious. Thanks, I will give this a try

Amazing video, love this DIY way of doing it!

Thank you for a real cool easy to make DIY scanner fol films to digital.

I have hundreds of negative from generations of my family I was given from from my grandma.i can't wait to try this.

This was so helpful. Thank you so much for this video!

Very Clever. Thank you. I'm going to try this.

I've always wanted a film camera but scared of the cost of scanning film to digital. You're amaaaaazing!

K.I.S.S. Keep it Simple Stupid. It was what I taught my Photography students for forty years. Jeffery Howard does just that on this simple but effective way of scanning images. No fancy or expensive boxes or electronic device. It's just simple . Ask yourself.. What are your objectives? Just pulling the camera away from the light table to eliminate the pixels is once again. Simple. Great video and good job.

Someone give this guy a medal! what a Legend!

Good old American ingenuity! Love this! Excellent tutorial.

this is amazing!! thank you Jeffery

this is brilliant! i did wonder how to overcome iPad screen pixelation! thanks for the content :)

You are really amazing, I was wondering here and there for hours to do this. You are terrific

the simplest method. Brilliant Big Thank you

Well done that man! I have a light box and the tuna can trick is genius!

Simple, inexpensive, and it works. What more can I say? Thanks, guy!

Dear Jeffrey, This tutorial was so helpful and effective. You have such a great way of teaching in a way that is clear and kind. Thanks for saving me a few bucks and for all the help. I highly recommend this tutorial to anyone who comes upon it.

I cant stop laughing on this. I almost bought a scanner for 500€.

This is precisely what RU-vid was created for, brilliant!

A very practical tutorial! Thank you sir!!

This is the best DIY video. THANK YOU! I've even shared this with my Facebook friends and they can't wait to get going on their old negatives. The B&W ones turn out pretty decent; the colored ones, however, need to be tweaked and I don't have the patience for that so I turn them into B&W. If you have an easy way to get the color looking decent, please share! I have found, too, I have to finagle a bit to reduce glare and the bathroom works pretty good for that. So thankful I don't have to hunt down a place to do this for me and then risk damage to the negatives or having them lost/not returned.

Thanks for the helpful video, you are like the Bob Ross of photography!

Modern problems require modern solutions

damn dude, you're the man!

Great video; thanks for doing all the work figuring out how to do this!