Opaque and transparent phototypes.

La bonne lumière, pour chaque support.

Transparent materials are digitised by transmitted light, at resolutions of up to 4,800 dpi: grain and detail in shadows and highlights are preserved, and negatives are rendered as positives.

Opaque prints and albums are reproduced by reflected light on photographic copy stands with symmetrical twin lighting, which avoids reflections and cast shadows. Each photograph is handled with gloves, in a room dedicated to photographic collections.

What we handle

• Glass plates: Negatives and positives, all formats up to 24 × 30, handled with gloves and dedicated interleaving sheets.
• Negatives: Rolls, strips and sheet films, black and white or colour.
• Slides and ektachromes: 24 × 36, 6 × 6 and medium formats, mounted.
• Prints and albums: Paper photographs, contact sheets, bound albums.
• Postcards: Recto, verso optional, series named identically.
• Old films: Nitrate and acetate bases, handled with particular care.

Technical specifications

• Resolution: Up to 4,800 dpi depending on format
• Light: Transmitted or reflected, depending on the medium
• Equipment: Phase One IQ4 studios, Slidesnap Pro + Fujifilm GFX100 II
• Capture: 14- or 16-bit RAW, automatic processing disabled
• Colour: Opaque and transparent IT-8 targets, ICC profiles
• Lighting: LED with CRI ≥ 95, daylight 5,000 to 5,600 K
• Delivered files: TIFF, JPEG 2000, JPEG, master and access
• Standards: FADGI 4-star and Metamorfoze

01 · Préparation — Un fonds propre, avant toute prise de vue.

Photographic materials are processed in a room reserved for photographic collections, separate from the other workshops, windowless and with its own ventilation. Each document is checked with a magnifier and on a light table before being digitised.

If necessary, it is dry-dusted with soft brushes, antistatic brushes and an air blower, without any chemicals. Slides are processed without removing their mounts; glass plates are separated by Photosafe paper and, if necessary, cleaned on the glass side only.

02 · Prise de vue — Toute l’information du support, rien de plus.

Captures are made in 14- or 16-bit RAW, at the lowest sensitivity, in manual mode and tethered directly to the control workstation. Focusing is done by hand, on the film grain.

Plates are placed emulsion side towards the sensor, on a backlit support for negatives or on a neutral background for positives. A colour chart is photographed with each new series, and the histogram is checked on every image to avoid overexposure.

03 · Traitement et restitution — Une image fidèle, un original intact.

In post-production, the operator adjusts exposure and white balance from the chart, inverts negatives, removes visible dust and crops the image. Densities are compared with the original: corrections remain light and never alter the integrity of the photograph.

An independent team then checks each batch on calibrated screens. The photographs are refiled in their exact place, in their original packaging, and an acknowledgement of receipt confirms their safe return.

La sécurité des originaux, avant tout.

Conditions designed for photography.

Photographic materials are stored flat, in their original packaging, in premises kept between 15 and 17 °C and between 30 and 40% relative humidity, values specific to photographic materials.

They are collected by our teams, transported in suitable crates, and an acknowledgement of receipt is issued both on arrival and on return.

Difficult cases are part of the job.

Cracked or broken plates, lifting emulsions, fogged films, faded colours: every degraded photograph is examined before any capture, and the operator adapts the support without ever forcing.

When dusting seems delicate or a document presents a risk, we contact you and wait for your instructions before intervening.

Des fichiers prêts à l’usage.

The image is only one step. We deliver files ready to join your photo library, database or access portal.

• Metadata: Technical and descriptive (EXIF, IPTC), naming according to your references and rules.
• Master and access: A preservation file and an access image, inverted to positive.
• Indexing: Entry of captions and annotations written on sleeves or mounts.
• Refiling: Photographs put back in their exact place, with acknowledgement of receipt.

Ministries, local authorities, archive services and museums entrust us with their photographic collections.

• Ministry of the Armed Forces – Defence Historical Service: Negative films, microfilms and glass plates; opaque photographs and iconography.
• City of Lille: Iconographic and photographic documents, opaque and transparent.
• City of Marseille: Photographic documents on all materials and in all formats.
• Saint-Brieuc Municipal Archives: Heritage digitisation of black-and-white negatives.
• Oceanographic Institute – Albert I Foundation: Digitisation of transparent photographic materials.
• Eure Departmental Archives: Digitisation and indexing of photographic prints.

Frequently asked questions

What is photographic digitisation, and which materials does it cover?

The term phototype refers to any photographic material carrying an image: glass plates, negatives and positives on flexible film, slides, Ektachromes, sheet films, but also paper prints, contact sheets, photographic postcards and albums. Digitising them means producing, from these originals, a digital image that faithfully renders all the information they contain: image detail, tonal range, colours and, for older materials, the traces of their physical history.

There are two main families. Transparent materials (glass plates, negatives, slides) are read through: they are digitised by transmitted light, that is, lit from behind, through the support. Opaque materials (prints, albums, postcards) are read by reflection: they are lit from above, under controlled light that avoids reflections and cast shadows. Each family calls for specific equipment, settings and handling.

Photographic collections are among the most fragile heritage collections. Emulsions scratch, nitrate and cellulose acetate bases deteriorate, glass plates crack, and the colours of slides and Ektachromes fade over time. For an archive service, a library, a museum or a local authority, photographic digitisation therefore first meets a need to safeguard: once digitised, the originals can be kept in good conditions and are no longer handled at every consultation.

It also meets a need for access. Many collections remain invisible because they cannot be consulted without risk: negatives never printed, glass plates stored in their original boxes, inventory slides. Digitised, inverted to positive and accompanied by their metadata, they can feed an online photo library, an exhibition, a publication or a research project.

Finally, photographic digitisation is often an opportunity to get to know a collection better: inventory, identification of formats and polarities, identification of degraded items. This preliminary work, carried out with you, determines the quality of the whole campaign.

How can glass plates be digitised without damaging them?

Glass plates are among the most demanding photographic materials: heavy, brittle, often cracked or chipped, they carry a fragile emulsion that can lift or scratch at the slightest friction. Digitising them relies on precise organisation and handling.

Plates are processed in a room reserved for photographic collections, separate from the other workshops, windowless and with its own ventilation, to avoid any contamination by dust from registers or bundles. They are handled with nitrile gloves, always by the edges, and separated from one another by a sheet of cotton Photosafe paper, so that they do not scratch each other.

Before capture, each plate is visually inspected with a magnifier and on a light table. If necessary, it is dry-dusted with soft brushes, antistatic brushes and an air blower. Light wet cleaning may be carried out, on the glass side only and never on the emulsion side, with lint-free cotton barely moistened with demineralised water, followed by air-drying on an inclined support. No solvent or chemical is ever applied to the emulsion.

Capture is carried out on a Phase One IQ4 studio fitted with a macro lens. The plate is placed emulsion side towards the sensor, on a backlit transparent support for a negative, or on a neutral background for a positive. Lighting is even, focusing is manual and exposure is checked on the histogram. A colour chart is photographed before each new series of plates.

When a plate is broken, cracked or has a lifting emulsion, the operator forces nothing: they adapt the support, digitise if it can be done without risk and systematically report the condition of the document. If in doubt, digitisation is suspended and you are consulted before any intervention. After digitisation, the plates go back into their original packaging, in the same order, with any annotated papers that accompanied them.

Which resolution and formats for photographic digitisation?

The resolution for digitising photographic materials is defined according to the size of the original and the intended use of the files. The smaller the item, the higher the resolution must be to obtain a usable image: a 24 × 36 negative or a slide is commonly digitised between 2,400 and 3,600 dpi, while a glass plate or a medium-format print offers a larger surface and is digitised between 600 and 2,400 dpi. For very small prints, we can go up to 4,800 dpi.

For prints and postcards, digitised by reflected light, a resolution of around 750 dpi finely renders the paper grain and image details, while keeping file sizes reasonable. Glossy prints are specially checked for reflections, and contact sheets are digitised as full pages.

Bit depth matters as much as resolution. We capture in 14- or 16-bit RAW, which preserves the full richness of the histogram and allows a colour shift, a cast or underexposure to be corrected without degrading the image. Files can then be delivered at 16 bits per channel (48-bit colour, 16-bit greyscale) for preservation, or at 8 bits per channel for access, after a careful choice of the tonal range to keep.

As for formats, uncompressed TIFF remains the reference for long-term preservation; JPEG 2000 offers a good balance between quality and size; JPEG is used for online publication and consultation. It is common to deliver two sets from the same capture: a preservation master and an access image, already inverted to positive for negatives.

Colour accuracy is guaranteed by calibrating workstations on IT-8 targets specific to opaque and transparent documents, for which we hold the reference value files, and by ICC profiles suited to each lighting setup. Our reproduction studios follow the FADGI (4-star level) and Metamorfoze guidelines, two international benchmarks for heritage digitisation.

These parameters are never fixed in advance: they are proposed on the basis of an analysis of your collection, then validated on a test sample representative of each type (formats, polarities, states of preservation) before production starts.

How are negatives inverted to positives, and colours faithfully rendered?

A negative cannot be read directly: its values are inverted and, in colour, it carries an orange mask that distorts any raw reading. Conversion to positive is therefore a decisive step in digitising photographic materials, requiring both suitable tools and a trained eye.

We capture the negative as it is, in 16-bit RAW, under diffuse, even backlighting, with a custom white balance and all the camera’s automatic processing disabled (sharpening, noise reduction, lens corrections). This raw file is the reference: it contains all the information on the film, without interpretation.

Inversion is then carried out in Capture One Cultural Heritage, software designed for heritage reproduction, with dedicated tools for converting black-and-white and colour transparencies. The operator inverts the tone curve, neutralises the mask, adjusts the levels of each channel to obtain a natural rendering, then checks the densities against the original document.

For slides and Ektachromes, which are already positives, the challenge is different: colours have often shifted over time, towards magenta, cyan or yellow. We only correct these casts if you wish, and always from the richer 16-bit histogram, so as not to create tonal banding. By default, digitisation renders the document in its current state, which is the rule for a preservation file.

In every case, corrections remain light: exposure, white balance from the photographed chart, contrast and clarity to reveal details, removal of visible dust, cropping. They must never alter the integrity of the photograph: a scratch, a gap in the emulsion or an old retouch are part of the document’s history and remain visible. Where useful, we deliver both the raw file and the processed file, so that each use has the image it needs.

The consistency of an entire campaign is ensured by periodically capturing a colour chart and a grey scale, which make it possible to check that no drift appears from one day to the next or from one workstation to another.

How does a photographic digitisation project work, and how is its cost estimated?

A photographic digitisation project always starts with an analysis of the collection: number of items, formats, polarities, presence of glass plates or old films, state of preservation, packaging. In many collections these characteristics are only partly known; we clarify them with you, if necessary by sampling boxes or drawers.

Next comes the test run: we digitise a sample covering each type in the collection, under real production conditions (resolution, bit depth, inversion, naming, metadata), and submit it to you. Production only starts after your approval.

The photographic materials are collected by our teams, transported in suitable crates and stored in premises whose temperature (15 to 17 °C) and relative humidity (30 to 40%) are set specifically for photographic materials. They are stored flat, in their original packaging, and processed in a dedicated room, away from the other workshops. An acknowledgement of receipt is issued on arrival, then a second on return, confirming the originals have been properly returned and refiled in their exact place.

After capture, each batch is checked by a team independent from production: completeness, framing, sharpness, densities, inversion, naming and metadata. Any non-compliant image is redone free of charge. Files are delivered in the agreed formats and remain backed up on our servers until your final approval. Throughout the project, a single point of contact follows your file and sends you production reports.

Cost depends mainly on the number of images, the type of materials and their condition. Mounted slides can be digitised in series, up to 1,800 per hour on our dedicated setup; a cracked glass plate or an album of mounted prints, on the other hand, requires item-by-item handling and much more time. Additional services (dusting, plate cleaning, inversion and colour correction, double file sets, indexing, repackaging) are priced separately.

To get an estimate, describe your collection in our online quote tool: a project manager will get back to you to refine the costing, if necessary after examining a sample. We also respond to consultations and public tenders from archive services, libraries, museums and local authorities.