The early years of photography
The early years of photography utilized glass rather than paper as a foundation upon which negatives were printed. Using glass allowed for a sharper, more stable and detailed image from which multiple photographs could then be produced. This type of photography was popular from the early 1850s through the 1920s. Due to the fragile nature of glass, archivists today now digitize the images found on old glass plates. One method of digitalization is by using a lightbox and DSLR camera. By placing the glass plate on the surface of a lightbox, the image becomes clearly visible.
The negative is then photographed using a DSLR camera before being transferred to a computer, on which the negative image is inverted to a positive. From there, adjustments can be made via photo editing programs to bring out appropriate contrast, sharpness, and clarity as well as to restore areas of the photo that may have been damaged over time.
In the Saint Vincent College Archives are several dozen glass plate negatives that contain images of people, views of the Saint Vincent campus, and depictions of religious ceremonies. Most of these images have not been viewed for well over a hundred years. The work of digitizing these images helps illuminate the story contained within the old, delicate plates that for many decades laid dormant within a dusty box in the archives. These newly restored resources can now provide students, teachers, historians, and researchers with a view of late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century life here at Saint Vincent College.
The images found here were produced by the process of inverting the negative image found on glass plates and then improving the appearance of each photo via Photoshop procedures.
Negative Image
Enhanced Image